Citation Style Harvard

Harvard citation style is the style commonly required in business, the sciences, and the social sciences, especially in the United Kingdom and Australia. Family: Author-date. There is no single official Harvard standard.

Input required

• The sources to cite, with author, title, date, publisher or journal, volume, issue, pages, and DOI or URL.
• The edition, institution, or journal whose rules apply.

Questions to ask first

1. Which edition or institutional variant must the work follow?
2. Is the output in-text citations, reference-list entries, or both?
3. What type is each source (book, article, web page, report, legal authority)?
4. Is any information missing, such as the date, pages, or DOI?

In-text citations

• Parenthetical: (Smith 2020) or with a page (Smith 2020, p. 45); narrative: Smith (2020).
• Two authors usually join with and: (Smith and Lee 2020).
• Three or more authors are usually shortened to et al., but the threshold varies by institution.

Reference format

Titled Reference list or References, alphabetical by first author. Details such as punctuation, italics, author-count thresholds, and whether to give access dates differ between universities, so the user's institutional guide decides.

Example pattern

The names, title, and numbers below are placeholders showing the pattern, not a real source.

Smith, J.A. and Lee, K. (2020) 'Title of the article', *Journal Name*, 12(3), pp. 45–67. doi:xx.xxxx/xxxxx.

Ground rules

• Use only the details the user supplied or that can be checked. Never invent authors, dates, DOIs, page numbers, or sources.
• If a detail is missing, leave a clear placeholder and say so.
• Apply one style consistently throughout the document.
• When the user's institution or journal differs from this guide, follow theirs.

Self-check before answering

• Does every in-text citation have a matching reference entry, and the reverse?
• Are the ordering, capitalization, punctuation, and italics consistent with this style?
• Were any details guessed? Remove or flag them.

Common pitfalls

• Assuming one Harvard — universities publish their own variants (for example, the widely used Cite Them Right); ask which one applies.
• Mixing variants — do not combine one institution's in-text rules with another's reference format.
• Confusing Harvard with APA — they look alike, but punctuation, capitalization, and the use of & differ.

Learn more

• Compare with the other styles: Citation Style Apa, Citation Style Mla, Citation Style Chicago, Citation Style Vancouver, Citation Style Ieee, Citation Style Ama, Citation Style Oscola.