Harvard Referencing Basics: An Ultimate Citation Guide


Harvard Referencing Basics: An Ultimate Citation Guide

Every academic paper ends with a list of information sources used for its creation. In order to format it the right way, you need to follow citation guidelines. Are you writing a paper in Social Sciences or Humanities? Then, you must know what Harvard referencing is and how it differs from other international citation styles.

So, what is the Harvard referencing system? It is one of the most popular international citation styles used for academic papers. Its key peculiarity is that it uses the author-date formatting style. The knowledge about Harvard university referencing will make the process of preparing a reference list much faster and easier.

Harvard style referencing: General formatting rules

Check the general rules:

  • The citation should start with the surname of the author. Write his or her initials with space. Then, open the brackets and write the date of publication. There is one important thing to keep in mind. According to the style guidelines, the names and initials are given as they are without any changes and translations. For some, transliteration can be used.
  • Publications of one and the same author should be written in a certain order. List them by the date of publication.
  • You should write the title of a book, magazine, newspaper, etc. only in italics.
  • First, mention who published the book, and then, where it happened (city, country).
  • If you are going to use Internet resources for your paper, follow the basic guidelines. There are no separate instructions on how to format Harvard electronic links. There is only one thing for you to remember. You need to write “[Online], available at:” and copy the full address of the source. At the end, add the information on when you used the resource. It must look like this (“Accessed” in day/month/year format).

Harvard referencing styles for in-text citations

Every time you are going to borrow somebody's thoughts and include these ideas in your own paper, check how to do it right. Otherwise, it may be considered plagiarism. In order to avoid it, you should format in-text citations following the Harvard style guidelines. It is difficult to find a student's paper that wouldn't contain at least one quote. Including either a quote or some idea that isn't yours, make sure you know how it must look like according to the Harvard referencing.

Your in-text citation should include the name of the author (or authors, if there are two or more), and the date of publication (only year). Example: (Brown 2019). As you can see, there is no comma between the surname of the author and the year of publication. Also, such a variant is possible (Brown 2019, p.20) if you quote from the author. Check more examples at websites Harvard referencing.

Harvard referencing style: How to format a list of sources?

A reference list is a final page for any kind of academic work. Most students find it difficult to format the Reference List properly. By the way, pay attention to the capital letters. It will be the title for the last page of your work. Some students use the title “Bibliography” and “Reference List” interchangeably. In reality, there is one important difference in their meaning. The first term “Bibliography” means that you should include all the sources used in the process of the paper creation. What about the “Reference List”? It should contain only publications a paper writer has referenced.

Have a look at the format you should follow when creating your own reference list:

Surname, Initials (year of publication), title, publisher, place of publication (city, country), etc., exact links.

Punctuation should be as follows:

  • If the publication has 2 authors, you should write "and" omitting comma.
  • If there are more than 2 authors, put a comma to separate authors, except for the last name. Before the last name, you need just to write "and". Don’t add comma.

Standard Harvard referencing for a book: Surname, Name (Year), title in italics, publishing house, city, country.

Example: Roberts, K 2019, The basics of economics, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool.

Important: Remember that the list of information sources must be written on a separate page. When creating a list, write all the citations in alphabetical order.

Quotes in Harvard referencing systems

There are two main rules you need to know:

  1. The quote is under 25 words: In this case, you need to write a quote in inverted commas. Immediately after the quote, include an in-text citation following the Harvard referencing system. Check the example at the beginning of this guide.
  2. The quote is over 25 words: Including long quotes, you shouldn't use quotation marks. Just start a quote from a new paragraph and add the author's surname, year of publication, and the exact page in round brackets.

What is Harvard referencing generator and how it can help you?

You are lucky to be living in the Hi-Tech Era. Former generations of students couldn't even imagine that there would be the Harvard referencing website with the tools able to create citations. Have you created a list of reference in MLA, but then found out that the tutor assigned to make it in Harvard? Know nothing about the Harvard referencing system how to? Not a problem! You can use a referencing generator online.

There is much free software available online. It is able to change one international style into another automatically. It will take you several seconds to get the necessary result. Such tools have been designed to make the life of a student easier.

Entrust experts to edit your paper before you submit it

Of course, online tools are a great thing, which saves much time. But it is much better to entrust a professional editor to polish your assignment. If you have written an essay or some other type of academic paper and doubt that it is perfect, turn to professionals. Whether you need to perform an assignment from the very beginning or just to edit it, place an order and learn from experts on how to do Harvard referencing.