How to do Harvard Referencing

Harvard is one of the most common citation styles when writing an assignment for college. It can be used effectively in annotated bibliographies, literature review, essays, etc.

The Harvard Referencing Style is founded on some key basic rules. These rules cover three major areas that include: 1) source reference, 2) in-text citation, and 3) quotes.

Areas of Concern-How to do Harvard Referencing

Before providing Harvard referencing style examples for the above areas, it is important to review some areas which may cause confusion when referencing. These areas are as discussed below.

Citing more than 3 Authors

Note that the names of 1-3 authors should be provided in the reference list and in-text citations for Harvard referencing. However, only the name of one author should be provided where there are 4 and above authors.

Havard Style Referencing Example:

Work by 3 authors (James Jackson Miller, William Roberts and Judith Mary King).

In-text citation: Miller, Roberts and King (2019) posit that… or (Miller, Roberts & King 2019).

Work by 4 and above authors (James Jackson Miller, William Roberts, Judith Mary King and Thomas Richford).

In-text citation: Miller et al (2019) posit that… or (Miller et al. 2019).

Chapters by different Authors

In books or works written by different authors, the author of the particular chapter should be cited, and not the editor.

Works by the same Author and same Year

Citing two works written the same year by one author would require you to use a lower case letter to distinguish between the works. The letter usually appears after the date.

Harvard Style Referencing Example:

Although quite overlooked, data risk from employees could be more severe than that posed by hackers (Miller 2018a; Miller 2018b).

Citing Direct Quotations-How to do Harvard Referencing

Quotes from secondary sources should have single quotation marks and a page number.

Harvard Style Referencing Example:

Miller and Roberts (2019) advance that realization of effective data security in the healthcare industry requires an ‘elaborate and dynamic IT strategy’.

Citing long Quotations

Quotations longer than two sentences should appear as an indented paragraph.

Harvard Style Referencing Example:

As posited by Dickson (2019):

‘Profound happiness in human beings derives from the realization that desires are endless. Acquiring one thing only triggers the desire for another. Although people naturally want more, it is important to try and find happiness within their current existence” (p. 27).

or

An observation on the nature of true happiness notes that:

‘Profound happiness in human beings derives from the realization that desires are endless. Acquiring one thing only triggers the desire for another. Although people naturally want more, it is important to try and find happiness within their current existence”

(Dickson 2019 p. 27).

Citing Quotations with your Words Included

This entails cases where you might need to include your words within quotations to make the grammatically correct.

Harvard Style Referencing Example:

Dickson (2019) elaborates the nature of true happiness by observing that it requires:

‘us to deliberate ourselves from the vicious circle of desires which makes people interminably unsatisfied with what they have, relentless, and sometimes greedy… [to] enable us come into terms with the fact that true happiness does not originate from the external environment, but from within’ (p. 36).

How to do Harvard Referencing for Secondary Sources

This comes in when an author in a source cites another author without providing the primary source. In this case, both authors should be cited.

Harvard Style Referencing Example:

According to Pollack (2017) as cited by Miller (2018), data risk by employees is more severe than that posed by hackers.

Works without obvious Authors-How to do Harvard Referencing 

In works without particular authors, you should cite the provided ‘corporate’ author. This is usually the case with sources authored by organizations or agencies.

Harvard Style Referencing Example:

The number of homeless persons in the US in the last one decade has declined 2% (United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 2018).

Citing an Interview-How to do Harvard Referencing 

The surname of the interviewee should be the author’s name and quotes should have two quotations marks.

Citing Images, Tables and Diagrams-How to do Harvard Referencing

Images, tables and diagrams should be treated as direct quotes, and should therefore be indented.

Harvard Style Referencing Example:

Table illustrating the number of crimes per state (Miller & Roberts 2018, p. 41).

or

‘An image of the of the Nile river from the sky’ (Miller et al. 2018, p. 37).

Reference List-Harvard Referencing Bibliography 

Harvard reference list for respective sources should be as illustrated below.