How to...
Use the Harvard reference system
Harvard referencing – also known as parenthetical referencing – is the most common referencing system in academic literature.
It's vital for students and academics to get it right, which is why we've created this guide.
When do you use the Harvard referencing system?
Use it:
- When you use a direct quotation from another author
- When you are quoting someone else’s opinion or research
Interesting characteristic:
A simple parenthetical reference is made in the body of the text. For example, 'While information sharing between the private and public sector has improved since 9/11, sharing of information requires additional enhancements (Dacey, 2002).'
The post-quote addition indicates the way by which it is also known: the author-date system.
How to reference within the text
Surname and date of publication in parenthesis, style as appropriate.
Vroom's results (1960) were quite striking
or
The results (Vroom, 1960) were quite striking
- Two authors use and (not &), i.e. (Smith and Jones, 2023)
- Three or more authors use et al., i.e. (Smith et al., 2023)
- Strings of references should list authors’ names alphabetically and should be separated with a semi-colon, i.e. (Ahmed, 2023; Brown, 2023; Cooper et al., 2020)
Emerald's Harvard referencing style
When submitting articles for publication in one of our journals, all references in your manuscript must be formatted using one of the recognised Harvard styles.
You are welcome to use the Harvard style Emerald has adopted – we’ve provided a detailed guide below – but if you want to use a different Harvard style, that’s fine, our typesetters will make any necessary changes to your manuscript if it is accepted. Please ensure you check all your citations for completeness, accuracy and consistency.
References to other publications in your text should be written as follows:
- Single author: (Adams, 2006)
- Two authors: (Adams and Brown, 2006)
- Three or more authors: (Adams et al., 2006) Please note, ‘et al' should always be written in italics.
A few other style points. These apply to both the main body of text and your final list of references.
- When referring to pages in a publication, use ‘p.(page number)’ for a single page or ‘pp.(page numbers)’ to indicate a page range.
- Page numbers should always be written out in full, e.g. 175-179, not 175-9.
- Where a colon or dash appears in the title of an article or book chapter, the letter that follows that colon or dash should always be lower case.
- When citing a work with multiple editors, use the abbreviation ‘Ed.s’.
At the end of your paper, please supply a reference list in alphabetical order using the style guidelines below. Where a DOI is available, this should be included at the end of the reference.
- Surname
- Initials
- (Year)
- Title of book
- Publisher
- Place of publication.
Example: Harrow, R. (2005), No Place to Hide, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.
- Surname
- Initials
- (Year)
- "Chapter title"
- Editor's surname
- Initials (Ed.)
- Title of book
- Publisher
- Place of publication, page numbers.
Example: Calabrese, F.A. (2005), "The early pathways: theory to practice – a continuum", Stankosky, M. (Ed.), Creating the Discipline of Knowledge Management, Elsevier, New York, NY, pp.15-20.
- Surname
- Initials
- (Year)
- "Title of article"
- Journal name
- Volume issue
- Page numbers.
Example: Capizzi, M.T. and Ferguson, R. (2005), "Loyalty trends for the twenty-first century", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp.72-80.
- Surname
- Initials
- (Year of publication)
- "Title of paper"
- Editor’s surname
- Initials (Ed.)
- Title of published proceeding which may include place and date(s) held
- Publisher
- Place of publication
- Page numbers.
Example: Wilde, S. and Cox, C. (2008), “Principal factors contributing to the competitiveness of tourism destinations at varying stages of development”, in Richardson, S., Fredline, L., Patiar A., & Ternel, M. (Ed.s), CAUTHE 2008: Where the 'bloody hell' are we?, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Qld, pp.115-118.
- Surname
- Initials
- (Year of publication)
- "Title of paper"
- Paper presented at [name of conference]
- [Date of conference]
- [Place of conference]
- Available at: URL if freely available on the internet (accessed date).
Example: Aumueller, D. (2005), "Semantic authoring and retrieval within a wiki", paper presented at the European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC), 29 May-1 June, Heraklion, Crete, available at: http://dbs.uni-leipzig.de/file/aumueller05wiksar.pdf (accessed 20 February 2007).
- Surname
- Initials
- (Year)
- "Title of article"
- Working paper [number if available]
- Institution or organization
- Place of organization
- Date.
Example: Moizer, P. (2003), "How published academic research can inform policy decisions: the case of mandatory rotation of audit appointments", working paper, Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, Leeds, 28 March.
- Title of encyclopaedia
- (Year)
- "Title of entry"
- Volume
- Edition
- Title of encyclopaedia
- Publisher
- Place of publication
- Page numbers.
Example: Encyclopaedia Britannica (1926), "Psychology of culture contact", Vol. 1, 13th ed., Encyclopaedia Britannica, London and New York, NY, pp.765-771.
(For authored entries, please refer to book chapter guidelines above)
- Surname
- Initials
- (Year)
- "Article title"
- Newspaper
- Date
- Page numbers.
Example: Smith, A. (2008), "Money for old rope", Daily News, 21 January, pp.1, 3-4.
- Newspaper
- (Year)
- "Article title"
- Date
- Page numbers.
Example: Daily News (2008), "Small change", 2 February, p.7.
- Surname
- Initials
- (Year)
- "Title of document"
- Unpublished manuscript
- Collection name
- Inventory record
- Name of archive
- Location of archive.
Example: Litman, S. (1902), "Mechanism & Technique of Commerce", unpublished manuscript, Simon Litman Papers, Record series 9/5/29 Box 3, University of Illinois Archives, Urbana-Champaign, IL.
If available online, the full URL should be supplied at the end of the reference, as well as the date that the resource was accessed.
- Surname
- Initial(s)
- (Year)
- "Title of electronic source"
- Available at: persistent URL (accessed date month year).
Example: Weida, S. and Stolley, K. (2013), “Developing strong thesis statements”, available at: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/588/1/ (accessed 20 June 2018)
Standalone URLs, i.e. those without an author or date, should be included either inside parentheses within the main text, or preferably set as a note (Roman numeral within square brackets within text followed by the full URL address at the end of the paper).
- Surname
- Initials
- (Year)
- Title of dataset
- Name of data repository
- Available at: persistent URL
- (Accessed date month year).
Example: Campbell, A. and Kahn, R.L. (2015), American National Election Study, 1948, ICPSR07218-v4, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (distributor), Ann Arbor, MI, available at: https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07218.v4 (accessed 20 June 2018).
Other points
References following quote: After the full stop for long, indented quotes. However, after the quotation marks and before the full stop at the end of a sentence.
For example: National culture is "perhaps the broadest social context within which negotiation can occur" (Carnevale, 1995, p. 310).
Use 1999a, 1999b, for example, where authors have published more than once that year.
You may want to refer to company or government documents. In this case, the organisation may become the author and the form of entry would be:
- Organisation name
- (Year of publication)
- Title of report
- Publisher and place of publication (may be same as author).
Using bibliographic software
As an example, EndNote can help you to create bibliographies by:
- Organising your references and formatting them according to a particular style.
- Working within Microsoft Word and exporting and importing from EndNote.
- Searching online bibliographic databases.
See our guidance on how to download .RIS files into EndNote.