The Harvard Referencing System: A Guide to Referencing Sources

The Harvard System/Harvard Style is Coventry University’s recommended format for documenting all the sources you use in your academic writing.

The golden rule when documenting sources is to be transparent. Ask yourself whether you could find the passage / image / publication / website address with the information you have provided

The Centre for Academic Writing provides an online booklet, of which this is an extract. For the latest version, visit www.coventry.ac.uk/caw and follow the ‘Harvard Style’ links.

The Harvard Style is a simple system used internationally by scholars and researchers. This style has two elements:

In-text citations
In the body of your paper, give the surname of the author and the date of publication. Also give the page number if you quote a passage directly or if you paraphrase (put the idea into your own words).

List of References
At the end of your paper, give full publication or internet information so that a reader can easily locate your sources

In-text Citations

You must cite every source you refer to in the main body of your writing. This is known as giving in-text citations.

Your in-text citations must state the author or website producer and the date of publication, plus the page number if you quote or paraphrase.

If you summarise what an author has argued in an entire book or article you do not need to give the page numbers.

1. If you have mentioned the author’s name in your writing, give the date and page number in brackets.
For example: Shah maintains that in recent years Coventry has become Britain’s most important industrial city (2005:66).

2. If a source has multiple authors, give all their names in the order stated in the source, up to three authors. (No page number is given in this case because the argument is made