HARVARD REFERENCING • CITE THEM RIGHT 12TH

Harvard Citation Generator — Cite Them Right 12th

Free, accurate Harvard citations in seconds. Built for universal — common in uk, australia, social sciences. AI fills in missing metadata; you copy or export.

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What is Harvard Cite Them Right 12th?

Harvard is an umbrella term for author-date referencing styles used widely in the United Kingdom, Australia, and former-Commonwealth universities. There is no single "Harvard authority" — most institutions follow Cite Them Right (Pears & Shields), now in its 12th edition (2022). It looks similar to APA but with subtle punctuation and capitalization differences.

When to use Harvard

  • Most UK universities (default style for many disciplines)
  • Australian and New Zealand higher education
  • Business and management programs worldwide
  • When your institution simply says "Harvard" without further specification

Harvard quick reference

In-text citation

Author–date in parentheses: (Author, Year, p. number).

(Smith, 2023, p. 45) or Smith (2023, p. 45) found that…

Reference list (alphabetical, hanging indent)

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Author, A. (Year) 'Title of article', Journal Name, Volume(Issue), pp. pages. doi: xx.xxx.

Smith, J. (2023) 'The future of artificial intelligence in academic research', Nature Machine Intelligence, 5(3), pp. 234–245. doi: 10.1038/s42256-023-00001-x.

BOOK

Author, A. (Year) Title of book. Edition. Place: Publisher.

Brown, P. (2021) Citation in the digital age. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

WEBSITE

Author (Year) Title of page. Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year).

World Health Organization (2024) Mental health: strengthening our response. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-health (Accessed: 7 May 2024).

Key Harvard formatting rules

  1. Always check your specific university's Harvard guide — house rules vary.
  2. Article titles in single quotes; book and journal titles in italics.
  3. Sentence case for titles. Use "and" not "&" between authors.
  4. For online sources, always include "Available at:" before the URL and an access date in brackets.
  5. For 4+ authors use "et al." in-text but list all in the reference list (Cite Them Right rule).

Harvard FAQ

They look similar (both author-date) but punctuate differently. Harvard uses single quotes around article titles and "Available at:" before URLs; APA italicizes journal volumes and uses DOIs as plain links.

There is no single Harvard authority — every institution publishes its own Harvard guide. Cite Them Right is the most common reference, but always cross-check with your university's style page if there is one.

Most Harvard guides (including Cite Them Right) prefer "and" in the reference list. Some institutional variants use "&" — check your university's guide.

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