How to Cite Sources in Harvard Style
Harvard is a family of author-date referencing styles rather than one universal manual. This guide follows a Cite Them Right-style pattern aligned with University of Sheffield guidance and treats your institution or course handbook as the final authority.
Method
- Confirm that your course requires Harvard and check which institutional variant it specifies.
- For one to three authors, keep the named authors in the reference and in-text citation; for four or more, this variant uses the first author followed by et al.
- For journal articles, verify author order, year, article title, journal title, volume, issue, pages and DOI; use an access date when a URL is used instead of a DOI.
- For books, include author, year, title, edition when not first, place of publication and publisher.
- For webpages, include the author or organization where available, year or no date, page title, URL and access date.
- For direct quotations, add the page number or range to the author-date in-text citation and review the exact punctuation required by your local guide.
Worked example
Book: Bryman, A. (2016) Social research methods. 5th edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Website pattern: Author/organisation (Year or no date) Page title. Available at: URL (Accessed: day Month year).
In text: (Smith, 2024) or (Smith et al., 2024, pp. 12–14).
Notes
- The University of Sheffield states that its Harvard guide is based on Cite Them Right and that programme requirements should be checked.
- Harvard variants can differ in punctuation, capitalization, treatment of editors and online-source details.
- Imported DOI metadata reduces typing but does not remove the need to check the original source.
Harvard is a family of author-date styles rather than one universal template
Universities and publishers use different Harvard variants. Cite Them Right is one common specification, but punctuation, capitalization, access dates and source-type details can vary across institutions. Use the version named by your course rather than assuming every 'Harvard' example is interchangeable.
Collect accurate source facts first: author or organization, year, title, container or publisher details, pages and DOI or URL. Then apply the required local variant.
Keep in-text author-year citations synchronized with the reference list
The in-text citation should lead clearly to the matching reference-list entry. Same-author same-year works may need letter suffixes, and organizational authors should be named consistently across both locations.
Direct quotations or very specific claims can require page or locator information depending on the institutional guidance. Verify that requirement from the exact Harvard version you have been asked to use.
Authoritative references
Primary or authoritative references for the external standard, scoring rule or identifier convention used on this page.
Editorial review and limitations
Continue with the related tools
Use the linked tools for your own inputs and scenarios.
- APA Citation Generator — Generate APA 7 reference-list entries for journals, webpages, books and chapters, plus a matching parenthetical in-text citation.
- MLA Citation Generator — Generate MLA Handbook 9th edition Works Cited entries and matching parenthetical in-text citations for journal articles, webpages, books and book chapters.
- Chicago Citation Generator — Generate Chicago Manual of Style 18th edition bibliography or author-date references for journal articles, webpages, books and chapters.