Harvard citation guide
Used in: Widely used across UK and Australian universities, in many disciplines.
Harvard is an author–date style (close to APA) with brief in-text citations and an alphabetical reference list. There is no single governing body, so the exact punctuation varies by institution — always check your department’s guide.
In-text citations
Parenthetical
(Smith and Lee, 2021)Author surname and year.
With page number
(Smith and Lee, 2021, p. 215)Add a page for direct quotes.
Narrative
Smith and Lee (2021) argue…Name the author in the sentence.
Reference list examples
Generated by Folio's citation engine — the same one that formats your bibliography as you write.
Journal article
Smith, J. and Lee, R. (2021) “Working memory capacity and the control of attention,” Journal of Cognitive Science, 12(3), pp. 210–225. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1000/jcs.2021.0123.
Book
García, M. (2019) The architecture of memory. Academic Press.
Book chapter
Chen, L. (2020) “Attention and encoding,” in D. Park (ed.) Handbook of Cognition. University Press, pp. 88–110.
Website
Khan, A. (2023) Understanding research methods. Available at: https://example.org/research-methods (Accessed: March 15, 2024).
Quick checklist
Do
- Alphabetize the reference list by the first author’s surname.
- Check your institution’s specific Harvard variant before submitting.
- Include a DOI or stable URL for online sources.
Don't
- Don’t assume one universal “Harvard” format — they differ.
- Don’t omit the year from the in-text citation.
Cite in Harvard automatically
Paste a DOI into the free generator, or cite as you write in Folio.