The Coventry University Guide to Referencing in Harvard Style: Referencing Software

Referencing Management Software

Such software allows you to store any potentially useful references in one convenient place and then generate in-text citations and reference lists/bibliographies in different referencing styles. The University subscribes to two products: RefWorks and EndNote​.

EndNote

• Store, easily organise and manage references from lots of different sources.
• Easily create lists of references (or bibliographies) in the correct format for use in your research.
• It is not compatible with the CU Guide to Referencing in Harvard Style.

Other tools

Other tools exist, but are not supported by Coventry University. Whichever one you choose, make sure that your final output follows Coventry University's version of Harvard style.

N.B. some software will offer outputs referred to generically as 'Harvard Style' (e.g. the MS Word in-built referencing tool). This is not the same as Coventry University's version of Harvard style. So, whichever software you choose to use, make sure you have followed the correct guidelines.

• You still need to understand the principles behind the CU Guide to Referencing in Harvard Style in order to accurately input information / check the accuracy of information that has been automatically input.
• Occasionally, errors can occur even with the most sophisticated software. It remains your responsibility to check the accuracy of your references against the guidelines in the CU Guide to Referencing in Harvard Style.

Overview of key elements:

• In-text citations
• List of References
• Relationship between elements

Techniques to integrate sources

• Quoting
• Paraphrasing
• Summarising
• Critiquing

How to reference secondary sources (sources within sources)