How To Write And Use Harvard Referencing

Here is where you will find all you need to know about Harvard Referencing

Harvard Referencing - The most commonly used referencing system in the social sciences and education is the Harvard system which originates from the American university. This referencing system uses the author and the date of the work in the main body of the text, and then uses a reference list at the end of the assignment which contains the references cited in alphabetical order by author; this contains full details of the journal or book cited. The purpose of incorporating the author and date into the main body of the text is to make it easy to locate works in the reference list.

The Harvard style of reference can be written in two ways. The first method is to cite the author as a part of the sentence (with only the year and page numbers in brackets) such as; Jones (2002:101) argues ….. Alternatively, the author, date and page number can all be placed in brackets at the end of the sentence (with the full-stop after the bracket).

The page number where the specific information was located should be included except for when a summary of an entire piece of work is paraphrased. To illustrate, fictitious author Jayne Phillips might have written a historical book in 2000 that looks at generational changes. The gist of this book could be summarised and correctly referenced in the following way:

Phillips (2000) suggests that generational change is inevitable and continuous.

In instances whereby direct quotations are being used no more than two sentences can be incorporated into the main text and marked off with quotation marks. If a longer passage is quoted it must be indented from the left and right margins of the text and placed in a separate paragraph. For direct quotations then, authors would be referenced in this way:

Cormack (1994: 32) states that ‘when writing for a professional readership, writers invariably make reference to already published works’.

When there are two authors for a work they should both be noted in the text:

White and Black (1966:45) in their recent research paper found ……

When more than one author is used only the first author should be mentioned followed by ‘et al’ (meaning ‘and others’).

If the author cannot be identified use ‘Anonymous’ or ‘Anon’ in place of the author name and the title of the work and date of publication, followed by the page number. The title should be written in italics. It is important to note however, that this practice should only be employed when every attempt has been made to locate the name of the author. The abbreviation n.d should be used to show when there is no date available.

If it is not possible to consult the primary source but have read about it in a work by another author then it must be acknowledged as such:

(James 1966 cited in Smith 1986).

All references used in the main body of the assignment need to be included in the reference list. This is arranged in alphabetical order by author surname. Books, journals, newspapers, audiotapes and other media are all included in the same list.

Books are listed by author, initials, year, title, place of publication, publisher:

Lave, J (1988) Cognition in Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The title of the book can either be placed in italics or underlined but it is important to be consistent with the chosen style for all references. When books have more than one author they should be listed in the order that they appear on the book; when they have more than three then the abbreviation et. al. (meaning and others) can be used. If an author has published more than one article in a year then each one should be marked a,b,c etc. after the date, such as (Jones 1999a).

Books which are edited should be listed by author, initials, year, edition (only include this if not the first edition), place of publication, publisher:

Keene, E. ed., 1988. Natural language. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.

Journals are listed by author, date, title of article, title of journal, part number, volume number and page numbers (beginning of article to end of article):

Somekh, B and Davies, R (1991) ‘Towards a pedagogy for information technology’, The Curriculum Journal, 2, 2 153-70.

The title of the article is placed in inverted commas. The journal is underlined or italicised because someone searching for the article in a library will need to find the journal first. The volume number can be either be in bold or placed in brackets but again it is important to be consistent with whichever style is chosen.

To quote from a chapter in an edited book, the author of the chapter and the date of the book should be included in the main text. In the reference list the chapter author and the date of the chapter should be quoted first, followed by the title of chapter (in inverted commas), book editor, title of book (in italics or underlined), place of publication and chapter or page reference;

Smith, J. (1975) ‘A source of information’ in W.Jones, ed. One hundred and one ways to find information about health, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ch.2.

It is important to note that when referencing a chapter in a book, the name of the editor is written with the initial first, followed by the surname. When utilising internet sources web pages must include the full address of the page and the title should be written in italics or underlined. The date of access should be included at the end of the reference because web pages are constantly updated and modified:

Pearson, M. (1999) Online study skills guide, http:www.hud.ac.uk/schools/skills/referen.htm, Date accessed 16/9/99.

If the date of a web page is inaccessible then it should be marked as “date unknown”. If a named author of an electronic source cannot be found then the organisation should be used in place of the author (e.g. BBC) or it should be marked as “author unknown”.

For newspaper articles found on line the referencing order should be author or corporate author, year, title or document or page (written in italics or underlined), and name of newspaper (type of medium). The web site address should be included as well as date of access:

Chittenden, M. Rogers, L. and Smith, D (2003). Focus: Targetitis ails NHS. Times Online, (internet).
Available at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0 (accessed 17 March 2005).

To reference material on a CD-ROM this format should be used:

Lewis, R (1997) A Guide to Icelandic Literature, CD-ROM, London: Placebo Publishers.

Where a bibliography is included, the Harvard style should also be used. The bibliography lists relevant items that have been used in the preparation of the assignment but not cited in the main text.

In conclusion, this section has looked at the Harvard referencing style. The main points to remember are that quotes and paraphrased arguments should always be credited to the appropriate author in the main body of the text with the author either being cited as part of the sentence with the date in brackets or with author and date being cited in brackets at the end of the sentence. Using a combination of both styles adds variation to an assignment and can assist readability. In the referencing list at the end of each assignment, books should be written as author, date, title (written in italics or underlined), place of publication, followed by the name of publisher. The Harvard referencing system is widely accepted in academic publications and is a fairly straightforward style to learn although it is important to note that different institutions use variants of the basic system. For example, some guidelines proffer the use of ‘p’ (page) or ‘pp’ (pages) to indicate page numbers while others recommend using a colon to separate the date and page number in the main body of the text (for example 2002:86). However, the most important factors to consider are an adherence to the core principles and ‘consistency’ in ones chosen approach.

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