Author-date (Harvard) Referencing Guide
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The Textual Reference
One authorWhenever you quote, paraphrase or even refer to another author's idea in your essay you must immediately acknowledge your source by giving (in parentheses) the author's surname and the year the information was published (e.g. Smith 1977). Do not insert a comma between these two elements. Furthermore, also include the relevant page number(s) in the textual reference whenever quoting or paraphrasing. When referencing electronic sources this rule only applies to Acrobat documents. (See Electronic Sources for a full explanation of this rule.) Page numbers are not required if you are only referring to a particular work. Precede a single page number with the abbreviation
p. and a page number range with
pp. Example 1. A disease-centred orientation currently determines the financial and political structure of health care in Australia (Lumby 1997, p. 111). Please note that the reference is inserted before any concluding punctuation-(in this case, a fullstop). Alternatively, incorporate the author's name into your sentence and then leave it out of the parentheses. Example 2. According to Lumby (1997, p. 111), the current political and financial structuring of health care is based on a disease-centred orientation. Two or three authorsWhen the information you are referencing has two or three authors include all surnames in the textual reference as shown below. Example 3. (two authors) Some health authorities have already withdrawn funding for these kinds of treatments (Hardy & Taylor 1999, p. 24). Example 4. (three authors) It is important that undergraduate nurses master the skill of critiquing studies in preparation for professional practice as registered nurses (Daly, Elliott & Chang 2000,p. 102). However, if incorporating the two or three authors' names into your sentence, replace the ampersand sign (&) with the word and. Example 5. Hardy and Taylor (1999, p. 24) state that 'some health authorities have denied or withdrawn funding for such treatments'. Four or more authorsWhen referencing material written by four or more authors only include the surname of the first author listed, followed by the abbreviation et al. (meaning and others). However, all names must appear in the reference list (see The Reference List). The following example is for a journal article written by Jones, Ward, Wiggins and Sandford. Example 6. One survey set out to establish mental health nurses' knowledge of legislation (Jones et al. 1999, p. 7). No authorIf you can't determine the author(s) of a work, include the work's title (in italics) within the parentheses with the date. Example 7. One patient education leaflet states that the disease occurs more frequently in men (Coronary heart disease facts 1998). One volume of a multi-volume workWhen your information comes from one volume of a multi-volume work, include the volume number in the reference between the date and the page numbers (e.g. Katz 1990, vol. 5, p. 10). Omit the page number(s) if referring to the entire volume. See The Reference Listfor how to include volume information in the reference list. Two authors with the same surnameInclude an author's initials in a textual reference to distinguish between works written in the same year by authors with the same surname. Place the initials after the surname within the parentheses. However, if incorporating the authors' names into the sentence, put the initials before the surname. Example 8. One study (Smith, JB 1998) suggests there is an effect; however, AC Smith (1998) refutes this finding. A chapter in an edited workAn edited work is a publication with chapters written by a number of different authors. It will have an editor or editors who are those responsible for compiling and arranging all this material. When you use information from an edited book in your essay, reference the exact chapter the information came from rather than the entire work. Put the name of the chapter author in the textual reference, not the name of the editor. See The Reference List for how to include chapter information in the reference list. Personal communicationsA personal communication can be a letter, memo, email, facsimile, an interview, an informal conversation, telephone call or a lecture presentation. They are included in the textual reference but not generally in the reference list. When referencing a personal communication:
According to a personal source, discussions about raising the Medicare levy are already taking place (GJ Trembath 1999, pers. comm., 5 March). Example 10. In an email communication on 4 February 2005, A Jones outlined.... Example 11. S Smith confirmed this by facsimile on 20 January 2005
Example 12. In a lecture for Foundations of Nursing (NURS 1404), presented on 19 April 2005 at Flinders University of South Australia, Dr C. Power suggested ... NB: As personal communications are untraceable, they are not included in the reference list. A work described in another workSometimes you may need to reference an original idea by one author (a primary source) found in a book or article written by another author (a secondary source). In such circumstances you should always try to locate the primary source and read it yourself, simply because the secondary work may have misconstrued the original message. When this is not possible, you must acknowledge both sources in the body of your essay. However, only include the work you actually read (i.e. the secondary source) in your reference list. In the following example, Clarke is the author of a work discussed in an article by Brown. Example 11. Clarke's 1992 study (cited in Brown 1995, p. 10) demonstrates that ... OR Brown (1995, p. 10) in reporting a 1992 study by Clarke states ... Information found in more than one sourceIf you find a piece of information in more than one source, you may want to include all sources in your references to strengthen the legitimacy of your argument. In this case, cite all sources in the same parentheses, placing them in order of publication date (earliest first). Separate one reference from the next using a semi-colon (;). Example 12. Several clinical trials (Bean 1985; Alt 1994; Smith 1997) indicate ... OR Example 13. Bean (1985), Alt (1994), and Smith (1997) have shown ... Two or more publications with the same author and dateIf you are referencing two or more works by the same author published in the same year, distinguish between the different publications by adding a lowercase letter to the date of each, beginning with a, then b then c and so on. Example 14. In his initial study Jones (1985a) found this to be true. However, subsequent studies (Jones 1985b; Harris 1987) have failed to arrive at the same conclusion. For how to then set out these references in the concluding reference list, see the Grbich example in section 3.16.
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