Free Harvard Referencing Generator

What is Harvard referencing?

Harvard is an author-date system. In your text you give the author's surname and the year, such as (Jackson, 2019), and at the end you list every source alphabetically in a reference list. There is no single official Harvard guide, so universities publish their own versions.

This generator follows Cite Them Right, the Harvard guide many UK universities adopt. If your university has its own Harvard guide, compare a few entries with it. Differences are usually small, such as punctuation or where the edition goes.

Harvard in-text citations

Put the author and year in brackets after the idea you're citing, or use the author's name in your sentence with the year in brackets. Add a page number when you quote or point to a specific passage.

• One author: (Jackson, 2019) or Jackson (2019) argues that…
• Two or three authors: (Smith and Patel, 2021)
• Four or more authors: (Grady et al., 2019)
• Quotation: (Jackson, 2019, p. 45)
• No date: (World Health Organization, no date)

Common Harvard mistakes to avoid

Most lost marks come from inconsistency rather than from rare source types. Keep every entry in the same format, use the same author name in the text and the list, and include a DOI or URL for anything you read online.

Don't cite a source you haven't read. If you read about a study in a textbook, cite the textbook. Our guide on how to avoid plagiarism explains secondary referencing and paraphrasing in more detail.

Harvard referencing examples

These examples are produced by the generator above, so they show exactly what you'll get.