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When you’re doing academic writing, you’ve to add the source of the information, and to add that the sources you’ve to follow some style of referencing. Harvard referencing is a style of citation that is used in higher education worldwide.
Commonly Harvard referencing style is used in the underlying field of studies. Do not confuse Harvard referencing with anything associated with Harvard University because there is no official connection between them at all and it has nothing to do with Harvard University. Keep it clear that there is no such thing as a “Harvard referencing system”, Harvard referencing is just a style of citation and nothing more than that.
- Humanities
- Behavioral science
- Philosophy
Apart from the above-mentioned field, you can request to use this style of citation in other fields also.
Harvard referencing style
You might be wondering how to add the reference in an essay using Harvard referencing style. Well, to make it clear to you Harvard referencing style basically involves two steps.
- In-text citation
- Reference list
In-text citation
Whenever you’re quoting or paraphrasing a source in your writing, you’ve to add an in-text citation to point your reader to the full reference. If you’re citing your source in Harvard style, you’ve to add your citing text in the brackets that consist of the last name of the author, the year of publication. Moreover, you can also add page numbers if relevant. And the in-text citation is mainly done throughout the piece of writing.
Reference list
When you’re done writing then you should add a list of references at the end of your text. That list includes all the sources from where you picked the information and added to your writing. This list has a proper pattern to follow like each item should be in the list should be in alphabetical order, by the surname of authors. The titles present should be in italics and each item must have a hanging indent.
When you’re referencing your piece of writing, your information must be written in the underlying order.
- Author name and initials
- Title of the article
- Title of journal in italics
- Any publication information like, volume, number etc.
- Page range
- Day, month and year when you accessed the article
- From name of database
- Item number
Citing Electronic sources
You do not always get all the information from books and you approach digital platforms to do research and get the information. These electronic sources counts full-text journals, newspapers, company information, e-books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, economic data, digital images, industry profiles, market research, etc. You might get confused when referencing these sources because it’s quite challenging to know which information to add to your text and from where you can get it. To make it a bit easy include as much information as you can about the authorship, location, and availability.
Referencing electronic sources requires the same information as other sources but sometimes you’ve to add a little bit of extra information.
- Add the page, paragraph, or section number
- Identify the format of the source that is being accessed
- Provide a precise access date for online sources
- Identify when a source was viewed or downloaded.
- Provide the location of an online source
Things you need to know while referencing your piece of writing
- Cite all the sources
Citing all the sources is an essential step as it saves you from copying someone’s work and presenting it as yours. If the reader finds plagiarism in your text, then you may have to face serious consequence of that. In Harvard referencing style you’ve to add the citation according to its given criteria. And the most important thing to keep in mind is cite where it is necessary.
- Place direct quote in quotation marks
When citing your sources using Harvard referencing style you’ve provided the exact words from the source then you’ve to place those words in quotation marks and give the page number in the in-text citation as well. In case of quoting a website should add the number of the paragraph from where you took the words just by counting the paragraphs on the website that you’re citing.
- Mentioning authors in text
When you’re doing in-text citation and have mentioned the name of the authors in the text, make sure you don’t include it in parentheses. And in place of “&” use the word “and” like, Smith and Johnson (2018, p. 15).
- Several sources in one citation
Sometimes you’ve to cite more than one source in one set of parentheses. In order to do that list them in the order in which they appear in the reference list and use a semicolon to separate them.
Example of Several sources in one citation: (Johnson 2015; Smith 2014).
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