The Coventry University Guide to Referencing in Harvard Style: Key elements

In-text citations

The key principle is to acknowledge a source in the main body of your writing by providing the author’s surname and the year of publication.

Add the page number/s (if available) whenever you do not refer to the source as a whole, but rather to information that can be retrieved on a single page or a specific number of pages.

Note: ​If you need to acknowledge a source that you accessed indirectly (e.g. a text another author has quoted), take a look at how to reference secondary sources.

Note:

• You have two options to apply this principle in your writing: integral (i.e. integrated) or non-integral (i.e. not integrated) in-text citations.
•  You may vary the practice or choose the option that best fits your purpose.

Example 1 (integral in-text citations)

Components

If you mention the author’s name in your own writing:

• Year in brackets.
• Page number(s), if you refer to information that can be retrieved from a specific page or page range.

Example 2 (non-integral in-text citations)

List of References

Enter the source in the List of References at the end of your document by providing all the publication or internet details in the appropriate format (see appropriate guidance for your source).

• The List of References is organised alphabetically according to the surname of the author or corporate author.
• Every line after the first should be indented so that the author stands out. If you are using Microsoft Word, on the 'Paragraph' menu, go to 'Indentation' and select 'Special'->'Hanging'.
• There is a line of space between entries and the text is double-spaced.
• The List of References should be placed on a separate page at the end of your document, prior to Appendices.

Note: ​If you need to provide an entry for a source that you accessed indirectly (e.g. a text another author has quoted), take a look at how to reference secondary sources.

The format of your List of References entry depends on the type of source you have used.

Find an example of your source type using the green tabs at the top of this page.

The relationship between in-text citations and the List of References

For each in-text citation, provide an appropriate entry in the List of References:

• Only sources that have at least one in-text citation should be included in the List of References.
• A source should only appear once in the List of References even if there are many in-text citations for that source in your paper.

Example

Fig. 1 In-text citations and a List of References in a sample paper (Deane 2006)