HARVARD METHOD

Information Services Academic Skills Know-how

Harvard Referencing Quick Guide

What is referencing?

Referencing is a system used in the academic community to indicate where ideas, theories, quotes, facts and any other evidence and information used to undertake an assignment, can be found.

Why do I need to reference my work?

 To avoid plagiarism, a form of academic theft.  Referencing your work correctly ensures that you give appropriate credit to the sources and

authors that you have used to complete your assignment.  Referencing the sources that you have used for your assignment demonstrates that you

have undertaken wide-ranging research in order to create your work.  Referencing your work enables the reader to consult for themselves the same materials that

you used.

What do I need to reference?

All the information that you have used in your assignment will need to be acknowledged. It is essential to make a note of all the details of the sources that you use for your assignment as you go along. Harvard examples in this guide are based on guidance in:

BRITISH STANDARDS INSTITUTE. (2010). BS ISO 690:2010. Information and documentation - Guidelines for bibliographic references and citations to information resources. Switzerland: ISO Copyright Office.

NEVILLE, C. (2010) The Complete Guide to Referencing and Avoiding Plagiarism. 2nd Ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

The basics

Harvard is known as the Author & Date system:

1. Citations in the text of your assignment should be made following the in-text guidelines given in the examples on the following pages.

2. A complete list of all the citations used in your text will need to be provided at the end of your assignment. This is called your reference list or bibliography and needs to be presented in alphabetical author/originator order.

Capitals:

Harvard is not prescriptive about capitalisation of authors’ names in your reference list. If you do wish to use capitals, then the family/surname of authors are only capitalised in this reference list and not in the body of your work. If you prefer not to use capitals in this list, that is fine, but you must be consistent in the style you decide to use.

Italics & underlining:

Only the title of the source of information is italicised or underlined, but you should choose only one method throughout your assignment and stick to it! Do not use both italics and underlining.

Punctuation:

Harvard has no one true style of punctuation so the generally accepted rule (BS ISO 690:2010) is to be consistent with your style of punctuation throughout the whole of your assignment.

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