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Harvard Referencing Guide

Southern Cross University Harvard Referencing Guide

This style guide is based on the Australian Government Style Manual, which replaces the Style manual for authors, editors and printers 2002, 6th edn. revised by Snooks & Co.

There is a summary document below which compares the changes between this updated version and the previous version from Snooks & Co.

Harvard and Endnote

If you are using the updated Harvard style in Endnote, please be aware Endnote does not allow for hyperlinking of electronic sources. We recommend saving the URL in the correct field in Endnote and adding the hyperlink later to your reference in Word (after you have converted to plain text).

Once you have finished the document and converted it to plain text prior to submission, you can use the URL from the reference to hyperlink the title (and remove it from the end of the reference).

What is referencing?

Referencing, or citing, acknowledges the sources of information you have used to complete your assignments and is an essential component of academic writing. 

You are required to reference any information, ideas or data that are not your own, including when you have:

  • quoted another author, word for word
  • paraphrased or summarised information
  • defined terms
  • used tables, statistics or diagrams from a source
Learning Zone Resources

Components of Harvard referencing style

Harvard style is an author-date referencing system. It has two components:

  1. In-text citation (Author date) (Author date:page number) - entry that appears in the body of your paper when you express the ideas of a researcher or author using your own words, or if a direct quote including a page number/ range.
  2. The reference list - a list containing the full bibliographic details of all the sources cited in your work, usually placed at the end of the document. Entries in the reference list are in alphabetical order by author names.

Test your knowledge with our short interactive tutorial below.