Harvard is a standard style at UK universities, and the one with the least agreement about its details. Two students at two universities can both be told to "use Harvard" and be marked against different rules for commas, brackets and the word "edition".
The core is the same everywhere: the author and the year in your sentence, and a full reference in an alphabetical list at the end. The details come from whichever guide your university follows.
The examples here follow the 13th edition of Cite Them Right, the guide many UK universities have adopted. That book and its website are sold by subscription, so every rule below is taken from a named university library guide that follows the 13th edition, and each of those guides is linked at the end. Where your own university's guide differs, your university's guide wins. EdCitation, which publishes this guide, builds Harvard references in Cite a source from the publisher's record, following the 12th edition; the details where that differs from the 13th are set out near the end.
What is Harvard referencing?
Harvard referencing is a family of author-date styles, not one style with one manual. Monash University (n.d.) calls Harvard "a generic term for author-date systems": it comes in many versions, has no central manual, and has nothing to do with Harvard University.
In practice, a university picks or writes a version and publishes it:
- Many UK universities follow Cite Them Right by Richard Pears and Graham Shields, published by Bloomsbury as a book and as a subscription website. Pears and Shields (2025) brought out the 13th edition, which added guidance on citing AI-generated material.
- Some UK universities publish a Harvard of their own that is not Cite Them Right at all. Leeds Harvard is the best-known example, and it differs on the first line of every reference.
- Australian universities usually publish their own Harvard guide, often based on the author-date system in the Australian Government Style Manual.
Harvard is also being quietly retired in places. Monash University (n.d.) has announced that it will stop supporting Harvard from January 2027, recommending APA 7, Chicago 18 or MLA 9 in its place. That is one library's decision, not a trend anyone has measured, but it is worth knowing if you are choosing a style for a long project.
Which Harvard is your university's?
- Find the guide. Search your library's site for "referencing" rather than trusting a general web result. The first page a search engine shows is often another university's.
- Check which version it follows. A guide either says "Cite Them Right Harvard" or gives its own name, such as Leeds Harvard.
- Check the edition. A Cite Them Right guide written for the 11th edition still shows a place of publication in book references. The 13th does not.
- Check your department. Law, nursing and engineering modules often override the university guide with a style of their own. The assignment brief is where that is said, and EdCitation's Check your paper reads a brief into a checklist, the required style included.
How do I write a Harvard in-text citation?
Put the author's surname and the year of publication in round brackets at the point where you use the source, or make the author part of your sentence and bracket only the year. In Cite Them Right, a comma separates the name and the year.
| Source has | In brackets | In your sentence |
|---|---|---|
| One author | (Cottrell, 2024) | Cottrell (2024) argues that… |
| Two authors | (Rybaczewska and Sparks, 2022) | Rybaczewska and Sparks (2022) found… |
| Three authors | (Meggitt, Bruce and Manning-Morton, 2016) | Meggitt, Bruce and Manning-Morton (2016) describe… |
| Four or more authors | (Valentine et al., 2010) | Valentine et al. (2010) report… |
| No date | (Race, no date) | Race (no date) suggests… |
Harvard uses the word "and" between authors, never an ampersand. Several sources in one set of brackets are separated by semicolons: (Cottrell, 2024; Edwards, 2020). Two works by the same author in the same year get letters, 2024a and 2024b, in the text and in the list.
Note the phrase for an undated source. Cite Them Right Harvard writes "no date" in full, where APA writes "n.d.". The University of Westminster (n.d.), a 13th-edition guide, shows it in its own example: Race, P. (no date).
When do I use et al. in Harvard referencing?
In Cite Them Right Harvard, use et al. in the text when a source has four or more authors: give the first author's surname, then et al., then the year. A source with two or three authors has every surname written out in each citation. Leeds Harvard cuts at three, not four, so the same paper with three authors is "Jones et al. (2017)" at Leeds and "Jones, Patel and Ahmed (2017)" under Cite Them Right.
What the guides disagree about in the reference list
The reference list is where guides following the same book part company, and the disagreement is easy to demonstrate:
- Newcastle University (n.d.) tells students to record all the authors in the reference list, and to use et al. only when there are ten or more.
- Manchester Metropolitan University (n.d.) recommends the opposite for four or more authors: give the lead author followed by et al. in the list too, so that it matches the citation. It adds that EndNote has to be reconfigured to do this, because the software spells out every name by default.
- The Open University (n.d.) also uses et al. for four or more authors in both the citation and the reference.
None of these is wrong. They are three readings of the same book, and the one that counts is your own university's. Manchester Metropolitan's guide says as much, advising students to check with their tutor. Cite Them Right sets et al. in italics, with a full stop after "al." only; some university guides set it in ordinary type. For the rule in other styles, see When to use et al..
Do I need page numbers in Harvard citations?
Yes, for a direct quotation, and also when you paraphrase or point to a specific page, figure or passage. Add the page after the year: (Cottrell, 2024, p. 45) for one page and (Cottrell, 2024, pp. 45–46) for a range.
When you refer to a whole work or its general argument, the author and year are enough. For a web page with no page numbers, guides based on the 13th edition suggest a paragraph number, written as "para. 4", where the reader would need one to find the passage. Spacing differs again: Cite Them Right guides print "p. 45" with a space, and the University of Leeds (n.d.-b) prints "p.24" without one. Paraphrase, quote or summarise covers whether to quote at all.
How do I write a Harvard reference list?
List every source you cited, once, in alphabetical order by the first author's surname, under the heading "Reference list" or "References". The entries are not numbered. These are the four patterns used most.
| Source | Pattern | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Book | Surname, Initial. (Year) Title. Edition. Publisher. | Cottrell, S. (2024) The study skills handbook. 6th edn. Bloomsbury Academic. |
| Chapter in an edited book | Surname, Initial. (Year) 'Title of chapter', in Initial. Surname (ed.) Title of book. Publisher, pp. page range. | Edwards, E. (2020) 'The thingness of photographs', in S. Bull (ed.) A companion to photography. Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 97–112. |
| Journal article | Surname, Initial. (Year) 'Title of article', Title of Journal, volume(issue), pp. page range. Available at: DOI | Rybaczewska, M. and Sparks, L. (2022) 'Ageing consumers and e-commerce activities', Ageing and Society, 42(8), pp. 1879–1898. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X20001932 |
| Web page | Author (Year) Title of page. Available at: URL (Accessed: date). | World Health Organization (2024) The top 10 causes of death. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death (Accessed: 22 September 2026). |
Points that are easy to miss
- The year is in round brackets, with no full stop before or after it.
- Titles are in sentence case. Only the first word and proper nouns take a capital in the title of a book, chapter, article or web page. The name of a journal keeps its capitals. A reference built from a record keeps the title's capitals as the publisher deposited them, so a title held in title case has to be lowered by hand.
- Italics go on the whole work: the book, the journal, the web page. The chapter or article inside it goes in single quotation marks.
- The edition is given only from the second edition on, written as "6th edn".
- The place of publication is gone. The 13th edition dropped it, so a book reference ends with the publisher. Guides based on earlier editions still show "Place: Publisher", and so does Leeds Harvard.
- A DOI needs no access date. The University of Westminster (n.d.) is explicit that a reference with a DOI takes no accessed date. A web address that is not a DOI does need one, written as "(Accessed: 22 September 2026)".
- Every citation needs an entry, and every entry a citation. Upload the finished paper to EdCitation's free Verify references and each (Cottrell, 2024) is paired with its entry, while each entry is looked up and returned as verified, "check this" or not found. A reference it had no way to check is marked that way, not as not found.
How do Harvard guides differ between universities?
Harvard guides differ in punctuation, ordering and small wording, not in the facts a reference must contain. The clearest way to see it is to put one book in two guides that are both called Harvard.
Cite Them Right Harvard, as the Open University and Westminster set it out
Finch, E. and Fafinski, S. (2015) Legal skills. 5th edn. Oxford University Press.
Leeds Harvard, from the University of Leeds' own examples
Finch, E. and Fafinski, S. 2015. Legal skills. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Same book, same authors, same year, four differences in one line. These are the ones that show up most often across current university guides.
| Detail | Cite Them Right 13th edition | Leeds Harvard | Also seen elsewhere |
|---|---|---|---|
| The year | (2015), in brackets after the author | 2015, after a full stop, no brackets | Unbracketed in guides based on the Australian Government Style Manual |
| Place of publication | Left out | Included: Oxford: Oxford University Press | Included in guides based on older Cite Them Right editions |
| Edition | 5th edn | 5th ed. | 5th edition, written out |
| Et al. from | Four authors | Three authors | Ten authors in Newcastle's reading for the list |
| Page number | p. 45 | p.24 | pp. 45-46 with a hyphen |
| Online source | Available at: URL (Accessed: date) | [online]. URL [Accessed date] | Bare URL with no label |
| Author's initials | Cottrell, S. | Adams, A.D. | Cottrell S, in Australian guides |
None of these is a mistake in itself. The mistake is mixing them, or following a general web guide when your department has published its own. For how Harvard sits beside the other main styles, see APA vs MLA vs Chicago.
How do I build a Harvard reference without retyping it?
Start from the publisher's record of the source, so that the authors, year, volume, pages and DOI are the real ones, and let the style rules arrange them.
EdCitation's Cite a source is the best tool for that, because it never writes a reference: it looks the work up. It takes a DOI, an ISBN, a PubMed ID or a title, finds the record, sets the reference in Harvard (Cite Them Right) or five other styles, and screens the source for retraction, so a withdrawn paper is flagged before it reaches your list. No chatbot can do that; it produces references from patterns, with no record behind them. It is also the right split of labour for Harvard: as the comparison above shows, guides disagree about punctuation, never about the facts a reference must contain, and the facts are what a record holds. The Harvard rules it follows are on the Harvard style page.
One reference at a time is free, with no account. A free account keeps a reference list in the dashboard, where each entry can be tagged or given its own style, and the list copies with its italics or downloads as Word, BibTeX or RIS. The Pro plan ($8 a month) checks a whole uploaded paper's references with References from a file, and Max ($24 a month) brings Theoretics QA and the Library (pricing).
What to change for a 13th-edition guide
EdCitation follows the 12th edition of Cite Them Right, and the 13th changed two details it prints. Titles are a third point to watch under any edition.
| Element | What EdCitation prints | What to change by hand |
|---|---|---|
| Book | The place of publication, which the 12th edition keeps | Under a 13th-edition guide, delete the place so the reference ends with the publisher |
| Journal article with an article number and no pages | article number 14045 | Under the 13th edition, article 14045 |
| Title of a book, chapter, article or page | The capitals the publisher's record gives | Lower a title deposited in title case to sentence case |
If your university's Harvard differs in the other ways listed above, adjust the entry to your guide. The facts will be right; the punctuation is yours to set.
Quick questions
Is Harvard referencing the same as APA?
No, although both are author-date styles and their citations look alike. APA 7 puts a full stop after the bracketed year, uses an ampersand between authors and has one official manual. Harvard in Cite Them Right form uses "and", single quotation marks around article titles, and "Available at:" before a link.
What is the difference between a reference list and a bibliography in Harvard?
A reference list contains only the sources you cited in your text. A bibliography also includes background reading that you did not cite. Many Harvard assignments ask for a reference list only, and some ask for both, so check the brief.
How do I cite a source I found quoted in another source?
Name both in the text and reference only the one you read, for example (Jones, 2001, cited in Smith, 2004, p. 77). Smith goes in the reference list. Where you can, find and read the original.
How do I reference a web page with no author in Harvard?
Use the organisation that published the page as the author. If there is no organisation either, Cite Them Right starts the reference with the title of the page in italics, and the citation uses the title in place of the author's name.
Which Harvard should I use if my guide is silent?
Follow the guide your library publishes, and if it names Cite Them Right, use the 13th edition. If nothing is published at all, pick one university guide, say in a note which one you followed, and apply it consistently. Markers accept a consistent guide far more readily than a mixture.
Which edition of Cite Them Right does EdCitation follow?
EdCitation's Cite a source follows the 12th edition, which keeps a book's place of publication (when the book's record gives one) and writes "article number" before an article's number. Under a 13th-edition guide, delete the place and write "article" alone.
References
- Manchester Metropolitan University. (n.d.). Cite Them Right Harvard. Manchester Metropolitan University Library. https://www.mmu.ac.uk/library/referencing-and-study-support/referencing/cite-them-right-harvard
- Monash University. (n.d.). Harvard citing and referencing guide. Monash University Library. https://guides.lib.monash.edu/harvard
- Newcastle University. (n.d.). When should I use et al. in Cite Them Right Harvard? Newcastle University Library. https://libhelp.ncl.ac.uk/faq/246838
- Open University. (n.d.). Quick guide to Harvard referencing (Cite Them Right). The Open University Library. https://university.open.ac.uk/library/referencing-and-plagiarism/quick-guide-to-harvard-referencing-cite-them-right
- Pears, R., & Shields, G. (2025). Cite them right: The essential referencing guide (13th ed.). Bloomsbury Academic. https://www.citethemrightonline.com/about
- University of Leeds. (n.d.-a). Common issues when using Leeds Harvard. University of Leeds Library. https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1402/referencing/50/leeds_harvard_introduction/3
- University of Leeds. (n.d.-b). Leeds Harvard: Book. University of Leeds Library. https://library.leeds.ac.uk/referencing-examples/9/leeds-harvard/73/book
- University of the West of Scotland. (n.d.). Cite Them Right Harvard referencing examples. UWS Library. https://uws-uk.libguides.com/c.php?g=727692&p=5297185
- University of Westminster. (n.d.). Harvard referencing: Cite Them Right 13th edition. University of Westminster Library. https://libguides.westminster.ac.uk/referencing/harvard