During your study, you write essays that demand you cite your sources of reference. You have to do this in a specific manner, one that aligns with your college’s recommendations. It helps you use the right format acceptable by your professors.
Harvard is among the many institutions with a referencing system. It follows the guidelines below that help you make the most out of your work. They are easy steps arranged to give you a clear picture of how to use the Harvard citation format.
Creating a reference list
Students have to give credit to every author whom they used their work to do a project or essay in college. List their names in a separate sheet in alphabetical order, beginning with their last name. Start them with a capital letter followed by their initials. Begin with the title of the source, excluding the use of articles. Do this in those that lack the name of authors.
Ensure to include all information about the author, including whether you used other work they did. Arrange them based on their first work to the last while ensuring those in the same year are in alphabetical order. Separate the texts using two full blank lines.
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Developing an in-text citation
While studying, you often paraphrase the work of an author or quote it when you do not find the right words. Harvard students who include them in their work have to add an in-text citation. It is within brackets and placed after the quotation or paraphrase in a specific order.
The last name of the author comes first with its first letter capitalized, followed by the year of publishing their work. As you complete, before closing the bracket, including the page number. Avoid repeating the name of the author is mentioned in the text. If there are four or more authors, include one and an extra initial while anything less is in the bracket.
Citing different sources
In some situations, when studying, you use websites, edited books, chapters of books, and journals. Using Harvard citations for edited books requires you to begin with the surname of the author accompanied by their initials and then the year of editing, the title of the book, city, and publisher.
Journals follow the same order at the beginning. But in the ending, they include the title of the article and the name of the journal. Wrap up with the volume or issue, pp, and the page range or a single page number. The use of websites is crucial in education because it helps you study organizing apps. But when citing them, you end with the page title, the URL, and date, month, and year.
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Citing sources that lack the name of the author and date
Some referencing systems in education demand that you include the date of publication of reference material. But it is hard to add an accurate date when some reference sources keep updating. Harvard’s citation format allows you to write no date where you are not sure of the publishing date.
When the name of the author is not available, identify the organization offering that information. In other cases, write the source title instead or include the page link to the organization.
Distinguishing a bibliography from a reference list
A reference list cites all sources used while researching in order. It includes the name of the author, the date they published their work, the name of their work, and pages. It is unlike a bibliography where you only include the sources but do not cite them. You write both of them at the end of a written work.
In education, you use either of them to mean the same thing but are different when taking a closer look. When using a bibliography, you have to mention sources cited indirectly and those used directly. It is the only factor to help you distinguish the two.
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Conclusion
Students of Harvard attest to the many benefits of following the above citation techniques. It helps college students present their work to ensure your reader understands the writings better. They are detailed and arranged to ensure you find it easy to write them at the end of your work. Note that it is crucial to cite your work in the best manner, and this is by using the citation format from Harvard.
Author’s Bio:
Joshua Robinson works as an academic writer for an online agency as a thesis and dissertation writer and editor. Writing has always been his passion and he joined the agency right after his university degree. When he’s not busy writing, he pursues his hobbies – cycling, drone photography, and spends time reading books and magazines.
