This section describes the Harvard system. If you are asked to use this system, you should check whether your own guidelines specify any variation from the following.
Each reference should contain, wherever possible, the names of the Authors (or originators), the date of publication, the title of the work and if the work comes from an academic journal, the title and volume of the journal and the pages of the work in that order.
Normally various elements of each reference are emphasisd with italic and bold fonts. Typically, italics are used for titles and boldface for volume numbers but there is a lot of variation from one version of Harvard to another. For example, some conventions will put titles in quotation marks rather than italics. The most important thing is to be consistent. Try to avoid underlining (which was used in the typewriter era as a substitute for italics). Some academic journals abbreviate journal titles to save space, so that, for example the Journal of the Operational Research Society becomes J. Op. Res. Soc. Try to avoid this practice. It is not necessary, for example, in a dissertation and tends to make it much harder for the reader to trace the reference.
It is important to give information accurately. Remember that your reader will probably use a computer search to look for the reference work. So even a misspelt word can make it hard to find. Be particularly careful with US English spellings and do not correct the spelling or grammar of works you reference. For example, if you are using US English spelling, then you would write ‘modeling’ rather than ‘modelling’. However, you should use the original (British) spelling ith the reference for ( Davies et al. 2000). This will make it easier for your reader to trace the original work. The only change you might make is to capitalisation of word in the title of a journal article and here you should check what is required of you and be consistent.
If you want to know whether you have enough information in the reference ask yourself if you could find the work easily given the information you have supplied.
The references should appear as a single list as in Section List of References . The references should be sorted in alphabetical order by the surname of the first-named author. If further ordering is necessary, use the author’s initials, further authors, then year of publication, etc.
Usually these are written Surname, Initials. List all authors in the same order as in the original work. Use the initials as given in the work even if you know the author has a middle initial they have not used—remember, you are trying to make the work as easy as possible to find. Separate the last two authors with ‘and’ and all other authors with commas. Try to put down an originator for every reference.
Try to give a date for all works. The date should be the date of publication of the work cited. If the work is merely reprinted, you should use the original publication date: the page numbers will not have changed between reprints and the person reading your reference may only be able to obtain an earlier version of the publication. If the work is not the first edition, say what edition you used: the page numbers and detailed text will probably have changed between editions. Academic journals usually publish the date prominently. Books and journals usually print the date and publication details in the first printed recto (right-hand) page of the work.
If you reference more than one work by the same set of authors in the same initial order in the same year, use a letter (a, b, c,...) immediately after the date so that you can distinguish the works in each citation.
For a book, put the title in italic. Include a subtitle if it contains essential information about the content of the book. For example, ‘How to Program’ is an essential subtitle of Deitel and Deitel (1999) but ‘A Historical Study’ is not essential in Tawney (1938).
For a journal article, put the title in roman followed by the title of the journal in italic. Spell out the journal name in full unless you are specifically asked to do otherwise. Make it as easy as possible for your reader to find the journal. Some regulations ask you to put the title in single quotation marks.
For books where the edition is not the first, put the edition in roman after the title.
These numbers are not usually required, but feel free to use them. Put, for example ISBN 1-56592-496-7 after the title and edition.
For journals with a volume and issue number, put the volume in bold and the issue number in parentheses immediately after. Some journals do not have an issue number. Others put a month instead of an issue number. If so, use that in place of the issue number.
Put down the name of the publisher and, if possible, the place of publication. If a publisher lists several addresses, use the first.
If the work is part of another work (e.g. because it is a journal article) include the page numbers. If there is more than one page, the correct way to separate the pages is with an en-dash, which is slightly longer than a hyphen. Check whether your page numbers should start pp. (or p. for one page) or whether they should simply be listed a–b at the end of the reference.
Occasionally you may need to put down more information, for example if the work is a chapter in a book edited by others. Consult your dissertation supervisor or texts such as British Standards (1989) if you are unsure.
Citation is easy in the Harvard system. Put the authors surnames followed by the date in parenthesis. The precise rules are as follows.
‘Some websites ( sourceforge.net 2001; Fuller 2000) have been designed to work with any browser: others (www.BNFL.com 2000) have not.’
Section Quotation describes how to set down the quotation. Cite the source as for a citation except that you must include a page reference.
The references should appear at the end of your dissertation as a single list. Do not use numbers or bullets unless you are specifically asked to do so. Put the references in order as follows.
If the work has no named author, try use the title or name of the source. Examples are British Standards (1989), Business and Technology (1997), www.BNFL.com (2000), sourceforge.net (2001).
If you have downloaded an article from the web, for example through the library online journal resources, make sure you have all the bibliographical information of the original article. As a general rule, if you download the article as HTML, you will lose most of the information. If you download it as portable document format (*.pdf) you will not. If all else fails, try looking in a bibliographical service such as Web of Science.