Harvard Referencing Generator
Updated July 2026
Paste a URL, DOI, or ISBN and get a Harvard style reference instantly — select Harvard on the result and copy it into your reference list.
Harvard referencing is the dominant author–date style in UK, Australian, and many international universities. Unlike APA or MLA there is no single official manual — institutions publish their own variants — but the core pattern below is the widely accepted form. Always check your university's style guide for local tweaks.
We'll identify it and build your citation.
Harvard format examples
Martin, R. C. (2008) Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship. Prentice Hall.
In-text(Martin, 2008)
Rasch, B. and Born, J. (2013) 'About sleep's role in memory', Physiological Reviews, 93(2), pp. 681-766.
In-text(Rasch and Born, 2013)
Alvarez, M. (2024) How memory consolidation works during sleep. Available at: https://www.sciencedaily.com/memory-consolidation-sleep (Accessed: 1 June 2026).
In-text(Alvarez, 2024)
The Harvard reference formula
Author, A.A. (Year) 'Title of article', Journal Name, Volume(Issue), pp. xx-xx.
Harvard inverts all authors with initials, puts the year in parentheses right after the names, wraps article titles in single quotation marks, and italicizes the journal or book title. Web sources end with Available at: URL (Accessed: day month year) — the access date is required, not optional.
Harvard in-text citations
Author and year in parentheses: (Rasch and Born, 2013) — note the comma before the year, unlike MLA. Page numbers join for direct quotes: (Rasch and Born, 2013, p. 685). Three or more authors use et al.: (Harris et al., 2020). When the author is part of your sentence: "Rasch and Born (2013) demonstrated…"
Reference list rules
The list is titled Reference List (or simply References), alphabetized by surname, and includes only cited sources. Multiple works by the same author sort by year, oldest first; same author and year are distinguished with letters — 2013a, 2013b — in both the reference and the in-text citation. The Bibliography Builder handles the alphabetization and export automatically.
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Go Premium — $5/monthFrequently asked questions
- Why does my university's Harvard look slightly different?
- There's no single official Harvard manual — each institution publishes its own variant. The differences are cosmetic (italics vs. quotes, 'and' vs. '&'). Generate the reference here, then adjust any details your local guide specifies.
- Is an access date required for websites?
- Yes — Harvard requires Available at: URL (Accessed: date) for online sources. The generator adds it automatically.
- How is Harvard different from APA?
- They're close cousins — both author–date. Visible differences: Harvard wraps article titles in single quotes and uses 'Available at:' for URLs; APA uses sentence case without quotes and bare DOI links. See the converter to flip between them instantly.
- What about citing with no date?
- Use (no date) in Harvard — not n.d. as in APA. The generator applies the correct convention per style.