Harvard Style Bibliography | Format & Examples

Published on 1 May 2020 by Jack Caulfield. Revised on 7 November 2022.

In Harvard style, the bibliography or reference list provides full references for the sources you used in your writing.

• A reference list consists of entries corresponding to your in-text citations.
• A bibliography sometimes also lists sources that you consulted for background research, but did not cite in your text.

The two terms are sometimes used interchangeably. If in doubt about which to include, check with your instructor or department.

The information you include in a reference varies depending on the type of source, but it usually includes the author, date, and title of the work, followed by details of where it was published. You can automatically generate accurate references using our free reference generator:

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Table of contents

1. Formatting a Harvard style bibliography
2. Harvard reference examples
3. Referencing sources with multiple authors
4. Referencing sources with missing information
5. Frequently asked questions about Harvard bibliographies

Formatting a Harvard style bibliography

Sources are alphabetised by author last name. The heading ‘Reference list’ or ‘Bibliography’ appears at the top.

Each new source appears on a new line, and when an entry for a single source extends onto a second line, a hanging indent is used:

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Harvard reference examples

Reference list or bibliography entries always start with the author’s last name and initial, the publication date and the title of the source. The other information required varies depending on the source type. Formats and examples for the most common source types are given below.

Books

• Entire book
• Book chapter
• Translated book
• Edition of a book

• The city mentioned is the location of the publisher’s headquarters.

• The first name listed is the author of the individual chapter you’re referencing.
• The editor of the book appears later in the reference, followed by ‘ed.’ (or ‘eds.’ if there are two or more).
• The page range at the end shows the chapter’s location in the book.

• The translator’s name, unlike other names, is not inverted: the initial comes first.

• The edition appears only when it’s a second or later edition.
• ‘Edition’ is always abbreviated to ‘edn’.
• Note that this example is an edited collection of essays from different authors, and thus the editor is listed as the main author.

Journal articles

• Print journal
• Online-only journal with DOI
• Online-only journal without DOI

• This format is also used for journal articles which you accessed online but which are available in print too.
• There is no space between the volume and issue number (in brackets).
• The page range shows where the article is located in the journal.
• Unlike other titles, the name of a journal uses headline capitalisation; capitalise every important word.

• When an article you accessed online has no print equivalent, include the DOI if available.
• The DOI is preceded by ‘doi:’ – no capitalisation, no space.

• When an article you accessed online has no print equivalent and no DOI, include a URL and an access date.
• Use the stable URL provided by the database if there is one.

Websites

• General web page
• Online article or blog
• Social media post

• Reference list entries for pages without a clearly identified author can begin with the name of the relevant site or organisation instead.
• For web sources with no DOI, include an access date.

• Here you include the year at the start as usual, but also the exact day of publication later in the reference.

• Include the author’s username on the site in square brackets, if available.
• If the post has a title, use it (in italics).
• If the post is untitled, use the text of the post instead. Do not use italics. If the text is long, you can save space by replacing some of it with an ellipsis, as above.

Multimedia

• Cite images according to how you viewed them. For an image from a book, you’d just cite the book. An image viewed online is cited similarly to other web sources.
• Include information about the medium of the image in square brackets; for example, ‘Photograph’ or ‘Oil on canvas’.

• This format works for YouTube and similar video sites like Dailymotion, Vimeo and Instagram.
• Unless the uploader is an individual whose real name you know, use the username in the author position.

Newspapers and magazines

• Newspaper article
• Magazine article

• Include the page number where the article begins if you read the article in print. If you read it online, include the URL and access date instead.

• For issue information, follow the format used by the magazine; magazines may be issued per month, per season, or in numbered volumes and issues.
• Only include the URL and access date for online-exclusive articles. Omit this information if the article is available in print, even if you read it online.
• If you read an article online, you can omit the page range.

Referencing sources with multiple authors

When a source has up to three authors, list all of them in the order their names appear on the source. If there are four or more, give only the first name followed by ‘et al.’:

Referencing sources with missing information

Sometimes a source won’t list all the information you need for your reference. Here’s what to do when you don’t know the publication date or author of a source.

No date

Some online sources, as well as historical documents, may lack a clear publication date. In these cases, you can replace the date in the reference list entry with the words ‘no date’. With online sources, you still include an access date at the end:

Scribbr (no date) How to structure a dissertation. Available at: https://www.scribbr.co.uk/category/thesis-dissertation/ (Accessed: 14 February 2020).

No author

When a source doesn’t list an author, you can often list a corporate source as an author instead, as with ‘Scribbr’ in the above example. When that’s not possible, begin the entry with the title instead of the author:

‘Divest’ (2020) Available at: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/divest (Accessed: 29 April 2020).

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Frequently asked questions about Harvard bibliographies

Though the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there is a difference in meaning:

• A reference list only includes sources cited in the text – every entry corresponds to an in-text citation.
• A bibliography also includes other sources which were consulted during the research but not cited.

In Harvard referencing, up to three author names are included in an in-text citation or reference list entry. When there are four or more authors, include only the first, followed by ‘et al.’

In Harvard style referencing, to distinguish between two sources by the same author that were published in the same year, you add a different letter after the year for each source:

• (Smith, 2019a)
• (Smith, 2019b)

Add ‘a’ to the first one you cite, ‘b’ to the second, and so on. Do the same in your bibliography or reference list.

To create a hanging indent for your bibliography or reference list:

1. Highlight all the entries
2. Click on the arrow in the bottom-right corner of the ‘Paragraph’ tab in the top menu.
3. In the pop-up window, under ‘Special’ in the ‘Indentation’ section, use the drop-down menu to select ‘Hanging’.
4. Then close the window with ‘OK’.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.