ARU Harvard

Any in-text reference should include the authorship and the year of the work. Depending on the nature of the sentence/paragraph that is being written, references to sources may be cited in the text as described below:

Additional support on academic writing is available from Student Support on their Canvas page.

When making reference to an author's whole work in your text, it is sufficient to give the name followed by the year of publication of their work:


However, where you are mentioning a particular part of the work, and making direct or indirect reference to this, a page reference should be included:


An indirect reference

If you make reference to a work or piece of research without mentioning the author in the text then both the author's name and publication year are placed at the relevant point in the sentence or at the end of the sentence in brackets:

Where reference is made to more than one author in a sentence, and they are referred to directly, they are both cited:

List these at the relevant point in the sentence or at the end of the sentence, putting the author's name, followed by the date of publication and separated by a semi-colon and within brackets.

Where several publications from a number of authors are referred to, then the references should be cited in chronological order (i.e. earliest first):

If more than one publication from an author illustrates the same point and the works are published in different years, then the references should be cited in chronological order (i.e. earliest first):


or indirectly:

References to the work of an author that appears as a chapter, or part of a larger work, that is edited by someone else, should be cited within your text using the name of the contributory author not the editor of the whole work.


In the reference at the end of your document, you should include details of both the chapter author followed by the details of the entire work

If the work is by a recognised organisation and has no personal author then it is usually cited under the body that commissioned the work. This applies to publications by associations, companies, government departments etc. such as Department of the Environment or Royal College of Nursing.

It is acceptable to use standard abbreviations for these bodies, e.g. RCN, in your text, providing that the full name is given at the first citing with the abbreviation in brackets:

1st citation:
Author's name used in the sentence
Author's name not used in the sentence 2nd citation:
Author's name used in the sentence
Author's name not used in the sentence

Note that the full name is the preferred format in the reference list. These should provide the full name...



Some reports are written by specially convened groups or committees and can be cited by the name of the committee:
Note there are some exceptions to this such as:

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
BBC News

where the abbreviations or initials form part of the official name.

You may come across a summary of another author's work in the source you are reading, which you would like to make reference to in your own piece of work, this is called secondary referencing.

A direct in-text reference:


In this example, Brown is the work which you wish to refer to, but have not read directly for yourself. Bassett is the secondary source, where you found the summary of Brown's work.

An indirect in-text citation would be:


It is important to realise that Bassett may have taken Brown's ideas forward, and altered their original meaning. If you need to cite a secondary reference it is recommended that, where possible, you read the original source for yourself rather than rely on someone else's interpretation of a work. For this reason it is best to avoid using secondary referencing.

The reference list at the end of your document should only contain works that you have read. In the above example you would only list the work by Bassett.

When using selected information from a table or diagram, or reproducing an entire table or diagram, a reference must be made to the source.

In the following example, information is from a table found on p267 of the book Management in the media: decision makers by Robert Brown published in 2005. The original source of the data used in the table in Brown's book was the National Statistics Office, 1985.

If you quote from this table in the text of your essay - treat as secondary referencing:


If you reproduce the table in your essay: replicate the whole table, and add a citation below the table to acknowledge where the table was found

Television ownership in England and Wales (Percentage of households)
Year	1970	1980
Percentage	60	70
Source: National Statistics Office, 1985

Finally include the full details of the source, in this case the book in your reference list:

Why reference?
You need to provide references in your work so you can:
Demonstrate that you have read widely and deeply.
Show your understand a topic and who is responsible for its development.
By providing the original source you are acknowledging that you have read the work and recognise the original author(s) ideas.
Help the reader locate where you obtained each quote or idea.
A reference list is always required when you cite other people's work within your assignment.

What is referencing-Evidence?
In academic writing, to support and provide evidence for your arguments, you cite the material you have used. You do this by referring to, or citing, the authors responsible for the information. This information can come from journal or newspaper articles, government reports, books or specific chapters of books, research dissertations or theses, or be material over the internet etc.

When you cite someone's work in the text of your assignment (an in-text citation), you also need to create a full reference. This goes at the end of your work. This gives the full details for the information source so that it can be traced by anyone who reads your work.
Evidence must be from authoritive sources!

The Harvard System
There are many systems for the citation of references.
Most Faculties at Anglia Ruskin University expect students to use the Harvard style of referencing -which is an author and date system.

A two part reference system
In-text - citing within the assignment script- author's surname and year of publication
Reference list at the end of the assignment- full details of the document eg a book

In-text citation

Reference list

Remember is to be consistent in the way you record your references.

Reference List or Bibliography: What's the difference?
A Reference List includes details for everything that you cite in within your assignment. It should be in alphabetical order by author with all the different types of material in one sequence (See Section 3.1 for further details). A Reference List is always required when you cite other people's work within your assignment. Sometimes the terms reference list and bibliography are used interchangeably. Make sure you know what is required for your assignment. Check the module guide before you complete your assignment.

Some Departments may ask you to produce a Bibliography. This is a list of relevant items that you have used to help you prepare for the assignment but which are not necessarily cited in your assignment eg. general background reading to familiarise yourself with the topic.

An annotated bibliography includes the full reference to sources with the addition of notes, which summarise and evaluate the source and will be of variable length, depending on the assessment this may be an independent project or part of a larger research project.

Is referencing included in the Word Count?
Check the Academic Regulations section 6.69 for details of what is excluded from the word count of a submission. These can be accessed on the University website under the section for the Academic Office.

Additional help
We have also produced a Harvard Quick Guide (.pdf) which covers the basics of Harvard Referencing. If you are using this guide in conjunction with Refworks select the output style "Anglia Ruskin Harvard Style v6.1".