how to harvard reference in essay

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Quick guide to Harvard referencing (Cite Them Right)

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There are different versions of the Harvard referencing style. This guide is a quick introduction to the commonly-used Cite Them Right version. You will find further guidance available through the OU Library on the Cite Them Right Database .

For help and support with referencing and the full Cite Them Right guide, have a look at the Library’s page on referencing and plagiarism . If you need guidance referencing OU module material you can check out which sections of Cite Them Right are recommended when referencing physical and online module material .

This guide does not apply to OU Law undergraduate students . If you are studying a module beginning with W1xx, W2xx or W3xx, you should refer to the Quick guide to Cite Them Right referencing for Law modules .

Table of contents

In-text citations and full references.

• Secondary referencing
• Page numbers
• Citing multiple sources published in the same year by the same author

Full reference examples

Referencing consists of two elements:

• in-text citations, which are inserted in the body of your text and are included in the word count. An in-text citation gives the author(s) and publication date of a source you are referring to. If the publication date is not given, the phrase 'no date' is used instead of a date. If using direct quotations or you refer to a specific section in the source you also need the page number/s if available, or paragraph number for web pages.
• full references, which are given in alphabetical order in reference list at the end of your work and are not included in the word count. Full references give full bibliographical information for all the sources you have referred to in the body of your text.

To see a reference list and intext citations check out this example assignment on Cite Them Right .

Difference between reference list and bibliography

a reference list only includes sources you have referred to in the body of your text

a bibliography includes sources you have referred to in the body of your text AND sources that were part of your background reading that you did not use in your assignment

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Examples of in-text citations

You need to include an in-text citation wherever you quote or paraphrase from a source. An in-text citation consists of the last name of the author(s), the year of publication, and a page number if relevant. There are a number of ways of incorporating in-text citations into your work - some examples are provided below. Alternatively you can see examples of setting out in-text citations in Cite Them Right .

Note: When referencing a chapter of an edited book, your in-text citation should give the author(s) of the chapter.

Online module materials

(Includes written online module activities, audio-visual material such as online tutorials, recordings or videos).

When referencing material from module websites, the date of publication is the year you started studying the module.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication/presentation) 'Title of item'. Module code: Module title . Available at: URL of VLE (Accessed: date).

OR, if there is no named author:

The Open University (Year of publication/presentation) 'Title of item'. Module code: Module title . Available at: URL of VLE (Accessed: date).

Rietdorf, K. and Bootman, M. (2022) 'Topic 3: Rare diseases'. S290: Investigating human health and disease . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1967195 (Accessed: 24 January 2023).

The Open University (2022) ‘3.1 The purposes of childhood and youth research’. EK313: Issues in research with children and young people . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1949633&section=1.3 (Accessed: 24 January 2023).

You can also use this template to reference videos and audio that are hosted on your module website:

The Open University (2022) ‘Video 2.7 An example of a Frith-Happé animation’. SK298: Brain, mind and mental health . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=2013014&section=4.9.6 (Accessed: 22 November 2022).

The Open University (2022) ‘Audio 2 Interview with Richard Sorabji (Part 2)’. A113: Revolutions . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1960941&section=5.6 (Accessed: 22 November 2022).

Note: if a complete journal article has been uploaded to a module website, or if you have seen an article referred to on the website and then accessed the original version, reference the original journal article, and do not mention the module materials. If only an extract from an article is included in your module materials that you want to reference, you should use secondary referencing, with the module materials as the 'cited in' source, as described above.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of message', Title of discussion board , in Module code: Module title . Available at: URL of VLE (Accessed: date).

Fitzpatrick, M. (2022) ‘A215 - presentation of TMAs', Tutor group discussion & Workbook activities , in A215: Creative writing . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/forumng/discuss.php?d=4209566 (Accessed: 24 January 2022).

Note: When an ebook looks like a printed book, with publication details and pagination, reference as a printed book.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) Title . Edition if later than first. Place of publication: publisher. Series and volume number if relevant.

For ebooks that do not contain print publication details

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) Title of book . Available at: DOI or URL (Accessed: date).

Example with one author:

Bell, J. (2014) Doing your research project . Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Adams, D. (1979) The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy . Available at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/kindle-ebooks (Accessed: 23 June 2021).

Example with two or three authors:

Goddard, J. and Barrett, S. (2015) The health needs of young people leaving care . Norwich: University of East Anglia, School of Social Work and Psychosocial Studies.

Example with four or more authors:

Young, H.D. et al. (2015) Sears and Zemansky's university physics . San Francisco, CA: Addison-Wesley.

Note: You can choose one or other method to reference four or more authors (unless your School requires you to name all authors in your reference list) and your approach should be consistent.

Note: Books that have an editor, or editors, where each chapter is written by a different author or authors.

Surname of chapter author, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of chapter or section', in Initial. Surname of book editor (ed.) Title of book . Place of publication: publisher, Page reference.

Franklin, A.W. (2012) 'Management of the problem', in S.M. Smith (ed.) The maltreatment of children . Lancaster: MTP, pp. 83–95.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of article', Title of Journal , volume number (issue number), page reference.

If accessed online:

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of article', Title of Journal , volume number (issue number), page reference. Available at: DOI or URL (if required) (Accessed: date).

Shirazi, T. (2010) 'Successful teaching placements in secondary schools: achieving QTS practical handbooks', European Journal of Teacher Education , 33(3), pp. 323–326.

Shirazi, T. (2010) 'Successful teaching placements in secondary schools: achieving QTS practical handbooks', European Journal of Teacher Education , 33(3), pp. 323–326. Available at: https://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/log... (Accessed: 27 January 2023).

Barke, M. and Mowl, G. (2016) 'Málaga – a failed resort of the early twentieth century?', Journal of Tourism History , 2(3), pp. 187–212. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/1755182X.2010.523145

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of article', Title of Newspaper , Day and month, Page reference.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of article', Title of Newspaper , Day and month, Page reference if available. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Mansell, W. and Bloom, A. (2012) ‘£10,000 carrot to tempt physics experts’, The Guardian , 20 June, p. 5.

Roberts, D. and Ackerman, S. (2013) 'US draft resolution allows Obama 90 days for military action against Syria', The Guardian , 4 September. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/04/syria-strikes-draft-resolut... (Accessed: 9 September 2015).

Surname, Initial. (Year that the site was published/last updated) Title of web page . Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Organisation (Year that the page was last updated) Title of web page . Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Robinson, J. (2007) Social variation across the UK . Available at: https://www.bl.uk/british-accents-and-dialects/articles/social-variation... (Accessed: 21 November 2021).

The British Psychological Society (2018) Code of Ethics and Conduct . Available at: https://www.bps.org.uk/news-and-policy/bps-code-ethics-and-conduct (Accessed: 22 March 2019).

Note: Cite Them Right Online offers guidance for referencing webpages that do not include authors' names and dates. However, be extra vigilant about the suitability of such webpages.

Surname, Initial. (Year) Title of photograph . Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Kitton, J. (2013) Golden sunset . Available at: https://www.jameskittophotography.co.uk/photo_8692150.html (Accessed: 21 November 2021).

stanitsa_dance (2021) Cossack dance ensemble . Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/COI_slphWJ_/ (Accessed: 13 June 2023).

Note: If no title can be found then replace it with a short description.

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Guide to Harvard Referencing

• 33-minute read
• 22nd June 2023

Note: This is an advanced guide to Harvard, useful for professional editors, academics, and students looking to bump up their grades with flawless referencing! If you’re new to Harvard and feel a little lost, check out our introduction to Harvard referencing .  For extra help from Harvard experts, try our student proofreading services  for free, or learn more about our  editing services for businesses .

Harvard referencing refers to the general citation style of listing a source’s author and date in parentheses within the text, with a corresponding entry in a reference list at the end of the work.

If a customer says they’ve been asked to use the Harvard referencing style, it could be one of many variations. You should check if a particular version has been specified. If there isn’t, use this guide to apply the version we use, but add a note for the customer to check with their institution. Also, pay attention to the requested dialect. Quotation marks, for instance, will vary depending on whether the citation is written in US or UK English .

In-text Citations: The Basics

Essentially, the surname of the author of the source and the year of its publication must be given in the text. If it is not known when a source was published, it must be indicated with “no date” (abbreviated to “n.d.” ) in place of the year.

If a direct quote is made from a source, then the in-text citation must also include the page number (or paragraph) of the quote. For page numbers, the basic form is “p.” for a single page and “pp.” for quotes spanning multiple pages. For paragraphs, use “para.” (e.g., for websites that don’t have pages); for long documents without page numbers, you can choose to include the section or chapter number or name (e.g., Smith, 1998, Section title, para. 3), but do check with your institution’s style guide.

Those key pieces of information are given in parentheses in the same font as the surrounding text and separated by commas. The bracketed citation should immediately follow the portion of the sentence that comes from the external source. If the author is mentioned in the sentence, then the bracketed citation (which will then just include the year of publication) will need to follow directly after the author’s name.

In-text citations can take three basic forms :

• Something else (Carter, 1940) is relevant to this example.
• Carter (1940) said something relevant to this example.
• “This is relevant” (Carter, 1940, p. 64).

If the source doesn’t come from an author with a surname – a corporate body, for example – then the name of that organization takes the place of the surname:

• This guide on Harvard referencing advises… (Proofed, 2022).

These basic rules will need to be adapted to various circumstances, which we will discuss next.

Multiple Authors

When there are multiple authors of the same work, the main thing to remember is that in-text citations name one or two authors. For three or more authors, only the first is mentioned, followed by “et al.” (in which case, note that a period is used in addition to a comma because “al.” is an abbreviation).

NB: When it comes to the full list of references at the end, all authors – some institutions put a cap on this, but others simply say to consult the course tutor – should be listed.

When both authors are named, the in-text citation will spell out “and” rather than use an ampersand (“&”).

Same Name, Same Year

An exception to only giving the surname of the author is if there are authors with the same surname and publications from the same year. In that case, the author’s initials should be added for clarity . Whether that initial comes before or after the surname, and whether or not it should have a period, will depend upon the university’s style guide. Our general approach is to put a period after an initial, as you would in any writing, but you should go for consistency within the document and flag the issue with a comment.

Multiple Works, Same Author

More frequently, you may come across citations for more than one work by the same author. If they were from different years but cited together, there is no need for the author’s name to be repeated. The years of publication are then listed in reverse chronological order (i.e., the newest comes first) with the years separated by semicolons . Each individual source is then listed in the reference list.

NB: When it comes to the full list of references at the end, the order of sources by the same author is chronological (i.e., with the earliest first).

If, however, the author has multiple works from the same year, a lowercase letter should be added to the year to differentiate the sources. The lettering should be alphabetical in the order that the sources are cited in the text .

NB: The crucial thing to check here is that the same system is reflected in the reference list at the end.

Citing Multiple Sources

If there is more than one source cited in support of a statement (e.g., multiple works by the same author), they will need to be cited in reverse chronological order and separated by semicolons . If the list includes works from the same year , they should be cited alphabetically by author .

NB: If the customer has consistently cited references in chronological order, then you should simply add a note for them to check whether this is what their university requires. Given the many variations on the Harvard theme, this could well be the case.

What if There Isn’t an Author?

You may see cases where the title of the source is given in place of the author. This is likely because the source has no named author (whether individual or corporate). In these cases, using the title of the source (the book, collection, etc.) is an acceptable variation, but it’s advisable to flag it with a comment to make sure.

Secondary Citations

If you’re presented with a reference to a work within a work (i.e., the customer hasn’t read the original but has come across it as a reference in another), this is a secondary citation.

• You should leave a comment suggesting that the customer try to find the original source and refer to that.
• Include the author and year of the original within the in-text citation as well as the author and year of the available source.
• Include in the Reference List only the source that has actually been read (the “available source”).

The Reference List (Or Is It a Bibliography?)

The Harvard style requires a full list of all the sources that are cited within the text to be provided at the end of the document. The standard formatting requirement is to include it on a separate page titled Reference List .

Sometimes, a university will require a list of all the sources considered within a piece of work, even if they haven’t all been cited. This type of list is called a Bibliography .

• The two terms – Reference List and Bibliography – are often confused. When proofreading references, it’s best to flag the issue with a comment pointing out the distinction and recommending that the particular requirements of the university are checked.

In either case, the sources are listed alphabetically by the first item in the source’s full reference (usually the author’s surname). A corporate author or title of a work (if that comes first) starting with “The,” “A,” or “An” should be listed as if that word weren’t there (e.g., a source from the Open University would be listed under “O,” not “T”).

• The easiest fix that you may need to make to a reference list (of whatever description) is ensuring that it is sorted alphabetically by the first item in each reference. This can be done automatically using a simple tool in Word .
• Where there are multiple sources by the same author, they should be listed chronologically with the earliest first (note that this is the reverse of the principle for in-text citations). NB: If the customer has presented the list consistently, don’t make any amendments. Just leave a comment for them to check that their approach is in line with the expectations of their university.

Detailing the sources in a reference list is probably the biggest cause of headaches for both writers and proofreaders. This is because the particular requirements differ depending on the type of source – and there are many .

The information itself is usually straightforward; it’s the formatting that gets tricky. In general terms, you could use the following as a checklist:

Let’s start with the most common types and see how those translate from in-text citations to full reference listings so that you can easily recognize them and, if necessary, fix them.

Printed Media

These sources are most likely to follow the general checklist given above. Within the list, “year of publication” is abbreviated to “year.” For particular issues relating to authors and years, please refer to the notes on in-text citations.

Audiovisual Media

Here’s where things start to get different.

• For movies, TV shows, and the like, the title of the work is foremost and determines the position of the source in the list of full references.
• It’s the director of a film who is credited, not the writer, and they get full billing (i.e., full name); it may help to remember that the big Oscar awards are for Best Film and Best Director, not (sadly) the film’s writer.
• The type of audiovisual media is given in square brackets after the title, followed by a period.
• The distribution details take the place of the publishing details.

Online Sources

Some additional information is required here, most commonly:

• As with audiovisual media, an indication in square brackets that the source is online.
• The URL where the source is available.
• The date when your customer accessed the source – because websites tend to be updated. This information is given in parentheses and comes last in the full reference. The final period is outside the closing bracket.

Some Specifics

With a wealth of sources available, there will always be something that doesn’t quite fit with the general principals. At the end of this guide is an alphabetical list of some you may come across and how they may appear ( remembering that there may be variations between universities ).

The aim of the list is to provide a baseline so that you know the main elements to expect. Consistency of presentation is key, as is the use of the commenting tool to point out where information may be missing – or the format may require checking with the university’s own preferences.

What to Do When the Customer’s Approach Differs

To summarize, the Harvard referencing style can be – and is – interpreted in a wide variety of ways. We’ve set out the Proofed standard approach, so here’s what to do when it almost inevitably differs from the approach taken by the customer:

• Look to see whether the customer has provided a specific version of Harvard to follow.
• If so, find that online (almost every university makes its referencing guide available on its website, and those are generally easy to search for).
• Follow the customer’s lead unless it’s inconsistent, goes against the version they’ve specified, or is otherwise contrary to the Harvard approach (e.g., if they use footnotes or don’t provide the author–date information within the text).
• Acknowledge that variations to the Harvard style exist. Apply consistency to the document and leave a comment to explain the approach you have taken.
• Contact Editor Support if you are still unsure.

But What About…?

• As may be seen in the listing for an encyclopedia, this should be recorded as an additional piece of information within the full reference for the source (it will not affect the in-text citation). The edition number (abbreviated to “edn”) should come after the main title of the book, be separated from the surrounding details by commas, and formatted with a roman font:
• Start on a new line.
• Be indented as a block (hence the name).
• Not have quote marks.
• Be preceded by a colon.
• If the author’s name is in the introductory text, then the year of publication goes in brackets right after the name.
• Otherwise, the author–year citation will be included in round brackets after the block quote.
• Where the author–year citation isn’t mentioned in the text, authorities vary on whether the citation should be on a separate line, left indented to match the block quote, right indented, or at the end of the quote before the period (as it would appear if in the regular text). In such cases, first check for consistency within the document, and then leave a comment for the customer to check that the approach taken is in line with their university’s preference.
• With the word “Figure” or “Table” (with a capital letter).
• Followed by a number, starting with 1, in the order that they appear (NB: in a dissertation or thesis, the number may refer to the chapter in which it appears – e.g., Figure 3.5 may refer to the fifth figure in Chapter 3).
• Then a title (caption) for the figure or table.
• Followed by the in-text citation for the reference of the source.
• The source of the figure or table (e.g., journal, book, website) should then be given in the reference list.

What Does the Proofreading Service Include for Referencing?

• Check that references and citations are in accordance with the customer’s version of Harvard. When in doubt, go for consistency and leave a note to explain your approach.
• It is the job of the customer to make sure that all the citations appear in the reference list and vice versa, but if you spot that something is missing, point it out with a comment.
• There is no need to check that the dates and spellings of author names match for each in-text citation and corresponding full reference; however, if you do see an issue along these lines, point it out in a comment and ask the customer to check the original source.
• Check whether all the expected elements of a full reference are present (which will depend upon the type of source), including the relevant font style and correct use of quotes, capitalization, and italics. Note any missing information in a comment for the customer.
• If available, check with the customer’s version of Harvard to see how the reference list or bibliography should be presented (e.g., title, on a separate page, with hanging indents).

What Does the Formatting Service Include for Referencing?

• Harvard doesn’t have any specific formatting requirements, so follow the Proofed house style unless otherwise indicated in the customer’s style guide.

What Falls Outside the Scope of Both?

The main purpose of referencing is for writers to avoid plagiarism. For that same reason, there is a limit on what can be done for a customer.

• Do not add or change information within an in-text citation or reference unless there is an obvious typo.
• Do not add citations or references, even if they seem to be missing; leave a comment instead.
• Don’t fill in missing information; leave a comment about what appears to be missing and provide information about how the reference could be written to accommodate it (e.g., “n.d.” if the date is unknown).
• There is no need to check URLs; if they appear incomplete, leave a comment for the customer to check them.
• You should read through direct quotes to check that the surrounding text leads to the quote appropriately and to correct any typos or obvious errors, such as additional spaces. If there looks to be an error or inconsistency, leave a comment for the customer to check the original source; it would be risky to try to fix it without access to the source itself.
• Don’t guess at which of two inconsistent names or dates may be correct; point the anomaly out to the customer and ask them to check the source.

List of Example References

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Harvard Style Citation and Referencing: a Detailed Guide from Experts

Defining What is Harvard Citation Style and Referencing

From the first time we put our pen on paper, we're taught how important it is to give credit where it's needed. Whether a research paper outline or a doctoral dissertation, proper references, and citations are the foundation of academic work in any field. And when it's time to cite sources, there's one style that stands out: Harvard style. In this article, we will explore the nuances of Harvard style citations and help you navigate the complexity of this important academic tool.

Developed by the Harvard Graduate School for Education, the Harvard style citation is a Ferrari of citations designed for the ultimate advantage of your research. Harvard Style, like a sports car, is streamlined, precise, and designed for speed. From its inception at Harvard at the beginning 20th century, this style has become a standard of academic reference and has been praised for its clarity and sophistication.

Intended to be simple and accessible to all, the Harvard style quickly became popular in the mid-20s and is based upon using the date-author citation in the document text, together with the detailed list of references at the document's end. Nowadays that it has gained universal acknowledgment, Harvard referencing is a critical instrument for scientists in multiple disciplines, owing to its simple yet tasteful design that has endured for many years.

Importance of Using Harvard Style Citation Properly

Using Harvard style citations and references correctly is like putting a hidden weapon in the arsenal of your academics. It'll be more than just following rules; it'll be about proving your credibility and that your work is grounded in solid evidence and reliable sources. Therefore, proper citations and references are crucial for a wide range of purposes:

• First, by acknowledging your sources, you avoid plagiarism and demonstrate that you've taken the necessary precautions and are not attempting to pass on someone else's work as yours.
• Secondly, Harvard citation style and references allow readers to track their sources and verify their assertions. This is especially relevant in fields in which precision and accuracy are important, e.g., in the fields of science and technology.
• Thirdly, using Harvard style citations and references shows you belong to a larger academic community and know their standards and norms. By conforming to the customary citation and referencing guidelines, you can communicate that you are a reliable and trustworthy scholar who values their work.

Before finding out more of the important details about the Harvard referencing style, you might want to delegate your ' Do My Math Homework ' request to our experts!

Key Features of Harvard Style Citation and Referencing

Below are a few of the principal characteristics of Harvard Style that make it such a popular choice among scholars:

In-text Citation: For in-text citations, the Harvard citation style adopts a straightforward author-date structure, implying that, after a direct quotation or paraphrase, you should provide the author's last name and the date of publication in parenthesis. This way, your readers can quickly identify your sources of information without looking for a specific reference list.

Example 1: There is considerable debate within the literature on sustainable development about the relationship between sustainable development and economic growth (Mitlin, 1992)

Reference List: A full reference list with complete bibliographic details for each work you referenced in your text is included at the conclusion of your paper. Reference lists in Harvard Style must follow a certain structure containing the author's name, the work's title, the year of publication, and other details.

Example: Mitlin, D., 1992. Sustainable development: A guide to literature. Environment and urbanization , 4 (1), pp.111-124.

Consistency : Consistency is one of the hallmarks of Harvard Style, which means you should adhere to the same structure for all citations and references and include any relevant information.

Flexibility : Books, journal articles, web pages, and other sources can all be formatted in Harvard Style. Depending on the kind of source, it also allows differences in the citation style.

How to Use Harvard Style Citation and Referencing

As was already established, references and citations in the Harvard style are commonly accepted. Therefore, you should take the required actions to ensure accurate citation. Let's adhere to these basic guidelines to give credit where credit is due:

Step 1: Understand the Basics

The Harvard style requires a list of references at the end of the document that contains all the information about the sources and a text citation that includes the author's name and the year of publication. Before you begin, be sure you understand these fundamental principles.

Step 2: Collect Your Sources

Before you begin, gather all the resources you'll need for the paper, such as books and websites. Make sure to write down all the pertinent details for each source, such as the author's name and title, the publication date, and the publisher.

Step 3: Create In-Text Citations

In-text references must be used when using someone else's words or ideas in your writing. Usually, the cited passage or paraphrase is followed by a Harvard style in text citation. As long as it is obvious to whom it refers, it comes at the conclusion of the pertinent phrase. For example, (Neal, 2022).

Step 4: Create a Reference List

Make a list of references towards the conclusion where you can discover all the information about each source. The author's last name and first initial appear at the top of the reference entry. Only the first word of the title and any proper nouns are capitalized. Similar to in-text citations, only the first author should be listed when there are four or more; beyond that, add 'et al.' to the end of the list.

Step 5: Check Your Formatting

Make sure your references are properly formatted in accordance with Harvard Style Guidelines. This may include:

• Use a standard font such as Times New Roman or Arial in size 12.
• Set margins to 1 inch on all sides.
• Use double spacing throughout the document, including the reference list.
• Place a header on each page, which should include the title of your paper and the page number, located in the top right-hand corner.
• Make sure to include a title page with your paper title, your name, the name of your institution, and the date of submission. Or you can always find out more on how to title an essay from our expert writers!
• Use headings as a way to organize and simplify your paper with bold or italic letters.
• Include in-text citations
• Include a reference list at the end of your paper.

By selecting the button below, you may get a template from our research paper writing services that includes a sample of an essay cover page, headers, subheadings, and a reference list.

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Common Errors and Pitfalls in Using Harvard Style

While the Harvard Style citation may seem straightforward, there are several common errors and pitfalls that students and researchers should be aware of to ensure they are using the style correctly.

One common error is forgetting to include page numbers when referencing a source. Harvard style requires that page numbers be included when citing a direct quote or paraphrasing from a source. Failing to include page numbers can make it difficult for readers to locate the information being cited and can result in lost points on an assignment or paper.

Another pitfall is the improper formatting of references. Harvard style requires specific formatting for different types of sources, such as italicizing book titles and using quotation marks for article titles. Failure to follow these guidelines can result in a loss of points and confusion for readers.

Another common mistake is inconsistency in formatting and citation styles. It is important to use the same style throughout a document, including in-text citations and the reference list. Mixing different styles can make the document difficult to read and may result in a lower grade. And, if this problem sounds familiar and you wish 'if only somebody could rewrite my essay ,' get our essay writing help in a flash!

Finally, another pitfall to avoid is relying too heavily on online Harvard referencing generator tools. They can be useful for creating references, although they are not always reliable and might not adhere to the exact rules of Harvard style. To guarantee that the references produced by these tools are accurate and in the right format, it is crucial to carefully review and adjust them.

Meanwhile, if you're not really feeling like dealing with the nitty-gritty of referencing your character analysis essay using Harvard style, no sweat! We've got your back on that one too.

Key Takeaways

In conclusion, knowing what is Harvard citation style and how to properly cite sources using this style is an essential ability for any student or researcher writing academically. The main lesson to be learned is that accurate citation not only shows academic honesty but also strengthens the authority of your work and backs up your claims. You may make sure that your writing is correctly referenced, structured, and accepted in the academic world by including these important lessons in it.

And if you feel like you need extra help, our expert paper writing services will provide you with a high-quality Harvard style citation example paper that demonstrates correct citation and formatting, giving you the knowledge and confidence to cite sources effectively in your own work!

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Harvard Referencing Guide

There are various referencing styles, such as APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard referencing style. The Harvard style of referencing for citing information sources is one of the most commonly used referencing systems in universities around the world. There are two types of citations included in the Harvard referencing system: the in-text citations and the reference list.

In-text citations are used when directly paraphrasing or quoting a source. In-text citations are placed within the working body and contain the author’s name and the year of publication. On the other hand, reference lists are usually placed at the end of the academic paper and contain complete citations for the researcher’s academic reference resources.

This Harvard referencing guide will help you understand the basics of in-text citations and reference lists in the Harvard style of referencing. It also provides information on compiling references with the Harvard referencing style, cites electronic sources , and cites government publications and conferences and presentations .

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There are various referencing styles, such as APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard referencing style. In this article, we are going to talk about the Harvard referencing style.

The purpose of a reference or bibliography list is to enable the readers to trace the primary sources easily. Different types of sources require

If you are using any electronic sources such as images, audios, videos, webpages, etc., you need to acknowledge the sources to avoid plagiarism.

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Write it Right - A guide to Harvard referencing style

• Referencing

The Harvard Referencing Style

What is citing, citing page numbers in text - some rules, using direct quotations, how to cite in the body of your text, secondary referencing, using charts, images, figures in the body of your text.

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The Harvard referencing style (also known as ‘author-date’) is commonly used at TUS Midwest. There are two elements to the Harvard referencing style. This means when you reference using the Harvard system, you have to do two things: 

• Include an author-date citation each time you refer to a source in the body of your essay. Note: also, include the page number if it is a direct quotation.
• Compile a complete reference list of all the sources that you cited throughout your essay on a separate page at the end of your essay. Note: this list must be in alphabetical order according to the first author's surname.

In summary, when you are writing up your college projects, you must remember to acknowledge the other authors you are using in two places:

• in the text of your assignment (in-text citations), and,
• at the end of your assignment (reference list).

If you have used the author’s exact words (direct quotation) or the author’s ideas (paraphrasing) from a book, journal article, etc. you must acknowledge this in your text. This is referred to as in-text citing:

In-text citations give the brief (abbreviated) details of the work that you are quoting from, or to which you are referring in your text. These citations will then link to the full reference in the reference list at the end of your work, which is arranged in alphabetical order by author (Pears and Shields, 2019, p.7).

Author prominent citing  This citation method gives prominence to the author’s surname (family name) as part of your sentence with the date and page number in parentheses (round brackets).  Note : The page number is necessary if you are quoting directly. 

Information prominent citing This citation method gives prominence to the information with the required referencing details in parentheses at the end of the citation.

Author(s) name

• For one author, use surname of author only. There is no need to include initials. Example - (Barr, 2016, p. 22)
• For two authors, use both authors’ surnames linked by ‘and’.  Example - (Tabrizi and Rahmani, 2021, p. 13).
• For three or more authors, use the first author’s surname and et al.   Example - (O'Neill  et al ., 2019, p. 120). 
• Give full four digits for the year.

Quotations should be used sparingly, selected carefully, used in context, integrated into your text, and reproduced exactly (including the words, spelling, punctuation, capitalisation and paraphrasing of the original writer).  Short quotations Short quotations (fewer than 30 words) should:

• be incorporated into your sentence without disrupting the flow of your paragraph,
• have single quotation marks,
• have the full stop after the citation, and,
• keep the same font size.

Long quotations   Long quotations (more than 30 words) should:

• be introduced in your own words,
• begin on a new line,
• be fully indented by default (i.e. 1.27 cm) from the left margin,
• be in single line spacing.

Separate the quotation from the lead-in statement with one blank line. The lead-in statement ends with a colon(:). Separate the quotation from the text that follows it with one blank line.

Quotation marks

• Quotation marks are not used for longer quotations.
• When using an information prominent long quotation, the full stop is included after the last sentence of the quotation after the citation.

Words omitted from quotations

• To omit unnecessary words from quotations, use an ellipsis … (3 dots). Note: Make sure the quotation still has the same meaning.
• If the quotation does not begin at the start of a sentence, an ellipsis should be used to convey this.

When you cite someone else’s work, you must state the author/editor and the date of publication. If the work has two authors/editors, you must cite both names. Don't forget to include page numbers for direct quotations.  There is no need to include the title, place of publication etc. These details are listed in the reference list at the end of your essay .  

For a work that has three or more authors/editors, the abbreviation, et al . is used after the first author’s name. 

For a work that has the same author/editor, and was written in the same year as an earlier citation, you must use a lower case letter after the date to differentiate between the two. 

Citing from books with chapters written by different authors  Some books may contain chapters written by several different authors. In this case the author who wrote the chapter should be cited not the editor of the book.

If you are reading a source by one author, for example, Garvey (2019) and he cites or quotes the work of another author, for example, Taylor (1996) you may cite or quote the original work, Taylor (1996) as a secondary reference. Note: It is always best practice to try and locate the original reference and secondary references should only be used if it is difficult to access the original work

Example In-text citation: Taylor’s observations (1996, cited in Garvey, 2019) are based on a genuine respect for nature.  OR  ‘Every living thing has a good of its own’ (Taylor, 1996, quoted in Garvey, 2019, p. 53).

Reference List: Garvey, J. (2019) The ethics of climate change: right and wrong in a warming world . London: Continuum.

Charts, images, figures etc. should be treated as direct quotations in that the author/editor, year and page number should be acknowledged in-text, and the full reference to the item should be listed in the reference list. 

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To be made up of:

• Student name.
• Year of submission (in round brackets).
• Title of essay/assignment (in single quotation marks).
• Module code: module title (in italics).
• Institution.
• Unpublished essay/assignment.

In-text citation:

(Jubb, 2014)

Reference List:

Jubb, A. (2014). 'Did the Allies win the battle of the Atlantic because of superior air power?',  L252: War Studies . University of Birmingham. Unpublished essay. 

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• Reference a Website in Harvard Style | Templates & Examples

Reference a Website in Harvard Style | Templates & Examples

Published on 19 May 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on 7 November 2022.

To reference a website in Harvard style , include the name of the author or organization, the year of publication, the title of the page, the URL, and the date on which you accessed the website.

Different formats are used for other kinds of online source, such as articles, social media posts and multimedia content. You can generate accurate Harvard references for all kinds of sources with our free reference generator:

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Online articles, social media posts, images, videos and podcasts, referencing websites with missing information, frequently asked questions about harvard website references.

Blog posts and online newspaper articles are both referenced in the same format: include the title of the article in quotation marks, the name of the blog or newspaper in italics, and the date of publication.

The format for a magazine article is slightly different. Instead of a precise date, include the month, season, or volume and issue number, depending on what the magazine uses to identify its issues.

The URL and access date information are included only when the article is online-exclusive.

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To reference posts from social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, include the username and the platform in square brackets. Write usernames the way they appear on the platform, with the same capitalization and symbols.

If the post has a title, use it (in quotation marks). If the post is untitled, use the text of the post instead. Do not use italics. If the text is long, you can replace some of it with an ellipsis.

Online content is referenced differently if it is in video, audio or image form.

To cite an image found online, such as an artwork, photograph, or infographic, include the image format (e.g. ‘Photograph’, ‘Oil on canvas’) in square brackets.

Online videos, such as those on YouTube, Instagram, Vimeo and Dailymotion, are cited similarly to general web pages. Where a video is uploaded under the name of an individual, write the name in the usual format. Otherwise, write the username of the uploader as it appears on the site.

If you want to locate a specific point in a video in an in-text citation, you can do so using a timestamp.

For a podcast reference, you just need the name of the individual episode, not of the whole series. The word ‘Podcast’ is always included in square brackets. As with videos, you can use a timestamp to locate a specific point in the in-text citation.

Online sources are often missing information you would usually need for a citation: author, title or date. Here’s what to do when these details are not available.

When a website doesn’t list a specific individual author, you can usually find a corporate author to list instead. This is the organisation responsible for the source:

In cases where there’s no suitable corporate author (such as online dictionaries or Wikis), use the title of the source in the author position instead:

In Harvard style, when a source doesn’t list a specific date of publication, replace it with the words ‘no date’ in both the in-text citation and the reference list. You should still include an access date:

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

It’s important to assess the reliability of information found online. Look for sources from established publications and institutions with expertise (e.g. peer-reviewed journals and government agencies).

The CRAAP test (currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, purpose) can aid you in assessing sources, as can our list of credible sources . You should generally avoid citing websites like Wikipedia that can be edited by anyone – instead, look for the original source of the information in the “References” section.

You can generally omit page numbers in your in-text citations of online sources which don’t have them. But when you quote or paraphrase a specific passage from a particularly long online source, it’s useful to find an alternate location marker.

For text-based sources, you can use paragraph numbers (e.g. ‘para. 4’) or headings (e.g. ‘under “Methodology”’). With video or audio sources, use a timestamp (e.g. ‘10:15’).

In Harvard referencing, up to three author names are included in an in-text citation or reference list entry. When there are four or more authors, include only the first, followed by ‘ et al. ’

A Harvard in-text citation should appear in brackets every time you quote, paraphrase, or refer to information from a source.

The citation can appear immediately after the quotation or paraphrase, or at the end of the sentence. If you’re quoting, place the citation outside of the quotation marks but before any other punctuation like a comma or full stop.

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If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

Caulfield, J. (2022, November 07). Reference a Website in Harvard Style | Templates & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 15 April 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/referencing/harvard-website-reference/

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Harvard Style & Format: A 5-Minute Guide + Samples

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The Harvard referencing style is a widely used system for citing and referencing sources in academic writing. It provides a consistent and standardized format for acknowledging the works of others that you have used in your research.

Struggling to remember tricky peculiarities of Harvard style referencing and formatting? Don’t worry, you have come across a helpful material. In this article, you will find the basics of Harvard style formatting which would be useful for your academic progress. This easy but detailed Harvard style guide contains all format requirements for a paper and some structural tips. Besides, it covers general rules on how to cite your sources properly in your text. Feel free to use these guidelines for your academic endeavors. Let us go through details of Harvard style referencing and formatting together!  

Reference Harvard Style: Basics

Harvard style is an author-date system of referencing. It’s similar to an  APA paper format  in terms of general formatting of pages and text. But this style follows its own rules for bibliography and in-text citations formatting. Harvard style is typically used for essays in such academic disciplines:  

• Behavioral Sciences
• Philosophy.

But this doesn’t mean you can’t use this paper format in other areas of study. The general rule is to put references to your sources in round brackets. Specify author’s name and publication year. These references should come after your quotes (direct or indirect) in the end of a respective sentence or paragraph. Full details about all sources you have used should be provided at the end of your work. This section should be named ‘Reference List’. Buy coursework or any other type of research paper that will be referenced for you by our experts. 

Harvard Format: General Requirements

Let us explore some general rules for Harvard formatting:

• Font: Times New Roman or Arial
• Size: 12 pt
• Text: double-spaced and left-aligned
• Indent: first line of a paragraph has indent of 0.5 inch
• Margins: 1 inch from each side

A Harvard style citation  must have a Title page, header (or running head), headings and Reference list. We will take a closer look at formatting each section down below.  

Harvard Style Title Page

What are the requirements for a Harvard style cover page? Title page is otherwise known as front page. This is the first page of your paper to be observed by your reader, i.e. your teacher first of all. Therefore, it is highly important to format it properly. Formatting rules for Harvard Title page:  

• Paper title is fully capitalised and centered. Should be placed at approximately 33% of your page counting from its top.
• Your name as an author, centered and placed at the middle of your page.
• Course name at approximately 66% of the page.
• Instructor’s name on a new line.
• University’s name.
• Submission date.

See the sample of a Harvard title page down below.

Formatting a Header in Harvard

An important detail: you are required to use a header in  Harvard referencing  format. This section is repeatedly shown on all pages of your paper except the title page. You have to configure it once. Then, headers will get automatically added on each new page. Headers in Harvard referencing format contains such information:  

• Page number, right aligned
• Shortened title of your paper, not capitalized, right-aligned, to the left of page number.

It is important to use shortened title because there is not too much space in any header. Also, another requirement is putting exactly 5 spaces between your title and a page number in headers.

Harvard Style Heading

Now let us explore some rules of using subheadings in Harvard style, in detail. Typically there are 2 levels of section headings recommended for use in such papers. They have different formatting. This helps to tell one from another, without using different font sizes for them.

• Level-1 subheadings for a bigger section. They must be centered, capitalized, but at the same time not indented, not bold, not underscored, not italicized.
• Level-2 subheading for any subsection, typically 1-2 paragraphs. They must be capitalized, left-aligned, not indented. Besides, they should be italicized.

The plain text of any paragraph should go on a new line after subheadings in Harvard style, be it Level-1 or Level-2 subheading.

Harvard Reference List

Listing all sources you have used for your research in a proper order is a core element of Harvard style. Reference list should be the last part of your paper but absolutely not the least. Now let us explore some critical rules for a reference list formatting. The Harvard-style reference list section has its own subtitle, namely ‘Reference List’. Similarly to a Level-1 subheading, it should be capitalized and centered. The rest of your content in this section goes from a new line after your title. No extra empty lines are to be added. Your references in this list are numbered and sorted alphabetically. No lines are indented. Each item in this list starts from a new line. Below we will describe a format for referencing in detail.  

Harvard Style Bibliography

Sometimes your professor or instructor might ask you to create a Bibliography section instead of a common Reference list. So what is the Harvard Bibliography format? Harvard style bibliography includes not only those sources you have cited in your text but also. It also includes materials which you have read to get ideas for your research and to better understand the context of a selected problem. So, such section would contain more items than a Reference list. Apart of that, the general Harvard Bibliography format is the same:  

• Heading, ‘Bibliography’ is formatted the same way as a Level-1 subheading
• Sources are put into alphabetical order
• List is double-spaced
• Lines do not have any indent
• Each item of this list starts from a new line.

Harvard Style Citations: General Rules

Another crucial element of Harvard style is referring to your sources inside your essay. That’s why you should know how to cite in Harvard style. Keep in mind that the main purpose of a proper format is to ensure your paper is plagiarizm-free. Sometimes, you should cite ideas from books, magazines or newspapers. But you can only refer to such ideas, otherwise it will be considered a form of plagiarism. Below we will show you how to cite in Harvard style, providing general information about published sources. So let us proceed and learn more about shortened quotes and full references.  

How to Quote in Harvard Style

Here are the rules of Harvard format in-text citation:

• Add them in parentheses, usually at the end of quotes.
• Put an author’s last name and a publication year into round brackets, add page number if needed.

• When quoting a web page, give a paragraph number instead of a page since many websites don’t divide text into pages.
• Direct citation requires quotation marks and a page number is mandatory in parenthesis
• If you have mentioned an author’s name in your quote, do not include it into brackets, just leave a year and a page numbers there.

• Sometimes you might need to quote two different sources at once. In such case include both into the same parenthesis and divide them by a semicolon.

Creating References in Harvard Style

And this is how you should be referencing in Harvard style, providing full descriptions of the sources you have used. Let us start with the general book format:

• Last name of the author followed by comma and initials
• If there are multiple authors, their names are separated with comma, except the last one which must be separated by ‘&’
• Year of publication follows, without a comma
• A full title of the book is given, italicized
• Publisher name
• City and country where this book was published are the last to be provided.

Here are several Harvarvard referencing rules for other source types:

• Refer to an edited book by putting ‘(ed.)’ or ‘(eds)’ after the editor name(s)
• If a book was translated, add ‘trans. I Lastname’
• Refer to an article in any book or journal by adding an article name in quotation marks but not italicized
• Refer to a website by adding ‘viewed’ and the date when you’ve opened it, followed by the URL in angle brackets.

Bottom Line

In this article we have explored the Harvard referencing guide, one of the most popular ones for students in the UK. Feel free to use these tips and proceed to writing a winning essay with flawless formatting! Just keep in mind the following key concepts of the Harvard style:

• Title or cover page
• Headers and their contents
• Subheadings of two levels with different formatting
• Reference list with full-detailed description of sources
• In-text citations with lots of different forms for various quote types.

In conclusion, consider our  custom term paper writing solution if you lack the time or got into writer's block.

If you have questions, please visit our FAQ section or contact our expert writers. They will gladly help you create references in line with all requirements. On top of that, our writers are highly experienced in academic writing and can assist you with any type of formatting.  

FAQ About Harvard Format

1. is harvard reference style used in colleges.

The Harvard style can be used in colleges as well as in other educational institutions and even by professional researchers. While it is relatively popular in many countries for research paper referencing, Harvard style is most widespread in universities of the UK nowadays. Other styles (APA, MLA and Chicago) dominate the US educational institutions.

2. What is the difference between Harvard and Oxford referencing styles?

The Harvard style format is a typical example of an author-date system as it requires using author’s names and publication dates for in-text referencing. You should create a complete reference list as a separate section in the end of your research paper. The Oxford style on the contrary uses numbered footnotes for citing sources used on your page. In-text citations on this page consist just from numbers of respective notes.  

Emma Flores knows all about formatting standards. She shares with StudyCrumb readers tips on creating academic papers that will meet high-quality standards.

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• Free Tools for Students
• Harvard Referencing Generator

Free Harvard Referencing Generator

Generate accurate Harvard reference lists quickly and for FREE, with MyBib!

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A Harvard Referencing Generator is a tool that automatically generates formatted academic references in the Harvard style.

It takes in relevant details about a source -- usually critical information like author names, article titles, publish dates, and URLs -- and adds the correct punctuation and formatting required by the Harvard referencing style.

The generated references can be copied into a reference list or bibliography, and then collectively appended to the end of an academic assignment. This is the standard way to give credit to sources used in the main body of an assignment.

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Harvard is the main referencing style at colleges and universities in the United Kingdom and Australia. It is also very popular in other English-speaking countries such as South Africa, Hong Kong, and New Zealand. University-level students in these countries are most likely to use a Harvard generator to aid them with their undergraduate assignments (and often post-graduate too).

🙌 Why should I use a Harvard Referencing Generator?

A Harvard Referencing Generator solves two problems:

• It provides a way to organise and keep track of the sources referenced in the content of an academic paper.
• It ensures that references are formatted correctly -- inline with the Harvard referencing style -- and it does so considerably faster than writing them out manually.

A well-formatted and broad bibliography can account for up to 20% of the total grade for an undergraduate-level project, and using a generator tool can contribute significantly towards earning them.

⚙️ How do I use MyBib's Harvard Referencing Generator?

Here's how to use our reference generator:

• If citing a book, website, journal, or video: enter the URL or title into the search bar at the top of the page and press the search button.
• Choose the most relevant results from the list of search results.
• Our generator will automatically locate the source details and format them in the correct Harvard format. You can make further changes if required.
• Then either copy the formatted reference directly into your reference list by clicking the 'copy' button, or save it to your MyBib account for later.

MyBib supports the following for Harvard style:

🍏 What other versions of Harvard referencing exist?

There isn't "one true way" to do Harvard referencing, and many universities have their own slightly different guidelines for the style. Our generator can adapt to handle the following list of different Harvard styles:

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Daniel is a qualified librarian, former teacher, and citation expert. He has been contributing to MyBib since 2018.

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Journalistic interventions matter: Understanding how Americans perceive fact-checking labels

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While algorithms and crowdsourcing have been increasingly used to debunk or label misinformation on social media, such tasks might be most effective when performed by professional fact checkers or journalists. Drawing on a national survey (N = 1,003), we found that U.S. adults evaluated fact-checking labels created by professional fact checkers as more effective than labels by algorithms and other users. News media labels were perceived as more effective than user labels but not statistically different from labels by fact checkers and algorithms. There was no significant difference between labels created by users and algorithms. These findings have implications for platforms and fact-checking practitioners, underscoring the importance of journalistic professionalism in fact-checking.

College of Arts, Media and Design, Northeastern University, USA

Jack J. Valenti School of Communication, University of Houston, USA

Research Questions

• How do people perceive the efficacy of fact-checking labels created by different sources (algorithms, social media users, third-party fact checkers, and news media)?
• Will partisanship, trust in news media, attitudes toward social media, reliance on algorithmic news, and prior exposure to fact-checking labels be associated with people’s perceived efficacy of different fact-checking labels?
• Will people’s prior exposure to fact-checking labels moderate the relationships between people’s trust in news media or attitudes toward social media platforms and label efficacy?

Essay Summary

• To examine how people perceive the efficacy of different types of fact-checking labels, we conducted a national survey of U.S. adults ( N  = 1,003) in March 2022. The sample demographics are comparable to the U.S. internet population in terms of gender, age, race/ethnicity, education, and income.
• We found that the perceived efficacy of third-party fact checker labels was the highest, which was higher than the perceived efficacy of algorithmic labels and other user labels. The effectiveness of news media labels was perceived as the second highest, but the statistically meaningful difference was detected only with user labels; the perceived efficacy of news media labels was not statistically different from labels by fact checkers and algorithms. There was no significant difference between the labels created by users and algorithms. 
• We also found that political and media-related variables are associated with the perceptions of fact-checking labels. Republicans evaluated the effectiveness of all types of fact-checking labels lower than Democrats. News media trust and attitudes toward social media were positively associated with the perceived effectiveness of all types of labels. These findings hold true for Democrats and Republicans in most cases. For Republicans, the positive association between media trust and the perceived efficacy of user labels was not statistically significant, which was the only exception.
• Our findings highlight the importance of institutions enacting journalistic interventions, suggesting the need for closer collaboration between platforms and professional fact checkers, rather than relying too much on automated or crowdsourcing techniques in countering misinformation. To promote conservative users’ trust in fact-checking, professional fact checkers also need to be transparent and objective in their selection of claims to verify.

Implications

As the spread of misinformation on social media has become a deep societal concern in recent years, social media platforms such as Twitter 1 We did not use its current name (“X”) because our study was conducted when it was named Twitter. and Facebook have taken various interventions to curb such content (Yaqub et al., 2020). One of the interventions that have gained traction is putting a fact-checking label (Kozyreva et al., 2022; Oeldorf-Hirsch et al., 2020)—also known as a “credibility label” (Saltz et al., 2021) and a “veracity label” (Morrow et al., 2021)—on posts that contain false, inaccurate, or misleading information (Saltz et al., 2021). Research on the effects of fact-checking labels provides mixed results: Some found such labels effectively reducing perceived accuracy of false information (Pennycook et al., 2020) and willingness to share such content (Nekmat, 2020; Yaqub et al., 2020), but others found little effects of labels on perceived credibility, sharing intention, or engagement (Bradshaw et al., 2021; Oeldorf-Hirsch et al., 2020; Papakyriakopoulos & Goodman, 2022).

The current study focuses on how people perceive the effectiveness of fact-checking labels attributed to different sources. This line of inquiry is important because it might provide a possible explanation for the mixed findings concerning the effects of fact-checking labels in that people’s evaluation of labels could affect the accuracy evaluation of or engagement with posts containing misinformation. As fact-checking labels on social media are provided by various sources, ranging from institutions such as independent fact checkers (e.g., PolitiFact.com, Snopes.com) and news organizations 2 News organizations in this study refer to legacy/mainstream news outlets that produce reliable information through strict editorial norms and judgments. Some news organizations such as  The Washington Post  ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker ) and the Associated Press ( https://apnews.com/ap-fact-check ) provide their own fact-checking instead of relying on third-party fact-checking platforms. to general social media users to algorithms (Lu et al., 2022; Seo et al., 2019; Yaqub et al., 2020), we examined people’s perception of the effectiveness of fact-checking labels based on four different sources: (a) third-party fact checkers, (b) news organizations, (c) algorithms, and (d) social media users (i.e., crowdsourcing or community labels). We asked participants to rate their perceived efficacy of each fact-checking label after showing them a visual example of how social media platforms label posts containing misleading or inaccurate information so that they could understand what we meant by fact-checking labels. Source identification and credibility have long been known to play a critical role in the evaluation of information like news content (Chaiken, 1980; Hovland & Weiss, 1951). Similarly, social media users might evaluate fact-checking labels based on the source issuing the labels (Oeldorf-Hirsch et al., 2020). Especially when the sources are different in terms of expertise (e.g., professional fact checkers/journalists vs. peer users) and decision-making agents (human vs. machines), people may perceive the effectiveness of labels differently. To be specific, individuals might perceive the labels by institutions (e.g., professionalfact checkers or journalists) to be more legitimate than crowdsourcing labels as research showed that correction by an expert fact checker successfully reduced misperceptions, whereas correction by a peer user failed to do so (Vraga & Bode, 2017). It is also possible that people may perceive algorithmic labels to be more effective compared to the labels by fact checkers or peer users given that people tend to perceive decisions by machines or algorithms as more objective, politically unbiased, and credible than those by humans (Dijkstra et al., 1998; Sundar, 2008; Sundar & Kim, 2019).

Our findings show that third-party fact checker labels were perceived as the most effective, although their efficacy was not significantly different from that of news media labels. The news media in this study refers to legacy/mainstream news organizations that produce reliable information through strict editorial norms and judgments. These results suggest that people put more faith in institutions especially equipped with journalistic professionalism and expertise than algorithms or peer users in terms of verifying facts. 3 These findings should be interpreted with caution as people, especially partisans, could have had different understandings of news media and fact checkers when evaluating the label sources.  As Graves (2016) pointed out, fact-checking is a novel genre of journalism, enacting the journalistic practice of objectivity norms. In recent years, researchers and platforms have attempted various interventions including algorithmic misinformation detection (Jia et al., 2020; Seo et al., 2019; Yaqub et al., 2020) and crowdsourcing labels (Epstein et al., 2020; Godel et al., 2021) because professional fact checkers and journalists cannot intervene in every piece of misinformation. Arguably, the emergence of large language models such as ChatGPT achieves a decent accuracy rate in discerning false information (Bang et al., 2023; Lee & Jia, 2023), but automated and crowdsourcing techniques may not take the lead over “journalistic interventions” (Amazeen, 2020) as our findings suggest. In this light, relying too much on automated and crowdsourcing techniques could be less effective in curbing misinformation, which could also erode people’s trust in fact-checking practice itself. 

We also investigated various individual-level factors that might influence the evaluation of fact-checking labels. Past studies have focused primarily on individual characteristics that make people fall prey to misinformation, but little is known about individual-level differences related to people’s perception of fact-checking labels. One of the notable findings in this regard is partisan asymmetry: Republicans exhibited higher skepticism toward all types of fact-checking labels compared to Democrats. This aligns with previous findings that Republicans oppose fact-checking labels in general (Saltz et al., 2021) and that accuracy nudge interventions are less effective for Republicans than Democrats (Pennycook et al., 2022). It is also known that Republicans tend to accuse fact checkers (Jennings & Stroud, 2021), news media outlets (Hemmer, 2016), and social media platforms (Vogels et al., 2020) of being liberally biased, and such sentiment could translate into their perceptions of fact-checking label efficacy. 

Another noteworthy finding is the positive relationship between the perceived effectiveness of all types of labels and news media trust. One possible explanation is that people who have higher trust in news media are likely to care more about facts and truth and have more faith in the verification process, and thus, may show more support for fact-checking labels in general (Saltz et al., 2021). It is also worth noting that the positive relationships between news media trust and the efficacy of labels by both news media and fact checkers became stronger for those who were exposed to such labels more frequently. These findings suggest that raising the visibility of fact-checking labels can help increase their effectiveness, especially among those who trust news media. 

In addition, we found positive relationships between people’s attitudes toward social media and the perceived effectiveness of all types of labels. For algorithmic and user fact-checking labels, in particular, the positive relationships became stronger among those more familiar with such labels. This is partly because people with favorable attitudes toward social media platforms are more likely to be gratified with algorithms (Kim & Kim, 2019) and crowdsourcing (Bozarth et al., 2023), one of the main features of these platforms. Conversely, however, those with negative attitudes toward social media could distrust fact-checking labels altogether, regardless of their sources. 

These results have practical implications for social media platforms and fact-checking practitioners. As people trust institutional fact checkers more than algorithms or peer users, platforms need to keep collaborating with fact-checking organizations and news outlets, along with developing and implementing misinformation detection algorithms and crowdsourcing techniques (e.g., Twitter’s Community Notes). Platforms might also consider making fact-checking labels by professional fact checkers more visible by changing their content recommendation algorithms. However, those who use social media and rely on algorithms for news more frequently are more likely to trust labels by algorithms and other users, which suggests that platforms should strive to boost the accuracy of algorithmic and crowdsourcing labels because such users could blindly believe these labels.

To build trust in misinformation interventions among Republicans skeptical about fact-checking labels altogether, platforms should increase transparency around their intervention decisions and be more open to oversight and regulations from the outside (Saltz et al., 2021). Given that Republicans often blame fact checkers’ partisan bias for choosing statements favorable to Democrats, fact checkers also need to select claims to verify based on clear criteria to foster Republicans’ trust in fact-checking. 

 Considering the positive relationship between news media trust and the effectiveness of all types of labels as well as the role of label exposure in strengthening such relationships, it is necessary to regulate untrustworthy sources masquerading as legitimate news outlets on social media and increase users’ familiarity with fact-checking labels verified by credible journalistic institutions. These strategies will ultimately help foster positive attitudes toward social media platforms among the public, which could also translate into their perceptions of fact-checking labels as the results suggested. 

Finding 1: Third-party fact checker labels were perceived as more effective than algorithmic labels and other user labels.

Our first research question explores how people perceive different fact-checking labels. A one-way ANOVA was conducted to test the difference in perceived effectiveness across four types of labels. As shown in Figure 1, there were significant differences across four types of labels,  F  (3, 4008) = 12.10,  p  < .001, partial  η 2  = .01. A series of post hoc comparisons using the Bonferroni test showed that labels provided by third-party fact checkers ( M  = 4.24,  SD  = 1.36) were perceived to be more effective than those provided by algorithms ( M  = 4.02,  SD  = 1.34,  p  = .003) and other users ( M  = 3.88,  SD  = 1.39,  p  < .001), but fact checker labels were not significantly different from those provided by news media ( M  = 4.12,  SD  = 1.37,  p  = .32). Labels provided by news media were perceived to be more effective than those provided by other users ( p  < .001) but had no significant difference with algorithmic labels ( p  = .70). Although user fact-checking labels were perceived as the least effective among four labels, there was no significant difference between algorithmic labels and user labels ( p  = .13).

Finding 2: Republicans rated the effectiveness of all types of fact-checking labels lower than Democrats.

To answer RQ2, we explored factors that can predict people’s different perceptions of fact-checking labels. A two-way ANOVA showed that Republicans evaluated the effectiveness of all types of fact-checking labels lower than Democrats. The main effects of party self-identification [ F  (2, 4000) = 123.51,  p  < .001, partial  η 2  = .06] and label type [ F  (3, 4000) = 11.75,  p  < .001, partial  η 2  = .01] on label efficacy were significant for both parties. Several post hoccomparisons using the Bonferroni test indicated that Republicans rated the effectiveness of all types of fact-checking labels significantly lower than Democrats ( p  < .001). Specific means and SDs are listed in Table 2 in Appendix A.

Finding 3: People’s trust in news media and attitudes toward social media platforms were positively associated with the perceived effectiveness of all types of fact-checking labels, but social media use and reliance on algorithms to get news were only positively associated with two types of labels.

A series of OLS regression analyses showed that news media trust was positively associated with the perceived effectiveness of fact-checking labels regardless of the sources (algorithm:  b  = .25,  SE  = .03,  p  < .001; news media:  b = .35,  SE  = .03,  p  < .001; fact checker:  b  = .24,  SE  = .03,  p  < .001; user:  b  = .16,  SE  = .03,  p  < .001). Attitudes toward social media platforms were also positively associated with the perceived effectiveness of fact-checking labels across all four sources (algorithm:  b  = .21,  SE  = .03,  p  < .001; news media:  b  = .20,  SE  = .03,  p  < .001; fact checker:  b  = .20,  SE  = .03,  p  < .001; user:  b  = .23,  SE  = .03,  p  < .001). Additional analyses showed that such results hold true for both Democrats and Republicans. The only exception was that the positive association between media trust and perceived efficacy of user labels was not statistically significant for Republicans ( b  = .11,  SE  = .07,  p  = .13; see Table 3 in Appendix A for details). The frequency of social media use was positively associated with perceived effectiveness of fact-checking labels made by (a) algorithms ( b  = .08,  SE  = .04,  p  = .08) and (b) other social media users ( b  = .10,  SE  = .03,  p  = .03) but not significantly associated with the other labels (news media:  b  = .07,  SE  = .03,  p  = .10; fact-checker:  b  = .04,  SE = .03,  p  =.42). People’s reliance on algorithms to find news was positively associated with both fact-checking labels made by algorithms ( b  = .08,  SE  = .03,  p  = .03) and other users ( b  = .16,  SE  = .03,  p  < .001). 

Finding 4: People’s prior exposure to fact-checking labels strengthened the relationships between people’s trust in news media or attitudes toward social media platforms and label efficacy.

Lastly, to answer RQ3, we tested two interaction effects—trust in news media x prior exposure to fact-checking labels and attitudes toward social media platforms x prior exposure—on the perceived efficacy of the different labels. Following Saltz et al. (2021), we expected that people who have encountered labels more frequently would be more familiar with and potentially have more positive attitudes towards labels, thereby strengthening the relationships between either social media attitudes or news media trust and the perceived effectiveness of different fact-checking labels. We found significant interaction effects between people’s news media trust and prior exposure to fact-checking labels on their evaluation of labels by (a) fact checkers ( b  = .35,  SE  = .01,  p  < .001) and (b) news media ( b  = .38,  SE  = .01,  p  < .001). Specifically, the positive relationships between news media trust and the perceived effectiveness of labels by both news media and fact checkers became stronger for those who reported high in prior exposure to such labels, as shown in Figure 3.

Results also showed significant interaction effects of people’s attitudes toward social media platforms and prior exposure to fact-checking labels on their evaluation of (a) algorithmic labels ( b  = .40,  SE  = .01,  p  < .001) and (b) user labels ( b  = .25,  SE  = .01,  p  = .01). Specifically, the positive relationships between people’s attitudes toward social media platforms and the perceived effectiveness of (a) algorithmic and (b) user fact-checking labels became stronger for those who reported high in prior exposure to such labels (Figure 4).

We conducted a national survey of U.S. adults ( N  = 1,003) in March 2022. Respondents were recruited online by Dynata (formerly known as Survey Sampling International, SSI), which maintains a large online panel of U.S. adults. The demographic quotas were established to reflect the U.S. population in terms of gender, age, race/ethnicity, education, and income, and our sample is comparable to the U.S. internet population (see Table 1 in Appendix B). 

The dependent variable of the study  Perceived Efficacy of Fact-checking Labels 4 See Table 2 in Appendix B for question wording, scales, means, standard deviations, and reliability of the variables used in this study. was measured by asking respondents to rate both effectiveness and confidence (1 = extremely ineffective/unconfident, 7 = extremely effective/confident) for each fact-checking label created by different sources (i.e., algorithms, social media users, third-party fact checkers, and news media), and averaged into four separate indices, following previous research (Moravec et al., 2020). The order of each label source was randomized to avoid any order effects. For participants to understand what we meant by fact-checking labels, we provided an explanation and an example (see Figure 1 in Appendix B).

News Credibility  was measured using five items (i.e., the news media are fair, unbiased, accurate, tell the whole story, separate facts from opinions) adapted from Gaziano and McGrath (1986). To measure  Reliance on Algorithmic News , we asked respondents to indicate how much they agree or disagree with the following two statements adapted from Gil de Zúñiga and Cheng (2021) and Lee et al. (2023): I rely on social media algorithms 1) to tell me what’s important when news happens, 2) to provide me with important news and public affairs. Respondents were also asked to indicate their party identification on a 7-point scale (1 = strong Republican, 2 = weak Republican, 3 = lean Republican, 4 = independent, 5 = lean Democrat, 6 = weak Democrat, 7 = strong Democrat). Republicans were coded 1–3 ( n  = 296), Democrats 5–7 ( n  = 403), and independents as 4 ( n  = 304).

For  Attitudes toward Social Media,  participants rated their favorability towards four different platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube) (1 = very unfavorable, 7 = very favorable), drawn from Ahluwalia et al. (2000), which were averaged together. An item (adapted from Saltz et al., 2021), asking how often participants have encountered fact-checking labels in any of their social media feeds since the 2020 U.S. presidential election (1 = never, 7 = very frequently, 8 = not sure) was used to measure  Prior Exposure to Fact-checking Labels . Those who chose “notsure” ( n  = 76) were excluded from the regression models.

Lastly, demographics such as age ( M  = 46.08,  SD  = 16.94), education (measured as the last degree respondents completed (ranging from 1 = “less than high school degree” to 3 = “college graduate or more;”  M  = 1.98,  SD  = .82), and household income (ranging from 1 = “less than $30,000” to 6 = “$150, 000 or more”;  M  = 2.91,  SD  = 1.69) were measured and controlled for analysis.

• Fact-checking
• / Partisan Issues
• / Platform Regulation
• / Social Media

Cite this Essay

Jia, C. & Lee, T. (2024). Journalistic interventions matter: Understanding how Americans perceive fact-checking labels. Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review . https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-138

• / Appendix B

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The Good Systems Grand Challenge Research effort at The University of Texas at Austin supported this work, which is a project of UT Austin’s Digital Media Research Program.

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

This research involved human subjects who provided informed consent. The research protocol employed was approved by the institutional review board (IRB, STUDY00002374) at The University of Texas at Austin. The sample demographics are comparable to the U.S. internet population in terms of gender, age, race/ethnicity, education, and income.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original author and source are properly credited.

Data Availability

All materials needed to replicate this study are available via the Harvard Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/0B3ER9

The first and second authors contributed equally to this work and are listed alphabetically.

Home / Guides / Citation Guides / Harvard Referencing / Harvard Referencing Style Examples / How to reference a YouTube (or an online) video in Harvard style

How to reference a YouTube (or an online) video in Harvard style

This guide covers how to reference YouTube videos in the Harvard referencing style. Since YouTube isn’t a conventional source for academic research, the rules for citing YouTube videos are a little different from those you have used for other sources. This guide will look at the conventions to be followed when referencing YouTube videos.

Citing a video from YouTube  

Keep in mind that if you are referencing a section of the video, you should include a time code in your in-text citation. The format for the time code is minutes:seconds .  

Alternatively, if the entire video is relevant, then you don’t need to include the time code. You’ll find two examples for each scenario below.  

In-text c itation template:

(Username/screen name, Year in which video was posted, mm:ss)

Reference list template:

Username or screen name (Year in which video was posted) Video title. Upload Day Month. Available at: YouTube or URL of the video (Accessed: Date).

When a specific part is highlighted

In-text citation  

George Smoot states that it is now possible to map an entire human brain and turn it into a computer model (TEDx Talks, 2014, 12:17) …

Reference list

TEDx Talks (2014) You are a simulation & physics can prove It: George Smoot at TEDxSalford . 12 February. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chfoo9NBEow (Accessed: 24 September 2020).

When the whole video is relevant

Elon Musk thinks that it is possible to make Mars habitable by nuking it (SciShow Space, 2015) …

SciShow Space (2015) Let’s nuke Mars! 18 September. Available at:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7Iiz_b_lYU (Accessed: 20 July 2020).

Citing a video embedded in a website

Sometimes, you’ll find videos embedded on a web page. To reference these, Harvard style recommends pointing the reader to where you found the source. It is possible that you will need to click through to the original source of the embedded video to obtain all the information you need to reference it, but you can still use the original URL to build your citation.

In-text c itation structure:

Reference list structure:

Username or screen name (Year in which video was posted) Video title. Upload date. Available at: URL (Accessed: Date).

During the annual Groundhog Day celebrations in Punxsutawney (CNN, 2020, 01:12) …

CNN (2015) Punxsutawney Phil predicts an early spring . 2 February. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/02/02/groundhog-day-2020-punxsutawney-phil-prediction-vpx.cnn (Accessed: 20 July 2020).

Key takeaways

• Keep in mind that if you are highlighting just a section of the video, you should include a time code in your in-text citation. The format to be used is minutes:seconds.
• Alternatively, if the entire video is relevant, then you don’t need to use the time code.

Published October 29, 2020.

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