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Harvard referencing style: In-text citation technique

Harvard is a style that uses the author/date in-text citation technique. This style is used in many universities, especially in the UK and Australasia.

In-text or parenthetical citation technique - also known as the author/date method

Each time you use a source of information in your text, you need to identify the source. In Harvard style, you do this by an in-text citation or parenthetical citation technique. It looks like this:

Example:

It can be seen that the trend for smaller families in the northern hemisphere developed in the latter half of the 20th Century (Philllips, 2003). However, there were some exceptions in southern Europe (UNICEF, 2009). Indeed, one study found that "Albania did not show such a trend at all" (Singh, Mathews and Pfeffer, 2010, p. 55). 

Analysis:

In this fictitious example, a source of information by one author, together with the year of publication (Phillips, 2003) has been used, followed by information in a website by an organization (UNICEF, 2009). Finally, a study by 3 authors has been used and here, a quote from the source is used, so a page number needs to be added. 

Each time you use a source of information, you need to cite in-text. 

The in-text citation in Harvard adopts the following order: 

open bracket or parenthesis sign

author's surname or family name (or organization's name or acronym)

comma

space

year of publication

close bracket or parenthesis sign

When quoting, following this order:

open bracket or parenthesis sign

author's surname or family name (or organization's name or acronym)

comma

space

year of publication

comma

p then a full stop or period

space

page number

close bracket or parenthesis sign

 

Some tips

A quote needs to be in double (not single) quotation marks, i.e. "quote"

Don't forget, an author can be an individual or an organization. 

You only put the author's last name, not first name, in the in-text citation.

If you reference two or more sources at the same time, you put them in the same brackets, e.g. (Smallbone, 1987; Jenkins and Rodriguez, 1999). The order is chronological, with the earliest publication cited first. You separate the two references by a semi-colon (;). 

 

In-text citation technique

This may also be known as the "author-date" style.