HARVARD REFERENCINCING TIPS-RESEARCH WRITERS

PART B: THE HARVARD REFERENCING SYSTEM

In every referencing system each reference must be:
• shown each time you use it in the text of your assignment (the in-text reference)
AND
• listed once in the reference list at the end of the assignment
The In-text reference
When you cite (identify) references in the text of your assignment include:
• the author’s or editor’s family name (or organisation responsible). Do not include given
names or initials
• the year of publication
• page numbers if appropriate and where available
In many cases, you just need to use the family name plus date. For example

Many factors are known to affect the successful outcomes for students at university (Johnston
2003).
OR
Johnston (2003) claims that there are many factors that are known to affect the success of
students at university.
In the examples above, the sentence summarises the main view expressed in an article written
by Johnston and does not come from one page only. Also note that the first example
highlights the information but the second one highlights the author of that information.
There are cases where you also need to include a page number in the brackets. For example:
McLaine (2002, p. 16) stated that productivity among 69 percent of workers was found to be affected by
work related stress.
You need to include the page number when you:
• use a direct quote from an original source
• summarise an idea from a particular page
• copy tables or figures, or provide particular details like a date

When there are two or three authors for a reference, you include all their family names in
your in-text reference. For example:
According to Cooper, Krever and Vann (2002) the use of this process leads to greater accuracy.
but if there are more than three authors for a reference you use ‘et al.’ (which is Latin for
‘and the others’) after the first family name listed on the reference. For example:
This has been suggested by Sandler et al. (2002) in their first Australian study.
‘Et al.’ is used for the first and every time you give an in-text reference for more than three
authors. However, all the authors, no matter how many there are, are listed in the Reference
List in the same order that they are listed in the original reference.