CiteFast › Harvard
Harvard referencing generator
Harvard references and in-text citations in the Cite Them Right format. Paste a web address, ISBN or DOI and copy a finished reference with the access date already added.
Your citation types itself here as you fill in the form — or auto-fill it above.
Formatting runs in your browser. Auto-fill uses Crossref (DOI), Open Library and Google Books (ISBN) and the page’s own metadata (URL). Always check against the source.
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0 / 50Citations you save are filed here — the last 50, kept only in this browser. Nothing is uploaded.
How a Harvard reference is built
The pattern is Author (Year) Title. Place: Publisher. for books and Author (Year) ‘Article title’, Journal, volume(issue), pp. pages. for articles. Initials follow the surname with no spaces (Watson, J.D.), the year is in brackets with no full stop after it, and online sources end with Available at: the URL and the date you accessed it.
Harvard examples by source type
| Source | Example |
|---|---|
| a website | World Health Organization (2023) Climate Change and Health. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health (Accessed: 27 September 2026). |
| a book | Kahneman, D. (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. |
| a journal article | Watson, J.D. and Crick, F.H.C. (1953) ‘Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid’, Nature, 171(4356), pp. 737–738. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/171737a0. |
| a YouTube video | Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell (2014) The Immune System Explained I – Bacteria Infection. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQGOcOUBi6s. |
| ChatGPT | OpenAI (2026) ChatGPT (GPT-6) [Large language model]. Available at: https://chatgpt.com. |
| a newspaper article | Woodward, B. and Bernstein, C. (1972) ‘GOP Security Aide among Five Arrested in Bugging Affair’, The Washington Post, 19 June, p. A1. |
Harvard in-text citations
Give the surname and year in brackets, with a comma between them: (Kahneman, 2011). Add a page for quotes: (Kahneman, 2011, p. 45). Two or three authors are all named, joined with “and”; four or more become (Nguyen et al., 2024). See how this compares with APA and MLA in the in-text citation guide.
Harvard referencing questions
Which version of Harvard is this?
Harvard has no single official manual. CiteFast follows Cite Them Right (Pears and Shields), the version most UK universities adopt. Some universities publish their own variant, so check your module handbook for small differences in punctuation.
Do I need an access date in Harvard?
Yes, for anything online without a DOI: Available at: URL (Accessed: 27 September 2026). CiteFast fills in today’s date; change it to the day you actually viewed the page.
When do I use et al. in Harvard?
Cite Them Right uses et al. for four or more authors, in the text and in the reference list. For two or three authors, name them all.
Is Harvard the same as APA?
They are both author-date systems and look alike, but differ in details: Harvard has no brackets-period after the year, uses “and” not “&”, puts the place of publication before the publisher, and labels URLs with “Available at:”.
What if there is no date?
Write (no date) in the reference and the in-text citation: (World Health Organization, no date).