Skip to Main Content
Libraries and Learning Skills

Harvard referencing handbook (2nd edition)

The University of Lincoln Harvard referencing style

Reference list

Your reference list gives the full details of the information source (books, journal articles, websites, etc.) that you have referred to in your text. 

  • Put your reference list at the end of your academic work
  • It should be in alphabetical order by the surname of the first author/editor or corporate author.

Click on the options below for more information:

A Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format which is usually referenced as a website unless there is a more appropriate source type.

You may need to check with your tutor before using works not in English. However, if you do translate works yourself, provide in-text citations and reference list entries in the usual way but also give the name of the language in round brackets after the reference list entry, e.g.


Reference list

Houellebecq, M. (2015) Soumission. Paris, France: Editions Flammarion. (French).

  • If there is no author, use the title of publication instead.
  • List the authors in the order they are given in the source of information.
  • Give the author's surname, a comma, followed by their initials with a full stop after each initial, e.g. Joanne Kathleen Rowling should be listed as Rowling, J.K.
  • Do not use the format above for a corporate author, e.g Tate Modern would be listed as Tate Modern
  • For two authors, put 'and' between their names. If there are three or more authors the last name should be preceded by 'and'
  • Double-barrelled surnames should be listed under the first part of the name, e.g. Baeza-Yates should be listed under B.
  • Surnames with prefixes should be listed under the prefix, retaining any lower case letters, e.g. Guy de Maupassant should be listed as de Maupassant, G.
  • Titles such as Dr, Prof, Sir do not need to be given unless the source gives a title instead of a first name, e.g. Lord Justice Leveson.
  • Postnominals such as MD, RN, PhD, CBE do not need to be given.
  • The names of editors should be followed by (ed.) for a single editor or (eds.) where there is more than one.
  • Disregard the apostrophe within surnames such as O'Sullivan when putting them in alphabetical order in your reference list.
  • If you use more than one source by the same author, list them in date order starting with the earliest.
  • If you have referred to works by the same author but with different co-authors, list their individual work followed by their jointly authored work in alphabetical order of the next author.
  • If you refer to an organisation that has changed its name, e.g. NICE, which was formerly known as National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence and is now known as National Institute for Health and Care Excellence - you should use the name that it was known as at the time of publication.
  • Company/organisation names which start with words such as A, An or The, e.g. The Big Give and The White Company should be listed under the first major word.
  • If the information source has no date, put undated in round brackets, e.g. Clinch, M. (undated) ...
  • If you use more than one source by the same author, from the same year, you will need to differentiate between them, e.g.

In-text citation

(Ogunyemi, 2012a)

(Ogunyemi, 2012b)

 

Reference list

Ogunyemi, O. (2012a) Sourcing and representation routines in the black African press in the United Kingdom. In: I. Rigoni and E. Saitta (eds.) Mediating cultural diversity in a globalised public spce. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 153-168.

Ogunyemi, O. (2012b) What newspapers, films and television do Africans living in Britain see and read?: the media of the African diaspora. Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press.

  • Titles for books, journals and websites should be in italics. 
  • Titles should be in sentence case, with main titles being separated from subtitles with a colon, e.g. Forensic science: current issues, future directions.

There are two exceptions to this:

1. academic convention is that all major words in journal articles have an initial capital, e.g. Social Work Education: an International Journal

2. proper nouns should keep their capital letter, e.g. The California gold rush

You can use either the number or the word for the edition number e.g. 8th edition or eighth edition. However, you need to be consistent throughout your reference list.

  • If multiple locations are given for the place of publication, only use the first listed.
  • If an information source is not published in the UK, you should also give the county, e.g. Boston, USA.
  • If a book gives the name of the imprint (a department within a larger publishing company) along with the main publishing house, give the imprint name in your reference.
  • Do not include company designations such as Limited, Ltd, PLC, corp, inc.

This is the date that you looked at an online source and can be given as 6 July 2015 or 6th July 2015 or 6/7/15. Whichever style you choose, be consistent throughout your reference list.

A Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format which is usually referenced as a website unless there is a more appropriate source type.

You may need to check with your tutor before using works not in English. However, if you do translate works yourself, provide in-text citations and reference list entries in the usual way but also give the name of the language in round brackets after the reference list entry, e.g.


Reference list

Houellebecq, M. (2015) Soumission. Paris, France: Editions Flammarion. (French).