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• Harvard Style Bibliography | Format & Examples

Harvard Style Bibliography | Format & Examples

Published on 1 May 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on 7 November 2022.

In Harvard style , the bibliography or reference list provides full references for the sources you used in your writing.

• A reference list consists of entries corresponding to your in-text citations .
• A bibliography sometimes also lists sources that you consulted for background research, but did not cite in your text.

The two terms are sometimes used interchangeably. If in doubt about which to include, check with your instructor or department.

The information you include in a reference varies depending on the type of source, but it usually includes the author, date, and title of the work, followed by details of where it was published. You can automatically generate accurate references using our free reference generator:

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Table of contents

Formatting a harvard style bibliography, harvard reference examples, referencing sources with multiple authors, referencing sources with missing information, frequently asked questions about harvard bibliographies.

Sources are alphabetised by author last name. The heading ‘Reference list’ or ‘Bibliography’ appears at the top.

Each new source appears on a new line, and when an entry for a single source extends onto a second line, a hanging indent is used:

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Reference list or bibliography entries always start with the author’s last name and initial, the publication date and the title of the source. The other information required varies depending on the source type. Formats and examples for the most common source types are given below.

• Entire book
• Book chapter
• Translated book
• Edition of a book

Journal articles

• Print journal
• Online-only journal with DOI
• Online-only journal without DOI
• General web page
• Online article or blog
• Social media post

Newspapers and magazines

• Newspaper article
• Magazine article

When a source has up to three authors, list all of them in the order their names appear on the source. If there are four or more, give only the first name followed by ‘ et al. ’:

Sometimes a source won’t list all the information you need for your reference. Here’s what to do when you don’t know the publication date or author of a source.

Some online sources, as well as historical documents, may lack a clear publication date. In these cases, you can replace the date in the reference list entry with the words ‘no date’. With online sources, you still include an access date at the end:

When a source doesn’t list an author, you can often list a corporate source as an author instead, as with ‘Scribbr’ in the above example. When that’s not possible, begin the entry with the title instead of the author:

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Though the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there is a difference in meaning:

• A reference list only includes sources cited in the text – every entry corresponds to an in-text citation .
• A bibliography also includes other sources which were consulted during the research but not cited.

In Harvard referencing, up to three author names are included in an in-text citation or reference list entry. When there are four or more authors, include only the first, followed by ‘ et al. ’

In Harvard style referencing , to distinguish between two sources by the same author that were published in the same year, you add a different letter after the year for each source:

• (Smith, 2019a)
• (Smith, 2019b)

Add ‘a’ to the first one you cite, ‘b’ to the second, and so on. Do the same in your bibliography or reference list .

To create a hanging indent for your bibliography or reference list :

• Highlight all the entries
• Click on the arrow in the bottom-right corner of the ‘Paragraph’ tab in the top menu.
• In the pop-up window, under ‘Special’ in the ‘Indentation’ section, use the drop-down menu to select ‘Hanging’.
• Then close the window with ‘OK’.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

Caulfield, J. (2022, November 07). Harvard Style Bibliography | Format & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 1 April 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/referencing/harvard-bibliography/

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Home / Guides / Citation Guides / Harvard Referencing

Harvard Referencing Style Guide

What is referencing.

Whenever you write, the writings of others will influence your work. Although it is difficult to gauge all the influences, many of your ideas can be traced back to the resources and materials that you have consulted. These might be books, images , articles, reports, or, of course, the internet. These sources help enrich your writing by giving you ideas to build on. It is important always to give credit to the original thinkers and authors.

Referencing is the method that gives credit to the sources you have used in your work. You should provide references whenever you use a direct quote, paraphrase someone else’s idea, or borrow conceptual words and phrases.

Referencing not only allows credit to be given where credit is due, but it also helps track the various influences on any original piece of writing. If you do not cite the sources of the ideas that you have used in your work, you run the risk of plagiarism. Plagiarism is not only unethical but is also an actual crime in some of its forms. But how do you reference?

Elements of Harvard referencing style

Harvard referencing is a popular method of adding citations to your work. Its appeal lies in the simplicity of the basic system it uses – the author-date structure. Along with this, in Harvard style, you only need to mention the source in two locations: in the in-text reference(s) and in the reference list. Both elements together incorporate all the necessary details about a source in the most efficient way.

So, while reading something, when you come across a citation that looks something like this:

Furley (1999) or (Furley, 1999)

it is an in-text reference that follows the author-date system.

This is an entry in the reference list for the same in-text reference.

Furley, D. (1999) Routledge history of philosophy volume II: from Aristotle to Augustine . 1st edn. London: Routledge.

These Harvard referencing examples provide details about the citation formats for different types of sources.

In-text reference/citation

As is obvious from the name, Harvard in-text citations are references included within the text, that is, inside the sentences that make up its content. These can either be direct statements or quotes, or a paraphrasing of the original work. This type of reference helps in precisely pointing out which portions of the text are borrowed from or influenced by which particular source.

In his work, Furley (1999) wrote about… OR …from Aristotle’s works (Furley, 1999).

As you can see, in-text references provide the author’s surname and the year of publication. The year is provided because sometimes two or more works by the same author are referenced. In this case, the year helps in distinguishing between these works. Note that if you are citing a direct quotation, the in-text citation should also include the page number of that quote, for example (Furley, 1999, p. 2).

However, in-text citations don’t provide other important details about these resources. Rather, they are short enough that you don’t get interrupted while reading the text. Other details are presented in the reference list that you include at the end of your paper.

Reference list

A reference list presents the details of all the resources cited throughout the text in the form of a list at the end of your paper. It includes detailed entries about each of the referenced sources.

Citation structure:

Surname, Initial. (Publication year) Name of the document . Place of publication: Publisher.

Every in-text citation corresponds to an entry in the reference list. So, the reference list entry for the in-text citations discussed above would be:

Einstein, M. (2004) Media diversity: economics, ownership, and the FCC. New Jersey: Routledge.

This entry can also include other details like page numbers, editor’s name, edition, URL, access date, etc., depending upon the type of resource. A reference list allows you to provide all the necessary information without crowding your paper. With this list, you can keep track of how many materials you have consulted and even see if you need to include any more or any other kind of references in your text.

The difference between a bibliography and the Harvard referencing system

Typically, you’ll refer to multiple sources and materials for writing a text, and just using a bibliography can be confusing. You can use the Harvard referencing system to point out the exact location of all your references.

By marking the in-text reference, you can easily locate which idea or quote corresponds to which author. This makes your work easy to read and understand. This way, you and your reader can easily trace the specific portions of the work back to the original texts.

You can also show how much of your text uses source material (whether directly or indirectly) and how much of it is your own ideas and thoughts.

Format for Harvard Referencing

Typically, a paper that uses Harvard referencing has the following format:

• 2.5 cm OR 1-inch margins on all sides
• Recommended fonts: Arial 12 pt or Times New Roman, with double-spacing
• Title is in the center of the page just above the text
• Left-aligned text, with the first sentence of every paragraph indented by 0.5 inch
• Last name is at the top-right corner of the header, followed by page number
• Title page is centre-aligned
• Subheadings are in sentence case and left-aligned

Key takeaways

• Referencing is a way of crediting the various resources consulted while writing a text. Harvard referencing is a system that allows you to include information about the source materials. It is based on the author-date system.
• It includes references: 1) as in-text citations and 2) in a reference list (which is different from a bibliography).
• In-text citations: (Author Surname, Year Published).
• Reference list entry: Author Surname, Initial. (Year Published) Title . Place of Publication: Name of Publisher.

For more help creating citations in Harvard style, try the EasyBib Harvard referencing generator !

Published October 25, 2020.

Harvard Formatting Guide

Harvard Formatting

• et al Usage
• Direct Quotes
• In-text Citations
• Multiple Authors
• Page Numbers
• Writing an Outline
• View Harvard Guide

Reference Examples

• View all Harvard Examples

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Example essay extract with citations and references list: Home

Example essay extract with citations and references list.

Below is an example essay, complete with citations and references.

Please remember this is a fictional essay purely designed to demonstrate how and when to reference. 

Embedding experiences and voices in research can “challenge [the] studied ignorance” around race (Arday and Mirza, 2018, p.v) and the academy’s role as gatekeeper of what is considered “relevant knowledge” (Lillis, 2003). Academic conventions around skills such as writing can be excluding, forming “constructions of difference […] that deepen misrecognitions and inequalities” (Burke, 2018, p.366). Lillis (2003) and Arday et al. (2021) both use narrative to listen to the ways in which black students’ experiences are ignored and the marginalising effect of a refusal to validate multiple ways of knowing.

References:

Arday, J., Belluigi, D. Z. and Thomas, D. (2021) Attempting to break the chain: reimaging inclusive pedagogy and decolonising the curriculum within the academy.  Educational Philosophy and Theory .  53 (3), pp.298-313.

Arday, J. and Mirza, H. S. (eds.) (2018) Dismantling race in higher education:  racism, whiteness and decolonising the academy . London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Burke, P. J. (2018) Trans/forming pedagogical spaces: race, belonging and recognition in higher education. In: Arday, J. and Mirza, H. S. (eds.) Dismantling race in higher education: racism, whiteness and decolonising the academy . London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.365-382.

Lillis, T. (2003) Student writing as ‘academic literacies’: drawing on Bakhtin to move from critique to design. Language and Education. 17 (5), pp.192-207.

• Last Updated: Sep 22, 2023 12:51 PM
• URL: https://libguides.northampton.ac.uk/harvard/exampleessay