Leeds Beckett's 'Quote, Unquote' guide provides information on the Harvard referencing system, including how to reference a variety of different formats and media.
The guide is available online in two versions: Quote, Unquote Online and downloadable Quote, Unquote PDF. There is also a short version available as a Word document.
You can purchase a print copy of Quote, Unquote from our Online Store.
Daily appointments are usually available (weekdays only) where you can get more help with Harvard or OSCOLA (Law) or APA (Psychology) referencing. Click on Get Help below to book an appointment, or you can ask via the Library's Contact Us page.
Referencing is how you point to other sources (books, journals, webpages etc.) you have used in writing your work. It consists of two parts: the citation and the reference.
The citation is a marker in the text to indicate that the information you refer to has come from somewhere else. The reference contains the full information about the source you used to allow someone else to find the source.
In Harvard referencing the citation consists of an author (family name or name of organisation) and year in round brackets, e.g. (Smith, 2019) or (NHS, 2022). Insert the citation as soon as you refer to a source in the text.
The full details of all the sources used in your text are presented at the end of your piece of work in a reference list alphabetised by family name of the author (or name of organisation). The reference list should begin on a new page titled “Reference list” (with no quotation marks) at the top of the page.
As you read for your course, you may see other types of referencing used (numbered styles, etc.). This guide is designed to help you reference for your course at Leeds Beckett University. If you are writing for another purpose you may want to check any conventions you need to follow.
You reference to:
TIP
When you are searching the literature, save or note down all the required details of the sources that you find at the time. If you don’t do this, you might not be able to accurately reference the sources you have used, and you will have additional work to do when you compile your list of references.
You may refer to an author’s work by any of the following:
All of the above need a citation in the text.
Insert the citation as soon as you refer to a source in the text. It is completely your choice whether you want to include the author’s name in your sentence or not. Your writing will flow better if you use a variety of ways of inserting the citation, for example:
Extreme caution should be used when using secondary referencing. You should always try and find the original source and cite from that rather than the interpretation you have read. If it is not feasible to do this, you may cite as a secondary source.
Include the source details of the quoted source from the reference list of the work you have read with ‘Quoted in:’ if it is a direct quotation or ‘Cited in:’ if a paraphrase, followed by the reference for the source you have actually seen.
For one author include the author’s family name and date, as above. For two authors include both family names e.g. Smith and Jones (2018) argued …
For three or more authors of one work include the first author and the words 'and others' or ‘et al.’ (meaning ‘and others’ in Latin) e.g. (Peterson et al., 2016). In your Reference list include the family names of all authors.
If there is no named individual use the name of the organisation, known as the corporate author, e.g. (NHS, 2018).
Where you use an abbreviated form of an organisation’s name (e.g. NHS or NICE) in the citation, you MUST use the same abbreviation in the reference list.
Where there is no author information available, cite using the title.
Where an author’s family name has two parts, e.g. Vincent van Gogh, Linda La Plante, etc.
When capitalised, the first part of the name should always be treated as part of the last name, e.g. La Plante, L.
But if the first part is not capitalised, you can treat it as a suffix that goes after the first name, e.g. Gogh, V. v.
Citing more than one source at one point in the text
List the sources in order of publication date, oldest first.
Citing more than one source from the same author in the same year
Use a lowercase a, b or c etc. after the date within the citation to identify which source is which.
Include the date of publication in round brackets. If there is no date of publication, use (n.d.) in place of the date in the citation and the reference.
Where you need to include a page number in a citation when using a direct quote or data use p. for a single page and pp. for a range of pages. If no page number is available (for webpages, or other unpaginated sources include (n.p.) in place of the page numbers). If there is another useful locator - for example, the duration into a video, you can include that in the same place, e.g. 1m34s.
For example, (Smith, 2019 p.35 ). Look for other examples throughout Quote Unquote.
Sometimes finding information to cite a website can be difficult. There may be no obvious author or date. Try finding author information from the “About us” webpage and the date from the last updated or copyright date information on the website. If you have difficulty finding information to cite the webpage, you should consider whether it is a source worth adding to your assignment, or whether there is more appropriate evidence you can cite.
Note: Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools are changing rapidly. We recommend that you check this guidance frequently as our advice is likely to change as these tools become more established.
You should always verify any information provided by generative AI tools with credible sources as the information provided by these tools may be incorrect, out-of-date, biased, or lacking in common sense and originality. Although they may produce what on the surface appear to be credible references, these tools cannot accurately cite their own sources and any references provided in the output are likely to be false or non-existent. As these references may not be real, you should always check the original source for accuracy before using them.
When you use or refer to information created by generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT or Google Bard, you must acknowledge this by citing it correctly. As the information produced by these tools is unrecoverable (can’t be retrieved) by the person reading your work, you should use the reference format for a personal communication in Quote, Unquote for these sources. Personal communications are cited in-text only and are not included in your reference list.
You should save a copy of the transcript of your questions and responses from the generative AI tool (e.g., through a screenshot, by saving the webpage file or by copying and pasting the question and output into a separate document). Make sure that you record the date you used the tool, what you asked it to do, and the tool you used. You may wish to include these transcripts as an appendix in your work.
You should acknowledge any use of generative AI tools to assist with your work, for example, in helping with planning, generating ideas, or creating an initial structure. Be aware that even if a tool helps with a specific learning need (e.g. Scholarcy), inappropriate or unacknowledged use of it may constitute academic misconduct. You can access further guidance on appropriate use of AI tools.
This information is based on guidance produced by The University of Queensland and La Trobe University .
If removing text from a quotation, use an ellipsis (a series of three full dots signalling that words have been omitted from quoted text).
If adding text to a quotation (for example, to clarify meaning), add square brackets around the added text.
You can identify a mistake in a quotation using the Latin word ‘sic’ (meaning ‘intentionally so written’) in square brackets. This is done to show that the mistake is in the source, and that you have not made an error in transcribing the quotation.
For some long pieces of work you may be allowed to include appendices which are additional bits of information not otherwise available to the reader. Appendices should be clearly labelled with either a letter or a number. Referring to information in appendices is not really referencing but more signposting to the additional information, for example: (see Appendix 1).
If you need to include references to published works (books, journals etc.) within your appendices do this exactly as you would in the body of your text, insert a citation in the appendix and the full reference within the bibliography for your project or dissertation.
If you want to refer to the appendices within another source, indicate it is from the appendix within the citation as you would a page number for a direct quotation, for example: (Khan, 2018, Appendix C p.4).
You must always include a Reference list at the end of your work. This is a list of all references you have used alphabetised by author family name and providing the publication details (author, publication date, title, publisher information, etc.) of all the sources you have used and cited in your assignment.
You may also be required to include a bibliography, which is a list not only of the sources you have used but also those you have consulted. NB: You should only include a bibliography if required to in your assessment regulations.
Be consistent in your formatting and layout throughout the Reference list.
Example: Chacham, C., Friedman, R. and Amir, U. (1991) Light flasher apparatus. US5252893A. Available from: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5252893A [Accessed 9 June 2019].
The citations in the text are included in the word count because they are within the main body of your work. The reference list at the end of your work is not included in the word count for your assignment. If you use footnotes please consult guidance from your school as to whether they are included in the word count.
List the place of publication from the title page of the book. If the place is small, outside the UK, or could be confused with another place, add extra information in brackets, e.g. Cambridge (Mass.) if it was Cambridge in the USA rather than Cambridge in the UK.
We have included examples of the main sources you may want to reference in this guide, but no guide is completely comprehensive. We have also included additional examples in the online version.
If you cannot find the source you wish to reference here, there is a general pattern you can follow.
Proceed to A-Z of reference examples
Note: we have used italics for all titles in the examples. You may use bold text or underline text - be consistant.
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