The terms ‘citing’ and ‘referencing’ are sometimes used to mean the same thing but in Harvard Referencing style, they mean:
- A note in the body of your assignment at each point where you use someone else’s work or ideas (citing)
- The full details of each source provided in alphabetical order in a Reference List at the end of your work which includes all the works you have referred to in your text (referencing).
In Harvard, the author-date style is used for citing. In its simplest form you put the author’s surname and the date in brackets, e.g. (Smith, 2014). There are different ways you can use the author’s surname and date in your writing, as long as both are there and near each other.
Reference lists should only include the things you actually cited in your work – if you read it but didn’t use it, don’t include it in the Reference List. Each type of source (e.g. book, journal article etc.) has a pre-defined format.
You can use Cite Them Right Online to check the correct format for the sources you are using.
Want to know more? Come to our introductory workshop on using Harvard to cite and reference:
https://libcal.city.ac.uk/event/3356494
