Harvard Citation Generator
Generate accurate citations in Harvard referencing style. Enter a URL, DOI, ISBN, or book title to automatically fetch and format citation data.
Tip: Copy and paste your source information from your document, or enter it manually following the format shown above.
Harvard Referencing Style Guide
Harvard is a widely-used citation style in UK and international institutions. It's similar to APA but uses British English conventions.
In-Text Citations
Harvard uses parenthetical citations with the author's last name, year, and page number (if applicable).
Basic Format:
- One author: (Smith, 2020)
- Two authors: (Smith and Jones, 2020)
- Three authors: (Smith, Jones and Brown, 2020)
- Four or more authors: (Smith et al., 2020)
- With page number: (Smith, 2020, p.45)
- Page range: (Smith, 2020, pp.45-47)
- No author: (Title, 2020)
- No date: (Smith, n.d.)
Reference List Entries
Harvard reference lists use author initials rather than full first names.
Examples
Book:
Smith, J. (2020) Understanding climate change. London: University Press.
Journal Article:
Jones, S. (2024) 'Advances in renewable energy', Energy Research, 15(3), pp.45-67. doi:10.1234/example
Website:
Brown, M. (2024) The digital revolution. Available at: https://techweekly.com/digital (Accessed: 15 January 2024).
Key Features
- Year in parentheses after author name
- Book and website titles italicized, sentence case
- Journal and magazine article titles in single quotes
- Author names: Last, F.I.
- "Available at:" prefix for URLs
- Access dates included for websites: (Accessed: Day Month Year)
- British date format and punctuation conventions
Harvard vs APA
Main Differences:
- Harvard uses author initials (Smith, J.), APA uses full initials (Smith, J. K.)
- Harvard uses single quotes for article titles, APA uses no quotes
- Harvard includes "Available at:" before URLs, APA doesn't
- Harvard includes access dates for websites, APA typically doesn't
- Harvard uses British punctuation and date formats