Harvard Referencing Guide > Citing - in - text

Author’s name cited in the text

When making reference to an author’s work in your text, their name is followed by the year of publication of their work, and page reference, in brackets (parentheses) and forms part of the sentence.
Cormack (1994, pp.32-33) states that 'when writing for a professional readership, writers invariably make reference to already published works'.
In general, when writing for a professional publication, it is good practice to make reference to other relevant published work. This view has been supported in the work of Cormack (1994, pp.32-33).

Author’s name not cited directly in the text

If you make reference to a work or piece of research without mentioning the author in the text then both the author’s name and publication year are placed at the relevant point in the sentence or at the end of the sentence in brackets:
Making reference to published work appears to be characteristic of writing for a professional audience (Cormack, 1994).

More than one author cited in the text

Where reference is made to more than one author in a sentence, and they are referred to directly, they are both cited:
Jones (1946) and Smith (1948) have both shown……

More than one author not cited directly in the text

List these at the relevant point in the sentence or at the end of the sentence, putting the author’s name, followed by the date of publication and separated by a semi-colon and within brackets:
Further research in the late forties (Jones, 1946; Smith, 1948) lead to major developments………….

Two authors for the same work

When there are two authors for a work they should both be noted in the text:
White and Brown (1964) in their recent research paper found……..
with regard to PREP and the role of libraries, Crane and Urquhart (1994) suggest…
or indirectly, using an ampersand (&) :
During the mid nineties research undertaken in Luton (Slater & Jones, 1996) showed that…………….
Earlier research (White & Brown, 1966) demonstrated that the presence of certain chemicals would lead to………

More than two authors for a work

Where there are several authors (more than two), only the first author should be used, followed by ‘et al.’ meaning ‘and others’:
Green, et al. (1995) found that the majority ……
or indirectly:
Recent research has found that the majority of……(Green, et al., 1995)

No date

The abbreviation n.d. is used to denote this:
Smith (n.d.) has written and demonstrated……
or indirectly:
Earlier research (Smith, n.d.) demonstrated that…..
Every effort should be made to establish the year of publication if you intend to use this work as supporting evidence in an academic submission.

Page numbers

Including the page numbers of a reference will help readers trace your sources. This is particularly important for quotations and for paraphrasing specific paragraphs in the texts:
Lawrence (1966, p.124)
or indirectly:
(Lawrence, 1966, p.124)

Several works by one author in different years
If more than one publication from an author illustrates the same point and the works are published in different years, then the references should be cited in chronological order (i.e. earliest first):
as suggested by Bloggs (1992, 1994)
or indirectly:
(Bloggs 1992, 1994)……

Several works by one author in the same year

If you are quoting several works published by the same author in the same year, they should be differentiated by adding a lower case letter after the year for each item:
Earlier research by Smith (1993a) found that………but later research suggested again by Smith (1993b) that…….
If several works published in the same year are referred to on a single occasion – or an author has made the same point in several publications they can all be referred to by using lower case letters (as above):
Bloggs (1993a, b) has stated on more than one occasion that…

Quoting portions of published text

If you want to include text from a published work in your essay then the sentence(s) must be included within quotation marks, and may be introduced by such phrases as:
the author states that ‘……..’ or …the author writes that ‘……..’
In order for a reader to trace the quoted section it is good practice to give the number of the page where the quotation was found. The quotation should also be emphasized (especially if it runs to several lines) by indenting it and using quotation marks. This clearly identifies it as the work of someone else:
On the topic of professional writing and referencing Cormack (1994, p.32)
states:
'When writing for a professional readership, writers invariably make reference to already published works'.

Chapter authors in edited works

References to the work of an author that appears as a chapter, or part of a larger work, that is edited by someone else, should be cited within your text using the name of the contributory author and not the editor of the whole volume:
In his work on health information, Smith (1975) states…

Corporate authors

If the work is by a recognised organisation and has no personal author then it is usually cited under the body that commissioned it. This applies to publications by associations, companies, government departments etc. such as Department of the Environment or Royal College of Nursing.
It is acceptable to use standard abbreviations for these bodies, eg. RCN, in your text, providing that the full name is given at the first citing with the abbreviation in brackets:
1st citation: Royal College of Nursing (RCN) ( 2007)
2nd citation: RCN (2007)
Note that the full name is the preferred format in the reference list. Some reports are written by specially convened groups or committees and can be cited by the name of the committee:
Committee on Nursing (1972)
Select Committee on Stem Cell Research (2002)

No author

If the author cannot be identified use ‘Anonymous’ or ‘Anon.’ and the title of the work and date of publication. The title should be written in italics. Every effort should be made to establish the authorship if you intend to use this work as supporting evidence in an academic submission:
Marketing strategy (Anon., 1999)

Secondary sources (second-hand references)

While you are consulting an original work, you may come across a summary of another author’s work, which you would like to make reference to in your own document. This is called secondary referencing:
A direct reference:
Research recently carried out by
Brown (1966 cited in Bassett, 1986, p.142) found that……..
In this example, Brown is the work, which you wish to refer to, but have not read directly for yourself. Bassett is the secondary source, where you found the summary of Brown’s work..
Or indirectly:
(Brown, 1966 cited in Bassett, 1986, p.142)
In the example below White is the primary or original source and Black is the secondary source. It is important to realise that Black may have taken White's ideas forward, and altered their original meaning. It is recommended that where possible, you read the original source for yourself rather than rely on someone else’s interpretation of a work.
White, (1990) as cited in Black (1994), suggests that…

The reference list at the end of your document should only contain works that you have read.