Citing and referencing in the Cardiff University Harvard

style
It is standard academic practice to acknowledge all sources of information you have used in your academic
work. As well as protecting you against charges of plagiarism, referencing others’ work enables you to
demonstrate that you have read around the topic and provides a basis on which to build your own
arguments.

The Harvard style is also sometimes called the author-date system. There are two steps to acknowledging
your sources: cite your references in the text, to show where you have drawn upon other people's work, and
then list them at the end of your work under the heading 'References'.

There are a variety of approaches to presenting the Harvard style and this guide explains how to use the
Cardiff University version of the style. Some CU Academic Schools may adopt slight variations on the
methods suggested below; please check your School or Department Handbook.

Citing your sources in the text

When you quote, paraphrase or summarize another’s words or ideas in your work, you must cite your
source. At an appropriate point in your text, provide the author’s surname and the year of publication in
round brackets. If you include the author’s name in your sentence, only provide the year of publication in
brackets:

It has been argued (Harris 2001) that the main considerations are…

It has been argued by Harris (2001) that the main considerations are…

• For edited books that contain collections of chapters written by different authors, cite the author of the
chapter and not the editor of the overall book.

• If you are citing different publications written by the same author in the same year, label the first one
cited with the letter ‘a’ after the year and the second ‘b’ etc. e.g. (Smith 2015a), (Smith 2015b). You will
need to do the same in your list of references.

• Where two authors have produced the work, include both their last names in your citation e.g. (Frey
and Osborne 2013) or Frey and Osborne (2013).

• When there are three or more authors use the abbreviation et al. (and others) after the first author’s
surname e.g. Cullingworth et al. (2016) or (Cullingworth et al. 2016).

• If you are discussing a point about which several authors have expressed similar views, include them all
in one set of brackets in chronological order of publication. List any works published in the same year in
alphabetical order e.g. (Midgley 1994; Smith 1994; UNCHS 1996; Gandelsonas 2002).
Paraphrasing your sources
The examples above cover instances where you are summarizing the overall argument or position of a book
or an article. If you are paraphrasing a particular argument or point from your source you must include page
numbers:

It has been argued (Harris 2001, pp. 20-21) that the main considerations are the scope of the
project, the cost and the duration of the work.

Directly quoting from your sources

You should aim to paraphrase information provided by an author in your own words rather than quote large
amounts of their work verbatim as this helps to demonstrate to the reader your understanding of the
information. It can be necessary to quote directly from the text when you:

• Cannot present the information more succinctly or in any other way.

• Need to present a particular portion of an author’s text in your work to analyse it.

If the quotation is short, enclose the writer’s words in double quotation marks and then cite the author, date
and page number:

Key causes of economic deprivation include low income or unemployment which are often the
result of “poor qualification levels and lack of basic skills” (Thake and Saubach 1993, p. 18).

Longer quotations should be separated from the body of your text and indented from the left-hand margin.
When you indent a quotation, there is no need to include quotation marks:

As Joia and Sanz (2005, p. 5) observe:

In specific terms, it might be imagined that the benefits of web consumer retention would
only seem to be advantageous for digital companies that are client-centric, which can
interact with these consumers. Furthermore, the mere fact of using transactional
practices, low differentiation between products and the emphasis on promotion of price
on the web would seem to increase sensitivity to price.

In the current fiercely competitive internet commerce climate it seems that these observations
might well be borne out.

If you omit some words from the quotation, you need to indicate this by means of an ellipsis (three dots), e.g.
“The state has an essential role … in the legal definition of property rights” (Deininger 2003, p. 69).

If you add some of your own words within the quotation, place your words in [square brackets] to make it
clear which are the author’s words and which are yours. Remember to quote exactly as the words appear in
the original: do not add bold or italics.

Referencing
Referencing means giving a full description of each source you have cited in the text, under the heading
References, at the end of your work:

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• Write the list in alphabetical order: write the first author’s last name followed by the author’s initials. If
there are two authors include the last names and initials of both. If there are eight or more authors, use
the abbreviation et al. after the first author’s last name and initials. Arrange any references with the
same author by the year of publication, beginning with the oldest. If you are referencing different
publications written by the same author in the same year, you will need to label the first one cited in your
text with the letter ‘a’ after the year and the second ‘b’ etc. You will need to do the same in your citations
in the text (see guidance on Citing your sources in the text on page 1.)
• Titles should be italicised for books, reports and conference proceedings. For journal articles, the title
of the journal (not the title of the journal article) should be printed in italics.
• Capitalise the first letter of each author’s last name and each initial. Also capitalise the first letter of
the publication title written in italics, the first letters of all main words in the title of a journal and all first
letters of a place name and publisher.

Examples

Author(s), Initial(s). Year. Title of book. Edition (only include this if not the Book
1st edition). Place of publication: Publisher.

Andrews, J.R. et al. 2012. Physical rehabilitation of the injured athlete. 4th ed.
Philadelphia: Elsevier Saunders.

Author(s), Initial(s). Year. Title of article. Title of Journal Volume number(Issue Journal article
number), page number(s). doi number (if available)
If an article is
Ang, L. and Taylor, B. 2005. Managing customer profitability using portfolio only available
matrices. Journal of Database Marketing and Customer Strategy Management online, issue and
12(4), pp. 298-304. page numbers
are not always
Bainsla, L. and Suresh, K.G. 2016. Equiatomic quaternary Heusler alloys: a provided and so
material perspective for spintronic applications. Applied Physics Review 3, can be omitted.
031101. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4959093 Instead, provide
the article
Jenkins, K.E.H., Sovacool, B.K., Mouter, N., Hacking, N., Burns, M-K. and
number, if
McCauley, D. 2021. The methodologies, geographies, and technologies of
energy justice: A systematic and comprehensive review. Environmental available.
Research Letters 16(4), 043009. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/abd78c

Author(s), Initial(s). Year. Title of article. Full Title of Newspaper. Day Month, Newspaper article
page number(s).

Benoit, B. 2007. G8 faces impasse on global warming. Financial Times 29 May,

p. 9.
For online-only
Campbell, D. et al. 2017. What does 2017 hold for public services? The
newspapers, omit
Guardian. 3 January. Available at:
the page number,
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/03/society-2017-
prisonshomelessness-welfare-reforms-nhs-social-care [Accessed: 4 January and add the URL
2021]. and accessed date.

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 Chapter author(s), Initial(s). Year. Title of chapter. In: Book editor(s) Book chapter from
surnames(s), Initial(s). ed(s). Title of book. Edition (only include this if not the 1st an edited book
edition). Place of publication: Publisher, page numbers of the chapter. (use this if
individual chapters
Durant, D. 2016. The undead linear model of expertise. In: Heazle, M. and Kane, are written by
different authors).
J. eds. Policy legitimacy, science and political authority: knowledge and action in
liberal democracies. London: Routledge, pp. 17-37.

Author(s), Initial(s). Year. Full title of conference paper. Full title of conference. Conference paper
Location, Date. Publisher. Available at: URL (or doi if available). Accessed: date from conference
(not required when doi used). proceedings
published on the
Ghazvini, M. et al. 2013. Optimizing size and operation of hybrid energy internet (see
systems. Proceedings of the 2013 IEEE 7th International Power Engineering and https://xerte.cardiff.
Optimization Conference (PEOCO). Langkawi; Malaysia, 3-4 June 2013. IEEE. ac.uk/play_4069
doi: 10.1109/PEOCO.2013.6564598 for further
examples).
Author, Initial(s). Year. Title of thesis. PhD Thesis, Name of University. PhD Thesis
For a Masters-level
Holborn, P.L. 2013. Heuristics for dynamic vehicle routing problems with pickups work, you would
and deliveries and time windows. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. write ‘MSc/MA
Dissertation’.

Author(s), Initial(s). Year the site was published/last updated. Title of web Web page
document/page. Available at: URL [Accessed: date].

Thompson, B. 2009. What role for TV in wired world? Available at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8115671.stm [Accessed: 4 January 2021].

Author/Organisation. Year. Full title of report. Available at: URL [Accessed: Report /
date]. Government
document
Welsh Government. 2012. A living language: a language for living. Welsh
language strategy 2012-2017. Available at: For printed reports
http://gov.wales/docs/dcells/publications/122902wls201217en.pdf [Accessed: 4 provide a place of
January 2021]. publication and
publisher instead
European Commission. 2004. First report on the implementation of the internal of a URL and
market strategy 2003-2006. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the access date.
European Communities.

For advice on referencing other sources including eBooks, DVDs, images/tables, Acts of Parliament and
blogs see the Cardiff University Harvard style examples at https://xerte.cardiff.ac.uk/play_4069

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Other points
Publication dates and editions
To find out when a book was published look at the back of the title page. This page will contain details of the
publisher and the publication date. If there is more than one date, use the latest publication date, not the
latest reprint date. This is often located next to the © symbol.

If no publication date is given put [no date] in the citation and the reference, e.g. (Smith [no date]).

The back of the title page will also tell you the edition of the book. If the book you are acknowledging is not
the first edition, state this in the full reference but not in the citation in your text. e.g.:

Kattàn-Ibarra, J. and Pountain, C.J. 2003. Modern Spanish grammar: a practical guide. 2nd ed.
London: Routledge.

Web sources
Referencing a web source can be difficult. If no author is given, web pages can be referenced by the
organisation responsible or by the title instead. A good web site should, however, have sufficient ownership
information to enable you to cite it. If no ownership is detectable, you should question whether the source is
of sufficient quality.

If an electronic source has no page numbers you can identify a quotation by giving a paragraph number in
your citation instead, e.g. (Koernig 2003, para. 17).

Secondary referencing
Where possible you should aim to reference from the original source. However, sometimes you may need to
cite an author whose work you have not personally read, but whose work is presented or summarised by the
author of a publication you have consulted. This can be shown as follows:

Rondinelli (1983), cited in Potts (2002, p. 37), describes the stages of a project… or
A process project might consist of a number of stages including experimentation and
production (Rondinelli 1983, cited in Potts 2002, p. 37).

In your references you should list the source you have actually read, i.e. Potts.

Advice on avoiding plagiarism

For guidance on plagiarism, visit the Academic misconduct pages on the student intranet
https://bit.ly/3Wdwush.

A short online tutorial ‘Avoiding plagiarism’ which covers plagiarism, paraphrasing and summarising, and
referencing; is also available at https://xerte.cardiff.ac.uk/play_4216.

For further help or information contact your nearest library. See

https://intranet.cardiff.ac.uk/students/your-study/libraries/find-a-library 5