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Harvard Style & Format: A 5-Minute Guide + Samples

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The Harvard referencing style is a widely used system for citing and referencing sources in academic writing. It provides a consistent and standardized format for acknowledging the works of others that you have used in your research.

Struggling to remember tricky peculiarities of Harvard style referencing and formatting? Don’t worry, you have come across a helpful material. In this article, you will find the basics of Harvard style formatting which would be useful for your academic progress. This easy but detailed Harvard style guide contains all format requirements for a paper and some structural tips. Besides, it covers general rules on how to cite your sources properly in your text. Feel free to use these guidelines for your academic endeavors. Let us go through details of Harvard style referencing and formatting together!  

Reference Harvard Style: Basics

Harvard style is an author-date system of referencing. It’s similar to an  APA paper format  in terms of general formatting of pages and text. But this style follows its own rules for bibliography and in-text citations formatting. Harvard style is typically used for essays in such academic disciplines:  

• Behavioral Sciences
• Philosophy.

But this doesn’t mean you can’t use this paper format in other areas of study. The general rule is to put references to your sources in round brackets. Specify author’s name and publication year. These references should come after your quotes (direct or indirect) in the end of a respective sentence or paragraph. Full details about all sources you have used should be provided at the end of your work. This section should be named ‘Reference List’. Buy coursework or any other type of research paper that will be referenced for you by our experts. 

Harvard Format: General Requirements

Let us explore some general rules for Harvard formatting:

• Font: Times New Roman or Arial
• Size: 12 pt
• Text: double-spaced and left-aligned
• Indent: first line of a paragraph has indent of 0.5 inch
• Margins: 1 inch from each side

A Harvard style citation  must have a Title page, header (or running head), headings and Reference list. We will take a closer look at formatting each section down below.  

Harvard Style Title Page

What are the requirements for a Harvard style cover page? Title page is otherwise known as front page. This is the first page of your paper to be observed by your reader, i.e. your teacher first of all. Therefore, it is highly important to format it properly. Formatting rules for Harvard Title page:  

• Paper title is fully capitalised and centered. Should be placed at approximately 33% of your page counting from its top.
• Your name as an author, centered and placed at the middle of your page.
• Course name at approximately 66% of the page.
• Instructor’s name on a new line.
• University’s name.
• Submission date.

See the sample of a Harvard title page down below.

Formatting a Header in Harvard

An important detail: you are required to use a header in  Harvard referencing  format. This section is repeatedly shown on all pages of your paper except the title page. You have to configure it once. Then, headers will get automatically added on each new page. Headers in Harvard referencing format contains such information:  

• Page number, right aligned
• Shortened title of your paper, not capitalized, right-aligned, to the left of page number.

It is important to use shortened title because there is not too much space in any header. Also, another requirement is putting exactly 5 spaces between your title and a page number in headers.

Harvard Style Heading

Now let us explore some rules of using subheadings in Harvard style, in detail. Typically there are 2 levels of section headings recommended for use in such papers. They have different formatting. This helps to tell one from another, without using different font sizes for them.

• Level-1 subheadings for a bigger section. They must be centered, capitalized, but at the same time not indented, not bold, not underscored, not italicized.
• Level-2 subheading for any subsection, typically 1-2 paragraphs. They must be capitalized, left-aligned, not indented. Besides, they should be italicized.

The plain text of any paragraph should go on a new line after subheadings in Harvard style, be it Level-1 or Level-2 subheading.

Harvard Reference List

Listing all sources you have used for your research in a proper order is a core element of Harvard style. Reference list should be the last part of your paper but absolutely not the least. Now let us explore some critical rules for a reference list formatting. The Harvard-style reference list section has its own subtitle, namely ‘Reference List’. Similarly to a Level-1 subheading, it should be capitalized and centered. The rest of your content in this section goes from a new line after your title. No extra empty lines are to be added. Your references in this list are numbered and sorted alphabetically. No lines are indented. Each item in this list starts from a new line. Below we will describe a format for referencing in detail.  

Harvard Style Bibliography

Sometimes your professor or instructor might ask you to create a Bibliography section instead of a common Reference list. So what is the Harvard Bibliography format? Harvard style bibliography includes not only those sources you have cited in your text but also. It also includes materials which you have read to get ideas for your research and to better understand the context of a selected problem. So, such section would contain more items than a Reference list. Apart of that, the general Harvard Bibliography format is the same:  

• Heading, ‘Bibliography’ is formatted the same way as a Level-1 subheading
• Sources are put into alphabetical order
• List is double-spaced
• Lines do not have any indent
• Each item of this list starts from a new line.

Harvard Style Citations: General Rules

Another crucial element of Harvard style is referring to your sources inside your essay. That’s why you should know how to cite in Harvard style. Keep in mind that the main purpose of a proper format is to ensure your paper is plagiarizm-free. Sometimes, you should cite ideas from books, magazines or newspapers. But you can only refer to such ideas, otherwise it will be considered a form of plagiarism. Below we will show you how to cite in Harvard style, providing general information about published sources. So let us proceed and learn more about shortened quotes and full references.  

How to Quote in Harvard Style

Here are the rules of Harvard format in-text citation:

• Add them in parentheses, usually at the end of quotes.
• Put an author’s last name and a publication year into round brackets, add page number if needed.

• When quoting a web page, give a paragraph number instead of a page since many websites don’t divide text into pages.
• Direct citation requires quotation marks and a page number is mandatory in parenthesis
• If you have mentioned an author’s name in your quote, do not include it into brackets, just leave a year and a page numbers there.

• Sometimes you might need to quote two different sources at once. In such case include both into the same parenthesis and divide them by a semicolon.

Creating References in Harvard Style

And this is how you should be referencing in Harvard style, providing full descriptions of the sources you have used. Let us start with the general book format:

• Last name of the author followed by comma and initials
• If there are multiple authors, their names are separated with comma, except the last one which must be separated by ‘&’
• Year of publication follows, without a comma
• A full title of the book is given, italicized
• Publisher name
• City and country where this book was published are the last to be provided.

Here are several Harvarvard referencing rules for other source types:

• Refer to an edited book by putting ‘(ed.)’ or ‘(eds)’ after the editor name(s)
• If a book was translated, add ‘trans. I Lastname’
• Refer to an article in any book or journal by adding an article name in quotation marks but not italicized
• Refer to a website by adding ‘viewed’ and the date when you’ve opened it, followed by the URL in angle brackets.

Bottom Line

In this article we have explored the Harvard referencing guide, one of the most popular ones for students in the UK. Feel free to use these tips and proceed to writing a winning essay with flawless formatting! Just keep in mind the following key concepts of the Harvard style:

• Title or cover page
• Headers and their contents
• Subheadings of two levels with different formatting
• Reference list with full-detailed description of sources
• In-text citations with lots of different forms for various quote types.

In conclusion, consider our  custom term paper writing solution if you lack the time or got into writer's block.

If you have questions, please visit our FAQ section or contact our expert writers. They will gladly help you create references in line with all requirements. On top of that, our writers are highly experienced in academic writing and can assist you with any type of formatting.  

FAQ About Harvard Format

1. is harvard reference style used in colleges.

The Harvard style can be used in colleges as well as in other educational institutions and even by professional researchers. While it is relatively popular in many countries for research paper referencing, Harvard style is most widespread in universities of the UK nowadays. Other styles (APA, MLA and Chicago) dominate the US educational institutions.

2. What is the difference between Harvard and Oxford referencing styles?

The Harvard style format is a typical example of an author-date system as it requires using author’s names and publication dates for in-text referencing. You should create a complete reference list as a separate section in the end of your research paper. The Oxford style on the contrary uses numbered footnotes for citing sources used on your page. In-text citations on this page consist just from numbers of respective notes.  

Emma Flores knows all about formatting standards. She shares with StudyCrumb readers tips on creating academic papers that will meet high-quality standards.

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Referencing - BU Harvard 23-24 Full Guide: Example Essay

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• What information you need: author/date/page numbers
• Placing Citations
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• Source cited or quoted in another source (citing second hand)
• Chapter author of an edited book
• Legislation - UK Statutes (Acts of Parliament)
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Harvard referencing quick guide: Sample assignment

• Introduction
• General guidelines
• Citing and referencing material

Sample assignment

• Referencing software

Citing and reference list example

The text to the right shows how citations and the reference list are typically written in the Harvard referencing style.

Note: the text itself is not designed to be a proper example of academic writing and does not use information from the sources cited; it is for illustrative purposes only.

The purpose of this assignment is to show common elements of the Harvard style of referencing in Dundalk Institute of Technology. It is not intended to be an example of good quality academic writing, and indeed may not make sense in general, but it should show you how citations and a reference list are formed in the Harvard style of referencing (Cameron 2021). If you include a “direct quotation from a book you have read” (Giddens and Sutton 2021, p.117) you should include the relevant page number.

You don’t always have to write the author and year in brackets. Cameron (2021) explains that if the author’s name occurs naturally in the text then the year follows it in brackets. If there are two authors you should include both of them in the citation (Levine and Munsch 2021). If there are three or more authors you don’t have to list all of the names in the citation but you should include them all in the reference list (Robbins et al. 2020). The reference list should appear at the end of your assignment and be in alphabetical order based on the first author’s surname (Bruen 2022) rather than the order in which they appear in your assignment ( Papagiannis  2022). If you are using a citation for a second time you do not need to include it twice in the reference list (Cameron 2021).

Referencing an academic journal that you find online requires more information in the reference list but uses the same format for citing as other sources (Tesseur 2022). If referencing a source from a library database you say from which database you found it (Mayombe 2021).

Don’t forget that websites need to be cited too (Dundalk Institute of Technology 2022). We recommend you look at the full version of DkIT’s Harvard referencing guidelines, and contact the Library if you have any questions. Good luck.

Reference list

Bruen, M. (2020). River flows. In: Kelly-Quinn, M. and Reynolds, J., eds.  Ireland’s rivers . Dublin: University College Dublin Press, pp.39-59.

Cameron, S. (2021). The business student's handbook: skills for study and employment . 7th ed. Harlow: Pearson.

Dundalk Institute of Technology. (2022).  Research support  [online]. Available from: https://www.dkit.ie/research/research-support.html [accessed 25 March 2022].

Giddens, A. and Sutton, P.W. (2021).  Sociology . 9th ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Levine, L.E. and Munsch, J. (2021).  Child development: an active learning approach  [online]. 4th ed. London: SAGE Publications. Available from: https://books.google.ie/books?id=zlrZzQEACAAJ&dq [accessed 25 March 2022].

Mayombe, C. (2021). Partnership with stakeholders as innovative model of work-integrated learning for unemployed youths.  Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning  [online], 12(2), pp.309-327. Available from: Emerald Insight [accessed 25 March 2022].

Papagiannis, N. (2020).  Effective SEO and content marketing: the ultimate guide for maximizing free web traffic  [online]. Indianapolis: Wiley. Available from: EBSCOhost eBook Collection [accessed 25 March 2022].

Robbins, S.P., Coulter, M.A. and De Cenzo, D.A. (2020).  Fundamentals of management . 11th ed. Harlow: Pearson.

Tesseur, W. (2022). Translation as inclusion? An analysis of international NGOs’ translation policy documents.  Language Problems and Language Planning  [online], 45(3), pp. 261-283. Available from: https://doras.dcu.ie/26151 [accessed 25 March 2022].

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Quick guide to Harvard referencing (Cite Them Right)

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There are different versions of the Harvard referencing style. This guide is a quick introduction to the commonly-used Cite Them Right version. You will find further guidance available through the OU Library on the Cite Them Right Database .

For help and support with referencing and the full Cite Them Right guide, have a look at the Library’s page on referencing and plagiarism . If you need guidance referencing OU module material you can check out which sections of Cite Them Right are recommended when referencing physical and online module material .

This guide does not apply to OU Law undergraduate students . If you are studying a module beginning with W1xx, W2xx or W3xx, you should refer to the Quick guide to Cite Them Right referencing for Law modules .

Table of contents

In-text citations and full references.

• Secondary referencing
• Page numbers
• Citing multiple sources published in the same year by the same author

Full reference examples

Referencing consists of two elements:

• in-text citations, which are inserted in the body of your text and are included in the word count. An in-text citation gives the author(s) and publication date of a source you are referring to. If the publication date is not given, the phrase 'no date' is used instead of a date. If using direct quotations or you refer to a specific section in the source you also need the page number/s if available, or paragraph number for web pages.
• full references, which are given in alphabetical order in a  reference list at the end of your work and are not included in the word count. Full references give full bibliographical information for all the sources you have referred to in the body of your text.

To see a reference list and intext citations check out this example assignment on Cite Them Right .

Difference between reference list and bibliography

a reference list only includes sources you have referred to in the body of your text.

a bibliography includes sources you have referred to in the body of your text AND sources that were part of your background reading that you did not use in your assignment.

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Examples of in-text citations

You need to include an in-text citation wherever you quote or paraphrase from a source. An in-text citation consists of the last name of the author(s), the year of publication, and a page number if relevant. There are a number of ways of incorporating in-text citations into your work - some examples are provided below. Alternatively you can see examples of setting out in-text citations in Cite Them Right .

Example with one author:

Almeroth-Williams, T. (2019) City of Beasts: How Animals Shaped Georgian London . Manchester: Manchester University Press.

RSPCA (2024) Caring for cats and kittens . Available at: https://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/pets/cats (Accessed: 1 August 2024).

Example with two or three authors:

Grayling, A. and Ball, B. (2024) ' Philosophy is crucial in the age of AI', The Conversation , 1 August. Available at: https://theconversation.com/philosophy-is-crucial-in-the-age-of-ai-235907 (Accessed: 1 August 2024).

Chu, M., Leonard, P. and Stevenson, F. (2012) ' Growing the Base for Citizen Science: Recruiting and Engaging Participants', in J.L. Dickinson and R. Bonney (eds.) Citizen Science: Public Participation in Environmental Research . Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 69-81.

Example with four or more authors:

Young, H.D. et al. (2015) Sears and Zemansky's university physics . San Francisco, CA: Addison-Wesley.

Note: You can choose one or other method to reference four or more authors (unless your School requires you to name all authors in your reference list) and your approach should be consistent.

Online module materials

(Includes written online module activities, audio-visual material such as online tutorials, recordings or videos).

When referencing material from module websites, the date of publication is the year you started studying the module.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication/presentation) 'Title of item'. Module code: Module title . Available at: URL of VLE (Accessed: date).

OR, if there is no named author:

The Open University (Year of publication/presentation) 'Title of item'. Module code: Module title . Available at: URL of VLE (Accessed: date).

Rietdorf, K. and Bootman, M. (2022) 'Topic 3: Rare diseases'. S290: Investigating human health and disease . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1967195 (Accessed: 24 January 2023).

The Open University (2022) ‘3.1 The purposes of childhood and youth research’. EK313: Issues in research with children and young people . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1949633&section=1.3 (Accessed: 24 January 2023).

You can also use this template to reference videos and audio that are hosted on your module website:

The Open University (2022) ‘Video 2.7 An example of a Frith-Happé animation’. SK298: Brain, mind and mental health . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=2013014&section=4.9.6 (Accessed: 22 November 2022).

The Open University (2022) ‘Audio 2 Interview with Richard Sorabji (Part 2)’. A113: Revolutions . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1960941&section=5.6 (Accessed: 22 November 2022).

Note: if a complete journal article has been uploaded to a module website, or if you have seen an article referred to on the website and then accessed the original version, reference the original journal article, and do not mention the module materials. If only an extract from an article is included in your module materials that you want to reference, you should use secondary referencing, with the module materials as the 'cited in' source, as described above.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of message', Title of discussion board , in Module code: Module title . Available at: URL of VLE (Accessed: date).

Fitzpatrick, M. (2022) ‘A215 - presentation of TMAs', Tutor group discussion & Workbook activities , in A215: Creative writing . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/forumng/discuss.php?d=4209566 (Accessed: 24 January 2022).

Note: When an ebook looks like a printed book, with publication details and pagination, reference as a printed book.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) Title . Edition if later than first. Place of publication: publisher. Series and volume number if relevant.

For ebooks that do not contain print publication details

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) Title of book . Available at: DOI or URL (Accessed: date).

Bell, J. (2014) Doing your research project . Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Adams, D. (1979) The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy . Available at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/kindle-ebooks (Accessed: 23 June 2021).

Note: Books that have an editor, or editors, where each chapter is written by a different author or authors.

Surname of chapter author, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of chapter or section', in Initial. Surname of book editor (ed.) Title of book . Place of publication: publisher, Page reference.

Franklin, A.W. (2012) 'Management of the problem', in S.M. Smith (ed.) The maltreatment of children . Lancaster: MTP, pp. 83–95.

Note: When referencing a chapter of an edited book, your in-text citation should give the author(s) of the chapter.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of article', Title of Journal , volume number (issue number), page reference.

If accessed online:

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of article', Title of Journal , volume number (issue number), page reference. Available at: DOI or URL (if required) (Accessed: date).

Shirazi, T. (2010) 'Successful teaching placements in secondary schools: achieving QTS practical handbooks', European Journal of Teacher Education , 33(3), pp. 323–326.

Shirazi, T. (2010) 'Successful teaching placements in secondary schools: achieving QTS practical handbooks', European Journal of Teacher Education , 33(3), pp. 323–326. Available at: https://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/log... (Accessed: 27 January 2023).

Barke, M. and Mowl, G. (2016) 'Málaga – a failed resort of the early twentieth century?', Journal of Tourism History , 2(3), pp. 187–212. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/1755182X.2010.523145

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of article', Title of Newspaper , Day and month, Page reference.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of article', Title of Newspaper , Day and month, Page reference if available. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Mansell, W. and Bloom, A. (2012) ‘£10,000 carrot to tempt physics experts’, The Guardian , 20 June, p. 5.

Roberts, D. and Ackerman, S. (2013) 'US draft resolution allows Obama 90 days for military action against Syria', The Guardian , 4 September. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/04/syria-strikes-draft-resolut... (Accessed: 9 September 2015).

Surname, Initial. (Year that the site was published/last updated) Title of web page . Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Organisation (Year that the page was last updated) Title of web page . Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Robinson, J. (2007) Social variation across the UK . Available at: https://www.bl.uk/british-accents-and-dialects/articles/social-variation... (Accessed: 21 November 2021).

The British Psychological Society (2018) Code of Ethics and Conduct . Available at: https://www.bps.org.uk/news-and-policy/bps-code-ethics-and-conduct (Accessed: 22 March 2019).

Note: Cite Them Right Online offers guidance for referencing webpages that do not include authors' names and dates. However, be extra vigilant about the suitability of such webpages.

Surname, Initial. (Year) Title of photograph . Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Kitton, J. (2013) Golden sunset . Available at: https://www.jameskittophotography.co.uk/photo_8692150.html (Accessed: 21 November 2021).

stanitsa_dance (2021) Cossack dance ensemble . Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/COI_slphWJ_/ (Accessed: 13 June 2023).

Note: If no title can be found then replace it with a short description.

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Harvard referencing sample paper

Published March 8, 2021. Updated August 15, 2021.

Formatting notes for the entire paper

Make sure that the same line spacing, margins, font type, and font size are applied to all pages in your paper. This helps keep your paper’s appearance consistent and professional.

Since Harvard referencing is a style that varies across institutions, make sure that you always check with your instructor about their formatting preferences. If no guidance is provided, here are some basic directions to follow:

• Page margins: 5 cm margins on the left, right, top, and bottom.
• Font type and size: Use a clear and readable font, like Times New Roman or Arial, in 12 pt. font.
• Line spacing:  Double-spaced.
• Running head: In the top right corner of every page, include a shortened version of your title and the page number. Use the “header” area of your document to create your running head.

For help writing your essay, research paper , or other project, check out these writing tips .

Cover page formatting

If you’re required to include a cover page, you will include the following information in this order:

• Running head: Place this in the top right corner. It includes a shortened version of your paper title. The page number is to the right of it.
• Full title of the paper: This goes about halfway down the page. The title should be in all caps.
• Your full name: Place on the line after your title.
• Class name: Place this about 4-5 lines after your full name. Include the class number, if available.
• Your instructor’s name: Place this after the class name. Look at your syllabus to see how they prefer to be presented. It could or could not include their title (“professor”) or degree (e.g., Ph.D., M.A., etc.).
• Institution name : Place this after the instructor’s name.
• Paper due date : Write your date out in full.

Body of the paper formatting

As you begin writing the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion of your Harvard referencing paper, these are formatting tips to keep in mind.

• Page headings : Center a page title. Do not bold, italicize, or underline it.
• Body: Left-aligned.
• Paragraphs: Indent the first line using the tab key.
• In-text citations:  Include these citations immediately after the quoted or paraphrased material. For more information, visit this page on Harvard in-text citations .

Reference list

The reference list includes detailed information about every source you cited in your paper (via an in-text citation). A  reference list appears at the end of your paper on its own page. If you’re citing sources, the Chegg Writing Harvard referencing generator is a helpful resource.

Reference list entries

Your citations will appear in alphabetical order, based on the first letter included in each entry. Each of your sources will be cited differently, depending on many factors. Here are a few guides to help you learn more:

• How to cite a book
• How to cite a website
• How to cite an article
• How to cite an image
• How to cite a PDF
• How to cite a YouTube video
• How to cite a film or movie
• How to cite items with no author
• How to cite items with more than one author

Reference list page formatting

When formatting your reference list, first make sure to check with your particular institution’s style guide. Here are some general formatting guidelines:

• Start your reference list at the very end of your paper and on a new page.
• The page’s title, “Reference list,” will appear centered at the top of the page.
• Organize your references in alphabetical order, using the first letters of each reference.
• If you have more than one source by the same author, they should be listed chronologically by year of publication.
• Each reference is single-spaced and is flush with the left margin (no hanging indents).
• There should be a line between each reference.
• All authors should be listed in the reference.

Sample Harvard referencing style paper

Below are images of a Harvard referencing sample paper. Click here to see the full paper .

Harvard Referencing Style Guides

Harvard Referencing : Citing Sources | Direct Quotes | Et al. | In-text citations | Multiple authors | No authors | Page numbers

Harvard Referencing Generator : Article | Book | Image | Interview | Journal | Movie | PDF | Textbook | Website | YouTube

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Format Papers & Cite Sources

• Harvard Style
• Citing Sources
• Avoid Plagiarism
• MLA Style (8th/9th ed.)
• APA Style, 7th Edition
• Chicago Style

What is Harvard Style?

What you need to know, harvard style tutorial.

• Other Styles
• Annotated Bibliographies
• How to Create an Attribution

Harvard Style

The Harvard referencing system is known as the Author-Date style . It emphasizes the name of the creator of a piece of information and the date of publication, with the list of references in alphabetical order at the end of your paper.

Unlike other citation styles, there is no single, definitive version of Harvard Style. Therefore, you may see a variation in features such as punctuation, capitalization, abbreviations, and the use of italics. 

Always check with your instructor and follow the rules he or she gives you.

• Harvard Style Guidelines Your class handout
• Harvard Referencing Quick Guide From Staffordshire University

Harvard Style will affect your paper in two places:

• In-text citations in the body of your paper, and
• The reference list at the end of your paper
• All in-text citations should be listed in the reference list at the end of your paper.
• Reference list entries need to contain all the information that someone reading your paper would need in order to find your source.
• Reference lists in Harvard Style are arranged alphabetically by first author.
• Begin your Reference list on a new page after your text and number it consecutively.

Sample References List:

Click on the Links Below to See Additional Examples:

• Sample Paper Paper provided by Kurt Olson
• Harvard Citation Examples Document created by The University of Western Australia

Click on the image below to launch this tutorial that was created by the University of Leeds. The section on Citing in Text is especially useful.

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Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 and CC BY-NC 4.0 Licenses .

Harvard Style Citation and Referencing: a Detailed Guide from Experts

Defining What is Harvard Citation Style and Referencing

From the first time we put our pen on paper, we're taught how important it is to give credit where it's needed. Whether a research paper outline or a doctoral dissertation, proper references, and citations are the foundation of academic work in any field. And when it's time to cite sources, there's one style that stands out: Harvard style. In this article, we will explore the nuances of Harvard style citations and help you navigate the complexity of this important academic tool.

Developed by the Harvard Graduate School for Education, the Harvard style citation is a Ferrari of citations designed for the ultimate advantage of your research. Harvard Style, like a sports car, is streamlined, precise, and designed for speed. From its inception at Harvard at the beginning 20th century, this style has become a standard of academic reference and has been praised for its clarity and sophistication.

Intended to be simple and accessible to all, the Harvard style quickly became popular in the mid-20s and is based upon using the date-author citation in the document text, together with the detailed list of references at the document's end. Nowadays that it has gained universal acknowledgment, Harvard referencing is a critical instrument for scientists in multiple disciplines, owing to its simple yet tasteful design that has endured for many years.

Importance of Using Harvard Style Citation Properly

Using Harvard style citations and references correctly is like putting a hidden weapon in the arsenal of your academics. It'll be more than just following rules; it'll be about proving your credibility and that your work is grounded in solid evidence and reliable sources. Therefore, proper citations and references are crucial for a wide range of purposes:

• First, by acknowledging your sources, you avoid plagiarism and demonstrate that you've taken the necessary precautions and are not attempting to pass on someone else's work as yours.
• Secondly, Harvard citation style and references allow readers to track their sources and verify their assertions. This is especially relevant in fields in which precision and accuracy are important, e.g., in the fields of science and technology.
• Thirdly, using Harvard style citations and references shows you belong to a larger academic community and know their standards and norms. By conforming to the customary citation and referencing guidelines, you can communicate that you are a reliable and trustworthy scholar who values their work.

Before finding out more of the important details about the Harvard referencing style, you might want to delegate your ' Do My Math Homework ' request to our experts!

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Key Features of Harvard Style Citation and Referencing

Below are a few of the principal characteristics of Harvard Style that make it such a popular choice among scholars:

How to Use Harvard Style Citation and Referencing

As was already established, references and citations in the Harvard style are commonly accepted. Therefore, you should take the required actions to ensure accurate citation. Let's adhere to these basic guidelines to give credit where credit is due:

Harvard Style Guidelines include:

• Use a standard font such as Times New Roman or Arial in size 12.
• Set margins to 1 inch on all sides.
• Use double spacing throughout the document, including the reference list.
• Place a header on each page, which should include the title of your paper and the page number, located in the top right-hand corner.
• Make sure to include a title page with your paper title, your name, the name of your institution, and the date of submission. Or you can always find out more on how to title an essay from our expert writers!
• Use headings as a way to organize and simplify your paper with bold or italic letters.
• Include in-text citations
• Include a reference list at the end of your paper.

By selecting the button below, you may get a template from our research paper writing services that includes a sample of an essay cover page, headers, subheadings, and a reference list.

How to Reference Sources Without an Anchor on Date

In Harvard referencing, if you're citing a source without an explicit date, you can still provide as much information as possible to identify the source and omit the date. Here's how you could format it:

Author(s) Last name, Initials. (Year, if available). Title of the work. Publisher. (if applicable) URL or DOI (if available).

For example, let's say you're citing a web page authored by John Smith, but there's no publication date available:

Smith, J. (n.d.). Title of the Web Page. Retrieved from http://www.example-website.com

In this example, "n.d." stands for "no date." This indicates to your reader that the publication date is unknown. It's important to include as much information as possible to help your readers locate the source themselves. If you're citing a printed source with no date, you can simply omit the date and provide the rest of the information as usual.

Common Errors and Pitfalls in Using Harvard Style

While the Harvard Style citation may seem straightforward, there are several common errors and pitfalls that students and researchers should be aware of to ensure they are using the style correctly.

One common error is forgetting to include page numbers when referencing a source. Harvard style requires that page numbers be included when citing a direct quote or paraphrasing from a source. Failing to include page numbers can make it difficult for readers to locate the information being cited and can result in lost points on an assignment or paper.

Another pitfall is the improper formatting of references. Harvard style requires specific formatting for different types of sources, such as italicizing book titles and using quotation marks for article titles. Failure to follow these guidelines can result in a loss of points and confusion for readers.

Another common mistake is inconsistency in formatting and citation styles. It is important to use the same style throughout a document, including in-text citations and the reference list. Mixing different styles can make the document difficult to read and may result in a lower grade. And, if this problem sounds familiar and you wish 'if only somebody could rewrite my essay ,' get our essay writing help in a flash!

Finally, another pitfall to avoid is relying too heavily on online Harvard referencing generator tools. They can be useful for creating references, although they are not always reliable and might not adhere to the exact rules of Harvard style. To guarantee that the references produced by these tools are accurate and in the right format, it is crucial to carefully review and adjust them.

Meanwhile, if you're not really feeling like dealing with the nitty-gritty of referencing your character analysis essay using Harvard style, no sweat! We've got your back on that one too.

Key Takeaways

In conclusion, knowing what is Harvard citation style and how to properly cite sources using this style is an essential ability for any student or researcher writing academically. The main lesson to be learned is that accurate citation not only shows academic honesty but also strengthens the authority of your work and backs up your claims. You may make sure that your writing is correctly referenced, structured, and accepted in the academic world by including these important lessons in it.

And if you feel like you need extra help, our expert paper writing services will provide you with a high-quality Harvard style citation example paper that demonstrates correct citation and formatting, giving you the knowledge and confidence to cite sources effectively in your own work!

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How Do You Format a Citation in Harvard Style?

What is harvard citation and example, is harvard citation mla or apa, how to cite a source with multiple authors in harvard style.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

Example essay extract with citations and references list: Home

Example essay extract with citations and references list.

Below is an example essay, complete with citations and references.

Please remember this is a fictional essay purely designed to demonstrate how and when to reference. 

Embedding experiences and voices in research can “challenge [the] studied ignorance” around race (Arday and Mirza, 2018, p.v) and the academy’s role as gatekeeper of what is considered “relevant knowledge” (Lillis, 2003). Academic conventions around skills such as writing can be excluding, forming “constructions of difference […] that deepen misrecognitions and inequalities” (Burke, 2018, p.366). Lillis (2003) and Arday et al. (2021) both use narrative to listen to the ways in which black students’ experiences are ignored and the marginalising effect of a refusal to validate multiple ways of knowing.

References:

Arday, J., Belluigi, D. Z. and Thomas, D. (2021) Attempting to break the chain: reimaging inclusive pedagogy and decolonising the curriculum within the academy.  Educational Philosophy and Theory .  53 (3), pp.298-313.

Arday, J. and Mirza, H. S. (eds.) (2018) Dismantling race in higher education:  racism, whiteness and decolonising the academy . London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Burke, P. J. (2018) Trans/forming pedagogical spaces: race, belonging and recognition in higher education. In: Arday, J. and Mirza, H. S. (eds.) Dismantling race in higher education: racism, whiteness and decolonising the academy . London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.365-382.

Lillis, T. (2003) Student writing as ‘academic literacies’: drawing on Bakhtin to move from critique to design. Language and Education. 17 (5), pp.192-207.

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In-text citations

Two or more works cited at one point in the text

If two or more works by different authors or authoring bodies are cited at one point in the text, use a semi-colon to separate them:

(Larsen 2000; Malinowski 1999)

The authors should be listed in alphabetical order.

Two or three authors or authoring bodies

When citing a work by two or three authors or authoring bodies, cite the names in the order in which they appear on the title page:

(Malinowski, Miller & Gupta 1995) 

In-Text & Reference List Examples

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Home / Guides / Citation Guides / Harvard Referencing / Harvard Referencing Style Examples / How to reference an article in Harvard referencing style

How to reference an article in Harvard referencing style

What is an article.

Almost all writers and academics reference other people’s writing in their works. Referencing demonstrates that you have researched your topic, are well versed in its arguments and theories, and it also helps avoid charges of plagiarism.  

The Harvard citation system is just one of many referencing styles – and which style you choose is normally guided by the institution or publication you are writing for.

In this article, you will learn how to use the Harvard citation system to reference the following types of articles:

• journal article
• newspaper article
• magazine article

Properly citing article details in the reference list will help the readers to locate your source material if they wish to read more about a particular area or topic.

Information you need:

• Author name
• (Year published)  
• ‘Article title’  
• Journal/newspaper/magazine name  
• Day and month published, if available
• Volume number, if available
• (Issue) number, if available
• Page number(s), if available

If accessed online:

• Available at: URL or DOI  
• (Accessed: date).

Journal articles

Academic or scholarly journals are periodical publications about a specific discipline. No matter what your field is, if you are writing an academic paper, you will inevitably have to cite a journal article in your research. Journal articles often have multiple authors, so make sure you know when to use et al. in Harvard style . The method for referencing a journal article in the reference list is as follows:

Reference list (print) structure:

Last name, F. (Year published) ‘Article title’, Journal name , Volume(Issue), Page(s).

Shepherd, V. (2020) ‘An exploration around peer support for secondary pupils in Scotland with experience of self-harm’, Educational Psychology in Practice, 36(3), pp. 297-312.

Note that the article title uses sentence case. However, the title of the journal uses title case. Additionally, the volume number comes immediately after the journal title followed by the issue number in round brackets.

If the original material you are referencing was accessed online, then the method for citing it in the reference list will be the same as that in print, but with an additional line at the end.  

Reference list (online) structure:

Last name, F. (Year published) ‘Article title’, Journal Name , Volume(Issue), Page(s). Available at: URL or DOI (Accessed: date).  

Shepherd, V. (2020) ‘An exploration around peer support for secondary pupils in Scotland with experience of self-harm’, Educational Psychology in Practice, 36(3), pp. 297-312. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02667363.2020.1772726 (Accessed: 08 October 2020).

In-text citation (print or online) structure:

In-text citations are written within round brackets and start with the last name of the author followed by the year published, both separated by a comma.

You can also mention the author within the text and only include the publication year in round brackets.

Examples:  

In this article (Shepherd, 2020) deals with…  

According to Shepherd (2020), when peer support is available…  

Talking about the secondary education system, Shepherd (2020, p.299) suggests that…

Newspaper articles

Even if you are referring to an incident which is public knowledge, you still need to cite the source.  

The name of the author in a newspaper article is referred to as a byline. Below are examples for citing an article both with and without a byline.  

Reference list (print) structure:  

Last name, F. (Year published). ‘Article title’, Newspaper name , Day Month, Page(s).

Hamilton, J. (2018). ‘Massive fire at local department store’, The Daily Local, 10 August, p. 1.

Last name, F. (Year published). ‘Article title’, Newspaper name , Day Month, Page(s). Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year).

Gambino, L. (2020) ‘Kamala Harris and Mike Pence clash over coronavirus response in vice-presidential debate,’ The Guardian, 8 October. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/07/debate-kamala-harris-mike-pence-latest-news (Accessed: 8 October 2020).

Reference list structure, no byline:

The basic reference list structure for the reference is the same for both print and online articles. If information isn’t available, simply omit it from the reference.

Newspaper name (Year published) ‘Article Title’, Day Month, Page(s). Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year).

The Chronicler (2016) ‘Local man wins lottery jackpot twice in one year’, 30 May, p. 14. Available at: https://thechroniclerpaper.com/local-man-wins-lottery-twice (Accessed: 1 October 2020).

In-text citation structure (print or online):

The last name of the author and date are written in round brackets, separated by a comma. The method is similar to referencing journal articles in in-text citations.

(Hamilton, 2018)

In his paper, Gambino (2020) mentioned that…

For articles accessed online which do not have an author, the name of the publication is mentioned in place of the author’s name and is italicized.

( The Chronicler , 2016)

Magazine articles  

The structure of magazine articles is similar to that of a journal article.

Last name, F. (Year published) ‘Article title’, Magazine Name , Volume(Issue), Page(s).

Ornes, S. (2020). “To save Appalachia’s endangered mussels, scientists hatched a bold plan”, ScienceNews, (198), p.2.

Last name, F. (Year published) ‘Article title’, Magazine name , Volume(Issue), Page(s). Available at: URL (Accessed: Date).

Ornes, S. (2020) ‘To save Appalachia’s endangered mussels, scientists hatched a bold plan’, ScienceNews, (198), p.2. Available at: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/endangered-mussels-appalachia-rivers-biologists-conservation-plan (Accessed: 3 October 2020).

  In-text citation (print or online) structure:

(Author last name, Year published)

(Ornes, 2020)

Published October 29, 2020.

Harvard Formatting Guide

Harvard Formatting

• et al Usage
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• View Harvard Guide

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Free Harvard Referencing Generator

Generate accurate Harvard reference lists quickly and for FREE, with MyBib!

🤔 What is a Harvard Referencing Generator?

A Harvard Referencing Generator is a tool that automatically generates formatted academic references in the Harvard style.

It takes in relevant details about a source -- usually critical information like author names, article titles, publish dates, and URLs -- and adds the correct punctuation and formatting required by the Harvard referencing style.

The generated references can be copied into a reference list or bibliography, and then collectively appended to the end of an academic assignment. This is the standard way to give credit to sources used in the main body of an assignment.

👩‍🎓 Who uses a Harvard Referencing Generator?

Harvard is the main referencing style at colleges and universities in the United Kingdom and Australia. It is also very popular in other English-speaking countries such as South Africa, Hong Kong, and New Zealand. University-level students in these countries are most likely to use a Harvard generator to aid them with their undergraduate assignments (and often post-graduate too).

🙌 Why should I use a Harvard Referencing Generator?

A Harvard Referencing Generator solves two problems:

• It provides a way to organise and keep track of the sources referenced in the content of an academic paper.
• It ensures that references are formatted correctly -- inline with the Harvard referencing style -- and it does so considerably faster than writing them out manually.

A well-formatted and broad bibliography can account for up to 20% of the total grade for an undergraduate-level project, and using a generator tool can contribute significantly towards earning them.

⚙️ How do I use MyBib's Harvard Referencing Generator?

Here's how to use our reference generator:

• If citing a book, website, journal, or video: enter the URL or title into the search bar at the top of the page and press the search button.
• Choose the most relevant results from the list of search results.
• Our generator will automatically locate the source details and format them in the correct Harvard format. You can make further changes if required.
• Then either copy the formatted reference directly into your reference list by clicking the 'copy' button, or save it to your MyBib account for later.

MyBib supports the following for Harvard style:

🍏 What other versions of Harvard referencing exist?

There isn't "one true way" to do Harvard referencing, and many universities have their own slightly different guidelines for the style. Our generator can adapt to handle the following list of different Harvard styles:

• Cite Them Right
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• University of the West of England (UWE)

Daniel is a qualified librarian, former teacher, and citation expert. He has been contributing to MyBib since 2018.

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Cite Them Right Harvard Templates: Government Documents

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Harvard Templates

Government Reports and Papers

Please ensure that you follow the template exactly, including text formatting such as italics and punctuation.

Name of speaker/author (Year of publication) 'Subject of debate or speech'. Hansard: Name of House of Parliament - debates/written statement/Westminster Hall or petitions , Day and month, Volume number/column number/page number, Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Paraphrasing / Summarising

John Hayes MP (2024) raised concerns about...

...factors covered in the debate by Hayes (2024).

Reference List :

Hayes, J. (2024) 'Food security'. Hansard: House of Commons - debates , 30 July, 752, c. 1282. Available at: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2024-07-30/debates/0D5D632E-C4AD-4451-97DA-DEA74D54ECB0/FoodSecurity (Accessed: 2 August 2024)

Committee Reports

Name of the Committee (Year of publication) Title of the report . (Chair: name). Place of publication: Publisher.

... discussed by the committee themselves (National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education, 1997).

National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (1997) Higher education in the learning society . (Chair: Sir Ron Dearing). London: TSO.

Command Papers

Department (Year of publication) Title of report or consultation paper . (Command Paper number). Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

... a plan to restore control of public spending (HM Treasury, 2024).

As indicated by HM Treasury (2024), ...

... stated that "such unfunded pressures cannot arise again" (HM Treasury, 2024, p. 14).

HM Treasury (2024, p. 14) states that "such unfunded pressures cannot arise again".

HM Treasury (2024) Fixing the foundations: public spending audit 2024-25 . (CP 1133). Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fixing-the-foundations-public-spending-audit-2024-25 (Accessed: 6 August 2024).

Commission Reports

Law Commission (Year of publication) Title of report or consultation paper . (Number of report/consultation paper). Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

The report (Law Commission, 2022) argues that....

As outlined in a report by the Law Commission (2022), ...

The document states that "as long as legislation provides that an electronic trade document is capable of being indorsed, any uncertainty in this regard is removed" (Law Commission, 2022, p. 195).

As stated by the Law Commission (2022, p. 195), "as long as legislation provides that an electronic trade document is capable of being indorsed, any uncertainty in this regard is removed".

Law Commission (2022) Electronic trade documents: Report and Bill . (LC 405). Available at: https://lawcom.gov.uk/project/electronic-trade-documents/ (Accessed: 1 August 2024).

Inventor(s) (Year of publication) Title . Authorising organisation, Patent number. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

... invention was needed because there was a lack of readily available nitrous oxide in Cuba (Toretto, 2017).

Toretto (2017) recommends the introduction of ...

"..." (Toretto, 2017, p. 32).

In the patent, Toretto (2017, p. 32) argues that "..."

Toretto, D. (2017) Cuban NOS - Nitrous oxide system for internal combustion engine . US Intellectual Property Office, Patent no. US7699043B2. Available at: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/97/5b/b0/11388a7fb5db62/US7699043.pdf (Accessed: 7 July 2024).

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Peer Reviewed

GPT-fabricated scientific papers on Google Scholar: Key features, spread, and implications for preempting evidence manipulation

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Academic journals, archives, and repositories are seeing an increasing number of questionable research papers clearly produced using generative AI. They are often created with widely available, general-purpose AI applications, most likely ChatGPT, and mimic scientific writing. Google Scholar easily locates and lists these questionable papers alongside reputable, quality-controlled research. Our analysis of a selection of questionable GPT-fabricated scientific papers found in Google Scholar shows that many are about applied, often controversial topics susceptible to disinformation: the environment, health, and computing. The resulting enhanced potential for malicious manipulation of society’s evidence base, particularly in politically divisive domains, is a growing concern.

Swedish School of Library and Information Science, University of Borås, Sweden

Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, Lund University, Sweden

Division of Environmental Communication, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden

Research Questions

• Where are questionable publications produced with generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) that can be found via Google Scholar published or deposited?
• What are the main characteristics of these publications in relation to predominant subject categories?
• How are these publications spread in the research infrastructure for scholarly communication?
• How is the role of the scholarly communication infrastructure challenged in maintaining public trust in science and evidence through inappropriate use of generative AI?

research note Summary

• A sample of scientific papers with signs of GPT-use found on Google Scholar was retrieved, downloaded, and analyzed using a combination of qualitative coding and descriptive statistics. All papers contained at least one of two common phrases returned by conversational agents that use large language models (LLM) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Google Search was then used to determine the extent to which copies of questionable, GPT-fabricated papers were available in various repositories, archives, citation databases, and social media platforms.
• Roughly two-thirds of the retrieved papers were found to have been produced, at least in part, through undisclosed, potentially deceptive use of GPT. The majority (57%) of these questionable papers dealt with policy-relevant subjects (i.e., environment, health, computing), susceptible to influence operations. Most were available in several copies on different domains (e.g., social media, archives, and repositories).
• Two main risks arise from the increasingly common use of GPT to (mass-)produce fake, scientific publications. First, the abundance of fabricated “studies” seeping into all areas of the research infrastructure threatens to overwhelm the scholarly communication system and jeopardize the integrity of the scientific record. A second risk lies in the increased possibility that convincingly scientific-looking content was in fact deceitfully created with AI tools and is also optimized to be retrieved by publicly available academic search engines, particularly Google Scholar. However small, this possibility and awareness of it risks undermining the basis for trust in scientific knowledge and poses serious societal risks.

Implications

The use of ChatGPT to generate text for academic papers has raised concerns about research integrity. Discussion of this phenomenon is ongoing in editorials, commentaries, opinion pieces, and on social media (Bom, 2023; Stokel-Walker, 2024; Thorp, 2023). There are now several lists of papers suspected of GPT misuse, and new papers are constantly being added. 1 See for example Academ-AI, https://www.academ-ai.info/ , and Retraction Watch, https://retractionwatch.com/papers-and-peer-reviews-with-evidence-of-chatgpt-writing/ . While many legitimate uses of GPT for research and academic writing exist (Huang & Tan, 2023; Kitamura, 2023; Lund et al., 2023), its undeclared use—beyond proofreading—has potentially far-reaching implications for both science and society, but especially for their relationship. It, therefore, seems important to extend the discussion to one of the most accessible and well-known intermediaries between science, but also certain types of misinformation, and the public, namely Google Scholar, also in response to the legitimate concerns that the discussion of generative AI and misinformation needs to be more nuanced and empirically substantiated  (Simon et al., 2023).

Google Scholar, https://scholar.google.com , is an easy-to-use academic search engine. It is available for free, and its index is extensive (Gusenbauer & Haddaway, 2020). It is also often touted as a credible source for academic literature and even recommended in library guides, by media and information literacy initiatives, and fact checkers (Tripodi et al., 2023). However, Google Scholar lacks the transparency and adherence to standards that usually characterize citation databases. Instead, Google Scholar uses automated crawlers, like Google’s web search engine (Martín-Martín et al., 2021), and the inclusion criteria are based on primarily technical standards, allowing any individual author—with or without scientific affiliation—to upload papers to be indexed (Google Scholar Help, n.d.). It has been shown that Google Scholar is susceptible to manipulation through citation exploits (Antkare, 2020) and by providing access to fake scientific papers (Dadkhah et al., 2017). A large part of Google Scholar’s index consists of publications from established scientific journals or other forms of quality-controlled, scholarly literature. However, the index also contains a large amount of gray literature, including student papers, working papers, reports, preprint servers, and academic networking sites, as well as material from so-called “questionable” academic journals, including paper mills. The search interface does not offer the possibility to filter the results meaningfully by material type, publication status, or form of quality control, such as limiting the search to peer-reviewed material.

To understand the occurrence of ChatGPT (co-)authored work in Google Scholar’s index, we scraped it for publications, including one of two common ChatGPT responses (see Appendix A) that we encountered on social media and in media reports (DeGeurin, 2024). The results of our descriptive statistical analyses showed that around 62% did not declare the use of GPTs. Most of these GPT-fabricated papers were found in non-indexed journals and working papers, but some cases included research published in mainstream scientific journals and conference proceedings. 2 Indexed journals mean scholarly journals indexed by abstract and citation databases such as Scopus and Web of Science, where the indexation implies journals with high scientific quality. Non-indexed journals are journals that fall outside of this indexation. More than half (57%) of these GPT-fabricated papers concerned policy-relevant subject areas susceptible to influence operations. To avoid increasing the visibility of these publications, we abstained from referencing them in this research note. However, we have made the data available in the Harvard Dataverse repository.

The publications were related to three issue areas—health (14.5%), environment (19.5%) and computing (23%)—with key terms such “healthcare,” “COVID-19,” or “infection”for health-related papers, and “analysis,” “sustainable,” and “global” for environment-related papers. In several cases, the papers had titles that strung together general keywords and buzzwords, thus alluding to very broad and current research. These terms included “biology,” “telehealth,” “climate policy,” “diversity,” and “disrupting,” to name just a few.  While the study’s scope and design did not include a detailed analysis of which parts of the articles included fabricated text, our dataset did contain the surrounding sentences for each occurrence of the suspicious phrases that formed the basis for our search and subsequent selection. Based on that, we can say that the phrases occurred in most sections typically found in scientific publications, including the literature review, methods, conceptual and theoretical frameworks, background, motivation or societal relevance, and even discussion. This was confirmed during the joint coding, where we read and discussed all articles. It became clear that not just the text related to the telltale phrases was created by GPT, but that almost all articles in our sample of questionable articles likely contained traces of GPT-fabricated text everywhere.

Evidence hacking and backfiring effects

Generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) can be used to produce texts that mimic scientific writing. These texts, when made available online—as we demonstrate—leak into the databases of academic search engines and other parts of the research infrastructure for scholarly communication. This development exacerbates problems that were already present with less sophisticated text generators (Antkare, 2020; Cabanac & Labbé, 2021). Yet, the public release of ChatGPT in 2022, together with the way Google Scholar works, has increased the likelihood of lay people (e.g., media, politicians, patients, students) coming across questionable (or even entirely GPT-fabricated) papers and other problematic research findings. Previous research has emphasized that the ability to determine the value and status of scientific publications for lay people is at stake when misleading articles are passed off as reputable (Haider & Åström, 2017) and that systematic literature reviews risk being compromised (Dadkhah et al., 2017). It has also been highlighted that Google Scholar, in particular, can be and has been exploited for manipulating the evidence base for politically charged issues and to fuel conspiracy narratives (Tripodi et al., 2023). Both concerns are likely to be magnified in the future, increasing the risk of what we suggest calling evidence hacking —the strategic and coordinated malicious manipulation of society’s evidence base.

The authority of quality-controlled research as evidence to support legislation, policy, politics, and other forms of decision-making is undermined by the presence of undeclared GPT-fabricated content in publications professing to be scientific. Due to the large number of archives, repositories, mirror sites, and shadow libraries to which they spread, there is a clear risk that GPT-fabricated, questionable papers will reach audiences even after a possible retraction. There are considerable technical difficulties involved in identifying and tracing computer-fabricated papers (Cabanac & Labbé, 2021; Dadkhah et al., 2023; Jones, 2024), not to mention preventing and curbing their spread and uptake.

However, as the rise of the so-called anti-vaxx movement during the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing obstruction and denial of climate change show, retracting erroneous publications often fuels conspiracies and increases the following of these movements rather than stopping them. To illustrate this mechanism, climate deniers frequently question established scientific consensus by pointing to other, supposedly scientific, studies that support their claims. Usually, these are poorly executed, not peer-reviewed, based on obsolete data, or even fraudulent (Dunlap & Brulle, 2020). A similar strategy is successful in the alternative epistemic world of the global anti-vaccination movement (Carrion, 2018) and the persistence of flawed and questionable publications in the scientific record already poses significant problems for health research, policy, and lawmakers, and thus for society as a whole (Littell et al., 2024). Considering that a person’s support for “doing your own research” is associated with increased mistrust in scientific institutions (Chinn & Hasell, 2023), it will be of utmost importance to anticipate and consider such backfiring effects already when designing a technical solution, when suggesting industry or legal regulation, and in the planning of educational measures.

Recommendations

Solutions should be based on simultaneous considerations of technical, educational, and regulatory approaches, as well as incentives, including social ones, across the entire research infrastructure. Paying attention to how these approaches and incentives relate to each other can help identify points and mechanisms for disruption. Recognizing fraudulent academic papers must happen alongside understanding how they reach their audiences and what reasons there might be for some of these papers successfully “sticking around.” A possible way to mitigate some of the risks associated with GPT-fabricated scholarly texts finding their way into academic search engine results would be to provide filtering options for facets such as indexed journals, gray literature, peer-review, and similar on the interface of publicly available academic search engines. Furthermore, evaluation tools for indexed journals 3 Such as LiU Journal CheckUp, https://ep.liu.se/JournalCheckup/default.aspx?lang=eng . could be integrated into the graphical user interfaces and the crawlers of these academic search engines. To enable accountability, it is important that the index (database) of such a search engine is populated according to criteria that are transparent, open to scrutiny, and appropriate to the workings of  science and other forms of academic research. Moreover, considering that Google Scholar has no real competitor, there is a strong case for establishing a freely accessible, non-specialized academic search engine that is not run for commercial reasons but for reasons of public interest. Such measures, together with educational initiatives aimed particularly at policymakers, science communicators, journalists, and other media workers, will be crucial to reducing the possibilities for and effects of malicious manipulation or evidence hacking. It is important not to present this as a technical problem that exists only because of AI text generators but to relate it to the wider concerns in which it is embedded. These range from a largely dysfunctional scholarly publishing system (Haider & Åström, 2017) and academia’s “publish or perish” paradigm to Google’s near-monopoly and ideological battles over the control of information and ultimately knowledge. Any intervention is likely to have systemic effects; these effects need to be considered and assessed in advance and, ideally, followed up on.

Our study focused on a selection of papers that were easily recognizable as fraudulent. We used this relatively small sample as a magnifying glass to examine, delineate, and understand a problem that goes beyond the scope of the sample itself, which however points towards larger concerns that require further investigation. The work of ongoing whistleblowing initiatives 4 Such as Academ-AI, https://www.academ-ai.info/ , and Retraction Watch, https://retractionwatch.com/papers-and-peer-reviews-with-evidence-of-chatgpt-writing/ . , recent media reports of journal closures (Subbaraman, 2024), or GPT-related changes in word use and writing style (Cabanac et al., 2021; Stokel-Walker, 2024) suggest that we only see the tip of the iceberg. There are already more sophisticated cases (Dadkhah et al., 2023) as well as cases involving fabricated images (Gu et al., 2022). Our analysis shows that questionable and potentially manipulative GPT-fabricated papers permeate the research infrastructure and are likely to become a widespread phenomenon. Our findings underline that the risk of fake scientific papers being used to maliciously manipulate evidence (see Dadkhah et al., 2017) must be taken seriously. Manipulation may involve undeclared automatic summaries of texts, inclusion in literature reviews, explicit scientific claims, or the concealment of errors in studies so that they are difficult to detect in peer review. However, the mere possibility of these things happening is a significant risk in its own right that can be strategically exploited and will have ramifications for trust in and perception of science. Society’s methods of evaluating sources and the foundations of media and information literacy are under threat and public trust in science is at risk of further erosion, with far-reaching consequences for society in dealing with information disorders. To address this multifaceted problem, we first need to understand why it exists and proliferates.

Finding 1: 139 GPT-fabricated, questionable papers were found and listed as regular results on the Google Scholar results page. Non-indexed journals dominate.

Most questionable papers we found were in non-indexed journals or were working papers, but we did also find some in established journals, publications, conferences, and repositories. We found a total of 139 papers with a suspected deceptive use of ChatGPT or similar LLM applications (see Table 1). Out of these, 19 were in indexed journals, 89 were in non-indexed journals, 19 were student papers found in university databases, and 12 were working papers (mostly in preprint databases). Table 1 divides these papers into categories. Health and environment papers made up around 34% (47) of the sample. Of these, 66% were present in non-indexed journals.

Finding 2: GPT-fabricated, questionable papers are disseminated online, permeating the research infrastructure for scholarly communication, often in multiple copies. Applied topics with practical implications dominate.

The 20 papers concerning health-related issues are distributed across 20 unique domains, accounting for 46 URLs. The 27 papers dealing with environmental issues can be found across 26 unique domains, accounting for 56 URLs.  Most of the identified papers exist in multiple copies and have already spread to several archives, repositories, and social media. It would be difficult, or impossible, to remove them from the scientific record.

As apparent from Table 2, GPT-fabricated, questionable papers are seeping into most parts of the online research infrastructure for scholarly communication. Platforms on which identified papers have appeared include ResearchGate, ORCiD, Journal of Population Therapeutics and Clinical Pharmacology (JPTCP), Easychair, Frontiers, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer (IEEE), and X/Twitter. Thus, even if they are retracted from their original source, it will prove very difficult to track, remove, or even just mark them up on other platforms. Moreover, unless regulated, Google Scholar will enable their continued and most likely unlabeled discoverability.

A word rain visualization (Centre for Digital Humanities Uppsala, 2023), which combines word prominences through TF-IDF 5 Term frequency–inverse document frequency , a method for measuring the significance of a word in a document compared to its frequency across all documents in a collection. scores with semantic similarity of the full texts of our sample of GPT-generated articles that fall into the “Environment” and “Health” categories, reflects the two categories in question. However, as can be seen in Figure 1, it also reveals overlap and sub-areas. The y-axis shows word prominences through word positions and font sizes, while the x-axis indicates semantic similarity. In addition to a certain amount of overlap, this reveals sub-areas, which are best described as two distinct events within the word rain. The event on the left bundles terms related to the development and management of health and healthcare with “challenges,” “impact,” and “potential of artificial intelligence”emerging as semantically related terms. Terms related to research infrastructures, environmental, epistemic, and technological concepts are arranged further down in the same event (e.g., “system,” “climate,” “understanding,” “knowledge,” “learning,” “education,” “sustainable”). A second distinct event further to the right bundles terms associated with fish farming and aquatic medicinal plants, highlighting the presence of an aquaculture cluster.  Here, the prominence of groups of terms such as “used,” “model,” “-based,” and “traditional” suggests the presence of applied research on these topics. The two events making up the word rain visualization, are linked by a less dominant but overlapping cluster of terms related to “energy” and “water.”

The bar chart of the terms in the paper subset (see Figure 2) complements the word rain visualization by depicting the most prominent terms in the full texts along the y-axis. Here, word prominences across health and environment papers are arranged descendingly, where values outside parentheses are TF-IDF values (relative frequencies) and values inside parentheses are raw term frequencies (absolute frequencies).

Finding 3: Google Scholar presents results from quality-controlled and non-controlled citation databases on the same interface, providing unfiltered access to GPT-fabricated questionable papers.

Google Scholar’s central position in the publicly accessible scholarly communication infrastructure, as well as its lack of standards, transparency, and accountability in terms of inclusion criteria, has potentially serious implications for public trust in science. This is likely to exacerbate the already-known potential to exploit Google Scholar for evidence hacking (Tripodi et al., 2023) and will have implications for any attempts to retract or remove fraudulent papers from their original publication venues. Any solution must consider the entirety of the research infrastructure for scholarly communication and the interplay of different actors, interests, and incentives.

We searched and scraped Google Scholar using the Python library Scholarly (Cholewiak et al., 2023) for papers that included specific phrases known to be common responses from ChatGPT and similar applications with the same underlying model (GPT3.5 or GPT4): “as of my last knowledge update” and/or “I don’t have access to real-time data” (see Appendix A). This facilitated the identification of papers that likely used generative AI to produce text, resulting in 227 retrieved papers. The papers’ bibliographic information was automatically added to a spreadsheet and downloaded into Zotero. 6 An open-source reference manager, https://zotero.org .

We employed multiple coding (Barbour, 2001) to classify the papers based on their content. First, we jointly assessed whether the paper was suspected of fraudulent use of ChatGPT (or similar) based on how the text was integrated into the papers and whether the paper was presented as original research output or the AI tool’s role was acknowledged. Second, in analyzing the content of the papers, we continued the multiple coding by classifying the fraudulent papers into four categories identified during an initial round of analysis—health, environment, computing, and others—and then determining which subjects were most affected by this issue (see Table 1). Out of the 227 retrieved papers, 88 papers were written with legitimate and/or declared use of GPTs (i.e., false positives, which were excluded from further analysis), and 139 papers were written with undeclared and/or fraudulent use (i.e., true positives, which were included in further analysis). The multiple coding was conducted jointly by all authors of the present article, who collaboratively coded and cross-checked each other’s interpretation of the data simultaneously in a shared spreadsheet file. This was done to single out coding discrepancies and settle coding disagreements, which in turn ensured methodological thoroughness and analytical consensus (see Barbour, 2001). Redoing the category coding later based on our established coding schedule, we achieved an intercoder reliability (Cohen’s kappa) of 0.806 after eradicating obvious differences.

The ranking algorithm of Google Scholar prioritizes highly cited and older publications (Martín-Martín et al., 2016). Therefore, the position of the articles on the search engine results pages was not particularly informative, considering the relatively small number of results in combination with the recency of the publications. Only the query “as of my last knowledge update” had more than two search engine result pages. On those, questionable articles with undeclared use of GPTs were evenly distributed across all result pages (min: 4, max: 9, mode: 8), with the proportion of undeclared use being slightly higher on average on later search result pages.

To understand how the papers making fraudulent use of generative AI were disseminated online, we programmatically searched for the paper titles (with exact string matching) in Google Search from our local IP address (see Appendix B) using the googlesearch – python library(Vikramaditya, 2020). We manually verified each search result to filter out false positives—results that were not related to the paper—and then compiled the most prominent URLs by field. This enabled the identification of other platforms through which the papers had been spread. We did not, however, investigate whether copies had spread into SciHub or other shadow libraries, or if they were referenced in Wikipedia.

We used descriptive statistics to count the prevalence of the number of GPT-fabricated papers across topics and venues and top domains by subject. The pandas software library for the Python programming language (The pandas development team, 2024) was used for this part of the analysis. Based on the multiple coding, paper occurrences were counted in relation to their categories, divided into indexed journals, non-indexed journals, student papers, and working papers. The schemes, subdomains, and subdirectories of the URL strings were filtered out while top-level domains and second-level domains were kept, which led to normalizing domain names. This, in turn, allowed the counting of domain frequencies in the environment and health categories. To distinguish word prominences and meanings in the environment and health-related GPT-fabricated questionable papers, a semantically-aware word cloud visualization was produced through the use of a word rain (Centre for Digital Humanities Uppsala, 2023) for full-text versions of the papers. Font size and y-axis positions indicate word prominences through TF-IDF scores for the environment and health papers (also visualized in a separate bar chart with raw term frequencies in parentheses), and words are positioned along the x-axis to reflect semantic similarity (Skeppstedt et al., 2024), with an English Word2vec skip gram model space (Fares et al., 2017). An English stop word list was used, along with a manually produced list including terms such as “https,” “volume,” or “years.”

• Artificial Intelligence
• / Search engines

Cite this Essay

Haider, J., Söderström, K. R., Ekström, B., & Rödl, M. (2024). GPT-fabricated scientific papers on Google Scholar: Key features, spread, and implications for preempting evidence manipulation. Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review . https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-156

• / Appendix B

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This research has been supported by Mistra, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, through the research program Mistra Environmental Communication (Haider, Ekström, Rödl) and the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation [2020.0004] (Söderström).

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

The research described in this article was carried out under Swedish legislation. According to the relevant EU and Swedish legislation (2003:460) on the ethical review of research involving humans (“Ethical Review Act”), the research reported on here is not subject to authorization by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (“etikprövningsmyndigheten”) (SRC, 2017).

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original author and source are properly credited.

Data Availability

All data needed to replicate this study are available at the Harvard Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WUVD8X

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the article manuscript as well as the editorial group of Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review for their thoughtful feedback and input.

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Cite Them Right 12th ed.

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Industry-standard technology

The Scribbr Referencing Generator is built using the same citation software (CSL) as Mendeley and Zotero, but with an added layer for improved accuracy.

Explanatory tips help you get the details right to ensure accurate citations.

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• Introduction

Reference examples

Missing information, citation examples, tools and resources, how to reference in harvard style.

Harvard referencing is a widely used referencing style (especially in UK universities) that includes author-date in-text citations and a complete reference list at the end of the text.

There are many versions of Harvard referencing style. Our guidance reflects the rules laid out in Cite Them Right: The Essential Referencing Guide (12th edition) by Richard Pears and Graham Shields.

Scribbr’s free reference generator can create flawless Harvard style references for a wide variety of sources.

• Cite a webpage
• Cite a book
• Cite a journal article

Harvard reference entries

The reference list appears at the end of your text, listing full information on all the sources you cited. A Harvard reference entry generally mentions the author , date , title , publisher or publication that contains the source, and URL or DOI if relevant.

You’ll include different details depending on the type of source you’re referencing, as some information is only relevant to certain kinds of publications.

The format of a reference entry varies based on source type. Apart from the information included, formatting details such as the use of italics also depend on what you’re referencing. The tabs below show formats and examples for the most commonly referenced source types.

The suggested information won’t necessarily all be available for the source you’re referencing. To learn how to work around missing information in your references, check the table below.

Harvard Referencing Generator

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Harvard in-text citations

Harvard referencing style uses author-date in-text citations, which means including the author’s last name and the publication year of the source, like this: (Smith, 2019). This citation points the reader to the corresponding entry in the reference list.

Always include an in-text citation when you quote or paraphrase a source. Include a page number or range when available and relevant to indicate which part of the source you’re drawing on. Using material from other sources without acknowledging them is plagiarism.

In-text citations can be parenthetical (author and date both in parentheses) or narrative (author name mentioned in the sentence, date in parentheses). A source may also have more than one author. If there are four or more, name only the first, followed by “ et al. ”

As with reference entries, it’s good to be aware of how to deal with missing information in your in-text citations.

Scribbr offers a variety of other tools and resources to help with referencing and other aspects of academic writing:

• Referencing generator : Scribbr’s free referencing generator can also create flawless citations in other styles, such as APA and MLA .
• Free plagiarism checker : Detect and fix plagiarism issues with the most accurate plagiarism checker available, powered by Turnitin.
• Proofreading services : Make sure your writing is clear and professional with the help of an expert editor.
• Guide to Harvard style : Understand the rules of Harvard referencing style, and learn how to cite a variety of sources.
• Guides and videos : Explore our Knowledge Base, our YouTube channel, and a wide variety of other educational resources covering topics ranging from language to statistics.