How to Cite in Harvard Style: Complete Referencing Guide

This guide covers how to cite sources in Harvard format, the author-date referencing style widely used across UK and Australian universities.

Harvard has no single official manual, so no page can honestly claim to give you "the" Harvard rules. Two things follow. First, the guide your department issues always wins. Second, this page names its sources: the reference formats and rules below come from the University of Leeds' Leeds Harvard referencing examples and Imperial College London's Harvard style guide, both free and both live as of this writing. Where they and other guides diverge, we say so.

The Official Source

The most widely recognised commercial reference is Cite Them Right by Richard Pears and Graham Shields. Open Library records a 2022 edition published by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (ISBN 9781350933446 / 9781350933453); it is usually cited as the 12th edition, but no publisher record we could open today states that number, so use whichever edition your library lists. It is available by subscription, so many readers will reach it through a university login; this page does not reproduce its text.

Many universities publish their own Harvard guides, some of them based on Cite Them Right. Always check your institution's requirements, because formatting details vary between universities.

Harvard style is not published or endorsed by Harvard University, and there is no Harvard University style manual behind the name. The origin of the label is the subject of a short note in the BMJ: Chernin, E. (1988) 'The "Harvard system": a mystery dispelled', BMJ, 297(6655), pp. 1062–1063. doi:10.1136/bmj.297.6655.1062. The article's full text is available only as a scanned page image, so we have not summarised its argument here — read it yourself if the history interests you.

Quick Overview

Harvard is an author-date system with two components:

• In-text citations — author surname and year in parentheses
• Reference list — full source details, alphabetized, at the end

In-Text Citations

Place the author's surname and year of publication in parentheses. Add page numbers for direct quotes.

One Author

Leeds' rule: "If you have already named the authors in the text, only the year needs to be included in brackets."

Two Authors

Use "and" between author names, in both the citation and the reference (Leeds Harvard):

Three or More Authors

Leeds Harvard: "if a source has three or more authors, the name of the first author should be given, followed by the phrase 'et al.'" — but all the authors go in the reference list.

Some other university guides set the threshold at four or more authors. Check yours; the important thing is consistency.

Direct Quotes

Include page numbers when quoting directly. Leeds uses p. for one page and pp. for a range. The pattern is:

We have left the quoted words as a placeholder on purpose: the only wording that belongs inside those quotation marks is wording you have read on that page of that source. Check it character by character — a misquoted sentence is as damaging as a missing citation, and easier for a marker to catch.

No Author

Guides differ here, and this is worth knowing before a marker flags it. Leeds Harvard says: "First check whether there is a corporate author. If there is no individual or corporate author, it is acceptable to use 'Anon' in your reference." You should also use "Anon" in the citation. Other Harvard guides put the work's title in the author position instead.

Most items that look authorless actually have a corporate author — a government department, an agency, a charity — so look for one first.

No Date

Leeds Harvard: if a book carries only a copyright year, use it preceded by "c" — c2008. If there is no publication date and no copyright date, use [no date].

Multiple Works, Same Author, Same Year

Add lowercase letters after the year, in both the citation and the reference list, and order them as they appear in your reference list:

We show this one as a template rather than naming an author, because it only makes sense against a real pair of that author's works in your own reference list.

Reference List Basics

Your reference list goes at the end of your work, titled "Reference List" or "References". Entries are alphabetized by author surname with a hanging indent. Imperial's guide adds that a reference list "includes books, journals, etc., listed in one list, not in separate lists according to source type."

Basic Structure

Leeds Harvard's format for a book:

Book

Leeds Harvard's own examples:

Three or more authors — all named in the reference, with "and" before the last:

Edited book:

Journal Article

Leeds Harvard requires [online], the DOI (or the URL where there is no DOI) and the access date for anything you read online — advice its guide notes was updated in September 2024:

Leeds also notes: "Include the full title of the journal in your reference. Abbreviated titles are not used in the Leeds Harvard style."

The Cite Them Right-style punctuation you will see in many other guides puts the article title in single quotation marks and the volume and issue in parentheses:

Both refer to real articles whose details we confirmed in Crossref. Pick the punctuation your own guide uses and apply it throughout.

Website

Leeds Harvard's format and examples:

A current example in the Cite Them Right punctuation style:

Leeds is explicit that the URL belongs in the reference, not the in-text citation: "Do not include the URL of the website in your citation."

Chapter in an Edited Book

Leeds Harvard's own example:

Two details worth noting. Leeds' published version of this example spells the editor's surname "Crandell" and the publisher "Johns Hopkins Press"; the catalogue record (Open Library) gives Keith A. Crandall and Johns Hopkins University Press, so we have used those. Always take names and publishers from the book, not from an example — including an example on a page like this one.

Key Harvard Conventions

Harvard varies by institution, but the common conventions in the UK guides above are:

• Sentence case for titles — capitalize the first word and proper nouns only
• Italics for standalone works — books, journals and reports
• Single quotation marks — many guides put article and chapter titles in single quotes; Leeds does not use quotation marks at all for them
• "and" not "&" — used between authors in citations and references alike
• "et al." from three authors in the citation, with all authors in the reference — some institutions use four; check your guide
• Edition noted — "2nd ed." or "5th ed." after the title, when it is not the first
• Online items — Leeds requires three things for anything read online: [online], the DOI or URL, and the date you accessed it

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Mixing guides. Pick one (preferably your university's) and stick with it. Half the "Harvard errors" markers see are two guides spliced together.
• Referencing the wrong version. Leeds: "You should reference the actual version of the item that you have read," because page numbers and other details differ between the print and online versions.
• Forgetting the access date for online items, where your guide requires one.
• Inconsistent "et al." usage. Three authors or four? Decide from your guide and apply it everywhere.
• Copying a reference from an example rather than from the source. Examples — including in official guides — contain typos in names and publishers.
• Missing place of publication where your guide requires it, as Leeds Harvard does.

Who Uses Harvard Style?

Harvard-style author-date referencing is common at UK and Australian universities across most disciplines, and in business and management programmes elsewhere. Because it is a family of local variants rather than a single style, "we use Harvard" always needs the follow-up question: whose Harvard?

If you are studying in the UK or Australia, Harvard is likely your default unless your course specifies otherwise.

Harvard vs. APA

Further Resources

• Leeds Harvard referencing examples — a free, comprehensive guide with an example for almost every source type.
• Imperial College London Harvard style — a short free guide, useful on reference lists versus bibliographies.
• Cite Them Right (2022, Bloomsbury) — subscription-based; check whether your library provides access.
• Your own university library guide — which overrides everything above.

Sources Checked

• University of Leeds Library. Leeds Harvard referencing examples (book, journal article, book chapter, website, and the "common issues" page on multiple authors, editors and missing details). https://library.leeds.ac.uk/referencing-examples/9/leeds-harvard
• Imperial College London. Harvard style. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/admin-services/library/learning-support/reference-management/harvard-style/
• Pears, R. and Shields, G. (2022) Cite them right. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc — year, publisher and ISBNs confirmed in Open Library; the edition number is not in that record.
• Crossref records for the articles used as examples: 10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400371 (Pajunen, JIBS 39(4), 652–669, 2008), 10.1177/1558689809358755 (Wheeldon, JMMR 4(2), 87–102, 2010), 10.1136/bmj.297.6655.1062 (Chernin, BMJ 297(6655), 1062–1063, 1988).
• Open Library records for The evolution of HIV (ed. Keith A. Crandall, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999) and Organic chemistry (Clayden, Greeves and Warren, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, 2012). The NHS mental health page was confirmed to resolve.