Harvard Referencing

Harvard Referencing Quick Guide

What is referencing?
Referencing is a system used in the academic community to indicate where ideas, theories, quotes,
facts and any other evidence and information used to undertake an assignment, can be found.

Why do I need to reference my work?

• To avoid plagiarism, a form of academic theft.

• Referencing your work correctly ensures that you give appropriate credit to the sources and authors that you have used to complete your assignment.

• Referencing the sources that you have used for your assignment demonstrates that you have undertaken wide-ranging research in order to create your work.

• Referencing your work enables the reader to consult for themselves the same materials that you used.

What do I need to reference?
All the information that you have used in your assignment will need to be acknowledged. It is
essential to make a note of all the details of the sources that you use for your assignment as you go
along.

The basics
Harvard is known as the Author & Date system:

1. Citations in the text of your assignment should be made following the in-text guidelines given in
the examples on the following pages.
2. A complete list of all the citations used in your text will need to be provided at the end of your
assignment. This is called your reference list or bibliography and needs to be presented in
alphabetical author/originator order.