How do I cite in-text/reference something in my work? (Harvard style)
Last Updated: 14.Jun.2023 Views: 2442

When you summarise, refer to, or direct quote from an author's work in your document, you need to acknowledge your source in the text. This is called an ‘in-text citation’.

When using Harvard, you do this by putting the author’s name and publication year in your sentence. These rules are standard, regardless of the type of source you are using. You may also need to include a page number.

  • If the name of the author appears naturally in your sentence, only the year should be in brackets.
  • Cite Them Right advises including page numbers for direct quotations and when paraphrasing, although page numbers would not be required when summarising.
  • Depending on how many author(s) there are for your source, you may need to put one, two or three names in your citation.

Please note: the number of authors on your source has no bearing on whether you include a page number or not. It is how you have used the information that determines if you need to provide a page number. More details can be found in the linked FAQ 'When am I supposed to include a page number in my in-text citations?'.

The below examples are some of the possible ways of writing an in-text citation:

One Author

(Smith, 2015, p. 14)

…Smith (2015, p. 15) argues that….

Two Authors

(Smith and Jones, 2015, p. 22)

…according to Smith and Jones (2015, p. 22)….

Three Authors

(Smith, Jones and Brown, 2015, p. 68)

….research by Smith, Jones and Brown (2015) showed that….

Four or more Authors

(Smith et al., 2015, p. 109)

Smith et al. (2015) proved that….

Organisation

(University of Wolverhampton, 2015)

Information from the University of Wolverhampton (2015, p. 4) states…

 

Examples of different ways of including direct quotes and paraphrased information:

  • Excellent study skills are fundamental to academic success (Cottrell, 2010, p. 19)
  • Cottrell (2010, p. 19) argues that excellent study skills are fundamental to academic success.
  • “The importance of academic skills should not be underestimated” (Cottrell, 2010, p. 19)
  • Cottrell (2010, p. 19) states “the importance of academic skills should not be underestimated”.

Source has no date

The "year" element still needs to be included in the in-text citation in the same way as described above.

For example: Information from the University of Wolverhampton (no date) states... or (University of Wolverhampton, no date).

More details on this topic can be found in the linked FAQ 'I can't find a date on a source, how do I reference it?'.

Citing multiple sources

When you refer to several publications that share the same point of view, the citations can be listed in the same citation bracket with each individual work separated by a semicolon (;). The publications should be cited in chronological order with the earliest publication date first (to show the development of the idea). If more than one work is published in the same year, then those citations should be listed alphabetically by author/editor.

Examples:

A number of environmental studies (Town, 2013; Williams, 2015; Andrews et al., 2017; Martin and Richards, 2018) considered ...

Environmental studies by Town (2013) and Williams (2015) considered that...

 

If you want to refer to more than one source by the same author with different publication dates, you can put them in the same citation bracket in chronological order (earliest first), using the semicolon (;) to separate them, but without repeating the author name.

Examples:

Research by one author (Singh 2017; 2018) ...

Research by Singh (2017; 2018) ...

 

For a wide range of in-text citation examples have a look in the full Cite Them Right online website.

If you use a different style to Harvard, other referencing styles are also available in Cite Them Right online including APA, OSCOLA (Oxford), MHRA, Chicago and Vancouver.

 

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