Lecture 5

Harvard Referencing System

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 Referencing academic work
What is referencing?
• Acknowledging ideas of others used in the
preparation of assignments
• Identifying the authors and their work in
your assignments
• Recognising someone else’s opinions,
theories, data, ideas and so on

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 Why you have to use referencing

• Evidence of background reading

• Acknowledge the research of others
• Avoid accusations of plagiarism
• Makes you include complete information
• Easy to trace the background research
used
• Helps the reader and other researchers

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 Quotes or Paraphrasing?
• ‘Quotes’ are – an exact replication of
someone else’s words in your work
• ‘Paraphrasing’ is – rewording someone
else’s idea and including it in your work

It is better practice to PARAPHRASE in

your work

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 Why Paraphrase?
• Direct quotes disrupt the flow of your work
• Your writing should be YOUR writing
• We are interested in YOUR understanding
of an idea
• Paraphrasing allows you to explain and
discuss an idea in your own way

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 Referencing
• You must reference any facts in your work
that have come from another source (this
is basically the whole of your essays and
the majority of your dissertation!)
• Referencing does not only apply to direct
quotes – you must also reference ideas
which you have paraphrased

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 Some language explained

• CITING - acknowledging in the text

• CITATION - the passage or words quoted
within your text
• REFERENCE LIST - list of sources
• REFERENCE - detailed description of
works used
• BIBLIOGRAPHY – list of sources used to
inform your work but not cited in your text
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How does Harvard referencing work?

There are 2 elements to referencing other

people’s work:
• The first is in the body of the text or in the
middle of your essay or dissertation, when
you refer to someone’s ideas.
• The second is at the back of your work
when you list everything you have referred
to in full.

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 Citing in the text
• Authors surname and year of publication
in brackets
e.g.
The work of Smith (1998) and Jones
(2000) emphasised the importance of
triangulation in independent research.

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 Citing in the text - Direct Quotes
• Name, Year and Page number appear in
brackets
e.g.
• “Aggregate cross-country evidence,
interesting though it may be, cannot on its
own provide a reliable guide to the likely
consequences of rolling back the welfare
state.” (Atkinson 2001, pp.48-9)
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 Citing in the text - Multiple Authors

• Two authors:
• Nickell and Layard (1997) were unable to find a
statistically significant relationship between
employment protection laws and the
unemployment rate.

• More than two authors:

Chernyshoff et al. (2005) showed that the
adoption of the gold standard exacerbated
macroeconomic volatility in the interwar period.
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Citing in the text - Electronic Sources

• Electronic journal and web site with an author:

Cite the author and date as usual.

e.g.
Prescott (2002) contends that Japan’s highly
centralised financial system controlled by the
state is responsible for the 17-percent decline in
its productivity factor in the 1991-2000 period.

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Citing in the text - Electronic Sources

• Web site without author:

Where the web page has no author, use
the title of the page or the copyright owner
as the point of reference.
e.g.
A recent study (Imperial Cancer
Research Fund 2000) has stated that
lung cancer is the most common form of
the disease in the UK. 13
Citing in the text – An Example
Indirect quote – very similar to
original

Writing academic assignments takes time and patience.

According to Bloggs (1998, p. 36) a typical undergraduate
assignment is the end result of hours of research and
playing around with other’s ideas. In order to make sure
you do not simply rewrite someone else’s ideas as your
own, you need to ‘engage with the information you read Direct quote
and apply it to your specific topic’ (Jones 2003, p. 34).
Unless you can show your lecturer that you have
understood how the research applies to your area, you will
not have written a good assignment (Smith 1999). Writing
academic assignments is time consuming and rigorous.

Paraphrase –
essence captured
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but own words used
 The Reference List - What is it?

• Alphabetical list at the end of your work

• If you have items by the same author, put the
earliest first.
• Do not do separate lists for books, journals and
electronic resources.
• The reference list gives the FULL reference
• It is to make sure that you do not miss out a
crucial fact and then fail to trace that work again
• The most important thing to remember is to
keep your reference list consistent
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 BOOKS –
Include the following information:
• Author(s) / Editor(s) / Organisation
• Year in brackets
• Title and Subtitle (Italics).
• Series (if present).
• Edition.
• Place of publication,
• Publisher.

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 Books - In the Reference List
e.g.
Burnell, P. (1997) Foreign aid in a
changing world. Buckingham: Open
University Press.
e.g.
Grey, H. and Freeman, A. (1988)
Teaching with stress. London: Paul
Chapman.
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 Journal Articles –
Include the following information:
• Author(s) of article
• Year in brackets
• Article title.
• Journal title (Italics),
• Volume, Part, Issue, Month/Season
• Page numbers.

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Journal Article - In the Reference List
e.g.
• Evans, W.A. (1994) Approaches to intelligent
information retrieval. Information processing and
management, 7 (2), 147-168.

• Ozerturk, S. and Saggi, K. (2005) Tariff

discrimination versus MFN under incomplete
information. Journal of international trade and
economic development, 14(2), 197-208.

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 Web Pages –
Include the following information:
• Author(s) / Editor(s) if known
• Year (in brackets)
• Title (Italics)
• [Online].
• Edition
• Place of publication,
• Publisher’s name (if available).
• Available from: URL
• [Date accessed].
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 Web Page - In the Reference List:
e.g.
• Liverpool JMU Learning and Information Services
(2002) The Harvard Referencing System [online].
Liverpool: Liverpool John Moores University.
Available from:
http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/lea/LEA_Docs/HarvardReferencing
[Accessed 6 June 2008].
e.g.
• Freedland, J. (2004, June 8) Please, no more 1960s
[online]. Guardian Unlimited. Available from:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,12
[Accessed 6 June 2008].
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 Sample Reference List
Evans, W.A. (1994) Approaches to intelligent
information retrieval. Information processing and
management, 7 (2), 147-168.
Grey, H. and Freeman, A. (1988) Teaching with
stress. London: Paul Chapman.
Liverpool JMU Learning and Information Services
(2002) The Harvard Referencing System [online].
Liverpool: Liverpool John Moores University.
Available from:
http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/lea/LEA_Docs/HarvardReferencing
[Accessed 6 June 2008].
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 Please note ...
• The Harvard system lays down standards
for the order and content of information in
the reference, not the format or layout on
the page. Many variations of layout are
acceptable provided they are used
consistently.
• There is no official textbook for the
Harvard Referencing System, but
Liverpool JMU Learning and Information
Services (2002) is a very useful starting
point. 23