Harvard referencing for your university

Harvard isn’t one style written by one organisation. It’s a way of referencing: the author and the year in your text, and a full list of references at the end. Over the years, universities and publishers have written down their own versions of it. So the same book can look slightly different in two universities’ guides, and both can be right.

That’s why “Harvard referencing” on its own isn’t quite enough to go on. You need to know whose Harvard. This page shows what changes, and how to set up the right one in KanBananza.

What changes between versions

The big idea never changes: surname and year in the text, and a reference list in A to Z order. The details do. These are the ones that change most:

• The year. In brackets after the names, or after a comma or a full stop.
• Et al. In the text, all eight versions below use it for an article with five authors. In the reference list, some use it too, and some give every author’s name. Some put et al. in italics, and some don’t.
• Article titles. In single quotation marks, or with no quotation marks at all.
• Capital letters. Most give titles a capital only on the first word and on names. A few put a capital on every main word.
• Page numbers. “p. 1777”, “p.1777”, or a colon and the number.
• Links. “Available at:” and the DOI as a link, the link on its own, “doi:” and the number, or no link at all.
• Small marks. “and” or “&” before the last author, a space before the issue number, a word like “[online]”, or the volume in bold.

None of these is right or wrong on its own. What matters is that you follow your course’s version, the same way every time.

The same references in eight versions

Here’s one journal article with five authors, and one book, in eight of the versions KanBananza has. First the in-text citation, for page 1777 of the article:

And the two references, as each version writes them in the reference list:

These were made by KanBananza’s own formatter, with each version’s style file. A university can change its guide after a file was written, so check them against your handbook.

Find your version in your handbook

Your course or module handbook says which referencing style to use. Look for a section called referencing, citing or academic integrity. Your library’s website usually has a referencing guide too.

• If it says Cite Them Right, use Cite Them Right. If it only says “Harvard”, Cite Them Right is the safe choice, but ask your tutor or library which version they mean.
• If it names your university’s own Harvard, look for your university in the list below.
• If one department has its own version, look for the department’s name, like the University of York’s Department of Archaeology.

Check a version against your handbook

Before you rely on any version, test it with two sources:

1. Pick a book and a journal article from your handbook’s examples.
2. Add the same two sources in KanBananza, with + Add a source.
3. Compare them. Look at the year, the authors and et al., quotation marks and italics, page numbers and the link.
4. If they match, you’re set. If one small thing differs, follow your handbook.

Every version in KanBananza

As well as the usual Cite Them Right, KanBananza has 110 other versions of Harvard: from universities, colleges and departments, plus older editions of Cite Them Right. Here they all are, A to Z. A name that starts with “The” is listed under its next word, as it is in KanBananza.

• The same as Cite Them Right. Some entries use the Cite Them Right style file itself, so they give the same results as the default. They include De Montfort University, Oxford Brookes University, the University of Gloucestershire, the University of Sunderland and the University of Worcester.
• Older versions. Cite Them Right’s 10th and 11th editions are there for work that still uses them. So is York St John University’s version for students who started before September 2019. Leeds Metropolitan University is now Leeds Beckett University, and both versions are listed.
• Other languages. A few versions write their references in another language, like Karlstad Universitet (Svenska) or Metropolia Ammattikorkeakoulu (Suomi).

How to choose your university’s Harvard in KanBananza

The referencing style belongs to a board, so each board can have its own. Here’s how to set it:

1. Open the style chip at the top of the board’s Sources stack (it reads “Harvard ▾”), or choose Referencing style… in the stack’s menu. On a board’s first Sources stack, KanBananza asks “What’s {board name} for?”: choose See all styles.
2. Choose Harvard. A box appears: Your university (optional).
3. Type your university’s name. Every word you type has to match, in any order, so “coventry” or “west england” both work.
4. Pick your university, then choose Use. The button names the version, like “Use Coventry University Harvard”.

If you don’t type anything, the choice is Cite Them Right (the usual Harvard). If nothing matches, KanBananza says so: Cite Them Right is the safe choice, and check your handbook for small differences.

Changing version later

You can change a board’s style at any time. The details you saved don’t change, and the references on the board are written again in the new version. Anything you’ve already pasted into your essay stays as it was, so copy the reference list again after a change.

Where these versions come from

KanBananza’s style files come from the open style repository of the Citation Style Language (CSL) project, at CitationStyles.org. It’s the same library of styles that reference managers like Zotero and Mendeley use. Volunteers write and update the files, and each file names the people who wrote it. They’re shared under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA 3.0).

A university’s name on this page means there’s a style file written for its guide. It doesn’t mean the university has checked the file, or that it endorses KanBananza. Guides change, so check a few references against your own handbook, especially before a big hand-in.

For the rules themselves, with examples for each kind of source, see the Harvard referencing guide. To keep references in order while you write, see how to reference as you go and how to track sources in each chapter.