Harvard Referencing

1. Why do I need to reference my work? 2

1.1 So tell me briefly how it works 2

2. Referring to an author's viewpoint in your text 3

2.1 Single and multiple authors - summarising and quoting 3

2.2 Author published 2 items in the same year 4

2.3 Author is an organisation (corporate authors) 4

2.4 Author's name not given 4

2.5 Secondary referencing (authors quoting other authors) 4

3. Writing your reference list for printed texts - general notes 5

3.1 Books with one or more authors 6

3.2 Works by one author, translated/edited/commented on (etc.) by another 6

3.3 Chapters in edited books 7

3.4 Journal articles 7

3.5 Conference proceedings and single conference papers 8

3.6 Government or other Official Publications 8

3.7 Theses 9

3.8 Unpublished (informal) works, including handouts 9

4. Referencing films, illustrations, maps, music and sound 10

4.1 Films and videos 10

4.2 Illustrations - physical and computer generated 10

4.3 Maps 10

4.4 Published music and recorded sound 11

5. Referencing electronic sources - general notes 12

5.1 Home pages on the web 13

5.2 Entire documents or services 13

5.3 Specific parts of documents or services 14

5.4 Contribution to an item within an electronic document or service 15

5.5 Electronic journals - the entire publication run 16

5.6 Electronic journals - whole issues 16

5.7 Electronic journals - articles and other contributions 17

5.8 Bulletin boards, discussion lists and messaging systems 17

5.9 Individual electronic messages and phone calls 18

5.10 Television programmes, contributions and advertisements 19

6. Referencing unrecorded sources 20

Referencing a presentation, conversation or interview 20

7. Further Help 20

1. Why do I need to reference my work?

* Good referencing enables readers to find any publication referred to in your document quickly and easily - which gives you credibility.

* If you don't do it, your work is immediately downgraded in value.

* If you do it badly, you lose respect (and easy marks).

* If you intend doing research, you either use a proper referencing system or change careers.

* In short, it's important - and this guide will help you to get it right.

Wolverhampton mainly supports the Harvard referencing system, but other systems do exist. Check with your School for the one they recommend. Whatever style you use, it is important to be clear, consistent and correct, making sure you include all the relevant details.

1.1 So tell me briefly how it works

If you summarise, refer to, or quote from an author's work in your document, you must acknowledge your source, otherwise you are guilty of plagiarising (a form of cheating). In Harvard, you do this by putting these brief details before or after your quote:

Author's surname, followed by the publication year of the document in round brackets

E.g: Stollery (1997)

But your readers will need more information if they want to look at that source personally. So you put the extra details in a reference list - usually placed at the end of a chapter, or at the end of the entire work. It looks something like this:

Stollery, R. (1997) Ophthalmic nursing. 2nd ed., Oxford: Blackwell Science.

* There are fixed rules here: the author always comes surname first, then initials, then year.

* The title of the book (or journal) is always in italics (typewriters underline instead), and everything else has a set order.

* Always terminate author initials and all abbreviations with full stops (e.g. dept., ed., pp., anon., etc.).

Where do I find publisher details?

Books - normally on the title page or the back of the title page, or equivalent.

Journals - author/title details on the article itself; journal title, date, etc., on or inside the cover.

Audio tapes, videos, computer software, etc. - usually on the labels or containers.

And that's it?

It would be, if we only had books with a single author. But we also have journals, maps, web pages... So this guide shows what to do with different cases of quoting authors. After that, we show you how to write reference entries for journal articles, web pages and all the others.

2. Referring to an author's viewpoint in your text

2.1 Single and Multiple Authors - summarising and quoting

Summarising

When referring to (or summarising) an author's viewpoint in your text, then: