The author-date, or Harvard, style of referencing is widely accepted in academic publications, especially in the physical, natural and social sciences. Harvard is the name by which the author-date citation style is commonly known in the UK, Ireland and Australia. It is similar to the Chicago or Turabian styles.
There is no authoritative source for the Harvard citation style, and the exact formatting and punctuation may vary by both country and individual institution. Consult the Harvard guidelines issued by your department if you are in doubt.
The examples on these pages are based on Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers , and represented in EndNote as Harvard Canterbury.
The Harvard style uses in-text citations not footnotes.
Insert the citation at the appropriate place within the text of your assignment. Include page numbers. If using EndNote, page numbers need to be inserted by editing the citation after the bibliography is formatted.
When citing references within the text of an assignment, use only the name of the author, followed by the year of publication
e.g. Smith (1997, p.37) claimed that…
For sources that you have not actually seen but which are referred to in another work, cite both the original source and the secondary source where you read it, e.g.
Smith (1993, quoted in Gibbs 1998, p.78) in his book ‘Analysing patterns of work' gives an excellent précis of this contentious subject.
Your essay should conclude with a full bibliography of works consulted. The Harvard style requires the second and subsequent lines of the reference to be indented, to highlight the alphabetical order.
Books with one author
Gupta, S 2003, Re-reading Harry Potter. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
Books with 2 to 6 authors
Rowling, JK & GrandPré, M 2000, Harry Potter and the goblet of fire, 1st American edn, Arthur A. Levine Books, New York.
Books with more than 6 authors
Leeder, SR, Dobson, AJ, Gibbers, RW, Patel, NK, Mathews, PS, Williams, DW & Mariot, DL 1996, The Australian film industry, Dominion Press, Adelaide.
A common mistake is to confuse the name of the contributor to a book of collected writings with that of the editor. It is important to include the editor of the book in the bibliography as this is the information that would be needed to trace the source. In Harvard style titles of book chapters are enclosed in quotation marks.
Alton, AH 2003, 'Generic fusion and the mosaic of Harry Potter', in EE Heilman (ed.), Harry Potter's world: multidisciplinary critical perspectives, Routledge, New York, pp. 141-162.
The title of the article should be enclosed in quotation marks. The title of the journal should be italicized.
Housel, R 2005, 'Harry Potter and philosophy: If Aristotle ran Hogwarts', Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 775 - 776.
Bryce, A 2005, 'UK media frozen out for new Potter', Guardian Unlimited, 6 June, p. 44.
Kimber, R 2006, Richard Kimber's political science resources. Retrieved 7 September, 2006, from http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/polisci.html
These are links to web sites that contain information on citations and referencing. As mentioned above, there are variations within the Harvard referencing system. The formatting details shown on these sites may differ slightly from the guidelines given on this page.
University of Melbourne Harvard Style
University of Auckland Harvard Referencing Style
Presents an alternative form of Harvard style which does not use quotation marks.
The University of Western Australia
has a list of model examples, including electronic books.