Career Skills & Personal Development

A Guide to Harvard Referencing

Hayley Jewell

You’re halfway through your essay. You’ve smashed out a decent intro, made a few points you’re pretty proud of, even managed to get a quote in without sounding like ChatGPT wrote it. But now it’s time to “reference properly,” and suddenly you’re spiralling.

Harvard referencing is one of those things that crops up early at uni and then just never really goes away. But no one sits you down and shows you how to do it in a way that actually makes sense.

Let’s break it down in a way that won’t make you want to cry into your overpriced iced coffee.

What is Harvard referencing?

At its core, Harvard referencing is just a way of showing where you got your info from. That’s it. No big mystery. You mention someone else’s work? You reference it. Quote a book, summarise an article, refer to a theory? Reference it.

You do this in the text (with the author’s surname and the year of publication in brackets), and then again at the end with all the full details in a list. Two parts. Same source. One short, one detailed.

For example:

"Cats are excellent listeners" (Stevenson, 2015).

Then, in your reference list at the end:

Stevenson, R. (2015) The Secret Life of Cats. London: Purr Press.

Different types of sources = slightly different formats

Super annoying. But once you’ve seen a few, you start to recognise the patterns. Here's how to reference books, journal articles, and websites properly – both in the essay and in the reference list at the end.

Books

In your text: Memory plays a vital role in shaping identity (King, 2019).

In your reference list: King, J. (2019) Memory and Emotion. Oxford: Scholar Press.

Journal articles

In your text: Gen Z students may be particularly vulnerable to digital fatigue (Lane and O’Brien, 2021).

In your reference list: Lane, T. and O’Brien, S. (2021) ‘Digital Burnout in Gen Z’, Modern Psychology Review, 24(3), pp. 142–159.

Websites

In your text: It’s common for students to struggle with their mental health, especially in the first year (Student Minds, 2023).

In your reference list: Student Minds (2023) How to support your mental health at uni. Available at: www.studentminds.org.uk (Accessed: 6 June 2025).

You don’t need to memorise these. Just keep this guide bookmarked and copy the format. No shame.

Do I have to bother with it?

Honestly, yeah. Even if your ideas are brilliant, not referencing properly can lose you marks or worse…get flagged for plagiarism. And no, you don’t have to be trying to cheat to fall into that trap. It’s easy to do by accident when you’re tired and on a deadline. Proper referencing just covers your back.

It also shows you’ve actually done the reading, which is kind of the whole point of uni. Even if you only skimmed the chapter while eating toast over your keyboard, the reference makes it count.

If you’re still getting your head around uni life in general, this Essential Tips for Uni guide might help fill in a few other gaps too.

Tools that save your brain

You don’t have to do it all manually. Tools like Zotero, Mendeley, and even Google Docs’ citation function can help format stuff in Harvard style. Just be aware they’re not always 100% right. Treat them like a spellchecker – they’ll catch a lot, but not everything. Always give your reference list a quick once-over.

Cite This For Me is another decent one. Copy, paste, done. Just don’t blindly trust it. (That’s how you end up with “No author, No date” as your entire bibliography. Oops.)

Little things that catch people out

Alphabetical order in the reference list. Not by title. By surname.
Italicising book and journal titles, not article names.
Dates go in brackets. Not square ones. Not curly ones. Just… brackets.
You only include sources you actually used. Not every book you opened and ignored after one paragraph.

Also: always double-space the reference list unless your lecturer says otherwise. It looks weird, but they love it.

It won’t always make sense, and that’s fine

Some things won’t fit the neat formats. You’ll come across a podcast, or a tweet, or a blurry PDF from 2004 that doesn’t have a date or author. In those moments, Google it, ask someone, or check your uni’s referencing guide. Don’t freeze up. No one knows everything. You’re learning. That’s literally your job right now.

Before you go

Harvard referencing isn’t going to be the highlight of your degree. It’s not fun, and it doesn’t feel all that creative, but it does hold everything else together. Like a decent wi-fi connection or a strong cup of tea when you’re flagging, you don’t always notice it when it’s working… but you definitely notice when it’s missing.

After a couple of essays, it starts to feel a lot less weird. Eventually, it’ll just click. And you'll be casually correcting someone else's dodgy reference without even thinking about it.