The Harvard style of citation is a widely used referencing system to help you achieve these objectives. This guide explains the Harvard style of referencing based on the guidelines from the book "Style manual for authors, editors and printers" (6th edition).
The Harvard style involves two tasks: citing sources in the text of your essay, and then listing complete bibliographic details in a reference list at the end of your essay.
Citing sources in the text:
In the Harvard style, when you cite a source in the text of your essay, you provide the author's surname and the year of publication in parentheses, like this: (Smith, 2020). If you are quoting directly from the source, you should also include the page number(s) in the citation, like this: (Smith, 2020, p. 23).
If you are citing multiple sources in the same parentheses, you should list them in alphabetical order, separated by a semicolon: (Smith, 2020; Jones, 2021).
If you are citing a source with two or more authors, you should list all the authors in the citation. For example: (Smith and Jones, 2020). If there are three or more authors, you should list the first author's surname, followed by "et al." (meaning "and others"): (Smith et al., 2020).
If you are citing a source that you have already cited earlier in your essay, you should use a shortened form of the citation, like this: (Smith, 2020).
Reference list:
At the end of your essay, you should provide a reference list, which gives full bibliographic details of all the sources you have cited in your essay. The reference list should be arranged alphabetically by author's surname.
Here is an example of how to format a reference for a book in the Harvard style:
Smith, J. (2020). The art of citation. New York: Random House.
And here is an example of how to format a reference for a journal article:
Jones, M. (2021). The importance of citing sources. Journal of Writing, 34(2), 123-134.
As you can see, the Harvard style requires you to provide different information depending on the type of source you are citing (e.g., a book, a journal article, a website). It is important to follow the guidelines carefully to ensure that your references are formatted correctly.
In conclusion, the Harvard style of citation is a widely used referencing system that helps you to acknowledge the sources you have used in your essay and to provide full bibliographic details in a reference list. By following the guidelines outlined above, you can ensure that your citations and references are formatted correctly and professionally.