CASRAI Dictionary

Tag: academic writing

  • How to Write a Research Abstract

    A research abstract is a concise, self-contained summary of an entire study — usually 150 to 300 words — that lets a reader grasp the purpose, methods, findings and conclusion without reading the full paper. It is often the only part indexed, read or searched, so it carries disproportionate weight.

    Follow the steps below to write one that is accurate, complete and discoverable.

    Step 1: Decide structured or unstructured

    Two formats exist:

    • Structured — explicit labelled sections (Background, Methods, Results, Conclusion). Common in medicine and many sciences; easy to scan.
    • Unstructured — a single continuous paragraph covering the same ground without headings. Common in the humanities and some social sciences.

    Check the target journal’s instructions first; the choice is usually dictated, not free.

    Step 2: Cover the IMRaD content

    Whether structured or not, a strong abstract mirrors the IMRaD shape of the paper itself — Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. Map each to a sentence or two:

    IMRaD element Abstract content
    Introduction Background and the gap or question
    Methods Design, participants, what was measured
    Results Key findings, including direction of effect
    Discussion What it means and the main conclusion

    For the full-paper version of this shape, see the anatomy of a journal article.

    Step 3: Respect the word limit

    Most journals set a limit between 150 and 300 words; conferences are often tighter. Write to the limit deliberately rather than trimming at the end — every sentence should earn its place. Cut background that the reader can infer, and never include citations, figures or undefined abbreviations.

    Step 4: Choose keywords

    Most journals ask for three to six keywords beneath the abstract. Choose terms a searcher would actually type, avoid repeating words already in the title where possible, and prefer recognised vocabulary. Controlled terms from our dictionary help here by aligning your keywords with terminology others use.

    Step 5: Write it last, edit it hardest

    Draft the abstract after the paper is complete, so it reflects what you actually found, then edit it more carefully than any other section because it is the most read. Read it aloud; if a sentence cannot stand alone, it is not abstract-ready. Our for authors guidance covers the final pre-submission pass.

    Common mistakes to avoid

    • Promising results in vague terms (“results are discussed”) instead of stating them.
    • Including information not present in the paper.
    • Adding citations or references — the abstract must stand alone.
    • Exceeding the word limit or padding to reach it.
    • Using undefined acronyms.

    Where your study reports an observational design, state it precisely — see cohort and case-control study designs for the terminology. And keep references in the body, formatted to your style; our guide to citation styles compared covers the options.

    How the abstract fits the research output

    The abstract is the front door to your output’s metadata. Contributor roles via CRediT and controlled terms in our dictionary describe the rest, making the work discoverable and attributable. Browse more in research outputs.

    Frequently asked questions

    How long should an abstract be?

    Usually 150 to 300 words, but always follow the specific journal or conference limit, which can be shorter.

    Should I write the abstract first or last?

    Last. Drafting it after the paper is finished ensures it accurately reflects the methods and findings.

    Can I include references in an abstract?

    Generally no. An abstract must be self-contained, so avoid citations, footnotes and figures.

    What is the difference between structured and unstructured abstracts?

    A structured abstract uses labelled sections such as Background and Methods; an unstructured abstract covers the same content as a single flowing paragraph. The journal usually specifies which to use.

  • How to Cite Sources: A Practitioner’s Step-by-Step Guide

    To cite a source, identify what type of source it is, capture its key metadata (author, date, title and where it was published), choose the referencing style your work requires, then build both an in-text citation and a matching reference entry — and finally check the entry against the original. The same five-step workflow applies whether you are using APA, MLA, Chicago or Vancouver; only the formatting at the end changes.

    Citation is not a clerical afterthought. It is how you connect your argument to the wider scholarly record, give fair credit to others, and let readers verify your claims. Treating it as a repeatable process — rather than something to patch in at the end — is the single biggest improvement most writers can make.

    The five-step workflow

    1. Identify the source type. Is it a journal article, a book, a chapter in an edited book, a web page, a report, a dataset or a thesis? The type determines which metadata you need and how the entry is shaped. A journal article needs a volume and issue; a book needs a publisher; a dataset needs a repository.
    2. Capture the metadata. Record, at minimum: author(s), year (and full date for web sources), title of the source, the larger work or publisher it appears in, and a locator — page range, DOI or stable URL. Capture this as you read, not later, when the tab is closed and the detail is gone. A DOI, where one exists, is the most valuable single field, because it is a persistent address into the record.
    3. Choose the style. Use the style your publisher, journal or institution mandates — APA for much of the social sciences, MLA for the humanities, Chicago in history and publishing, Vancouver in biomedicine. If no style is specified, pick one and apply it consistently. Never mix styles within one document.
    4. Build the in-text citation and reference entry. Create the brief in-text marker and the full entry together, so the two always match. In author–date styles the marker is author and year; in numeric styles it is a bracketed number; in notes styles it is a footnote.
    5. Check accuracy. Verify author spellings, the year, the page range and especially the DOI against the original source. Confirm that every in-text citation has a reference-list entry and vice versa. Inaccurate citations break the chain of verification and can edge into plagiarism when a source is misattributed.

    A worked example across three styles

    Suppose you are citing a journal article by Jane Smith, published in 2021, titled “Open-access uptake in clinical trials”, in volume 14, issue 3 of the Journal of Research Standards, pages 220–238, with a DOI. The metadata is identical; only the rendering differs.

    Style In-text Reference / list entry
    APA 7 (Smith, 2021) Smith, J. (2021). Open-access uptake in clinical trials. Journal of Research Standards, 14(3), 220–238. https://doi.org/10.1000/jrs.2021.0143
    MLA 9 (Smith 224) Smith, Jane. “Open-Access Uptake in Clinical Trials.” Journal of Research Standards, vol. 14, no. 3, 2021, pp. 220–38.
    Vancouver [1] 1. Smith J. Open-access uptake in clinical trials. J Res Stand. 2021;14(3):220–38.

    The same five steps produced all three; the only step that diverged was the fourth. This is why capturing complete metadata once, well, pays off no matter which style a journal later demands.

    Common mistakes and how to avoid them

    The most frequent errors are missing metadata (no DOI, no issue number), inconsistent style within one document, and a mismatch between in-text citations and the reference list. A subtler error is citing a source you have not actually read — relying on someone else’s summary while implying first-hand knowledge. If you must cite a work you have only seen quoted, cite it as a secondary source and be transparent. Accurate, honest citation is a core expectation of research integrity, as defined by bodies such as COPE.

    Tools, and their limits

    Reference managers and the “cite” buttons on databases speed up step four, but they do not replace step five. Auto-generated citations routinely garble author initials, drop subtitles, mis-capitalise titles or invent the wrong style variant. Use the tools to draft, then verify by hand against the source. Our guidance for authors and the CASRAI standards dictionary can help you reason about how to describe outputs that the tools handle poorly, such as datasets, software and protocols.

    Frequently asked questions

    What is the minimum information I need to cite a source?

    Author, year (or full date for web content), title, the larger work or publisher, and a locator such as a page range, DOI or stable URL. If any of these is genuinely absent, every style provides a substitute — for example, moving the title to the author position when there is no named author.

    How do I cite a source I found quoted in another work?

    Cite it as a secondary source. Name the original work and indicate that you read it via the secondary one, using your style’s “as cited in” convention. Better still, find and read the original where you can, then cite it directly.

    Can I mix citation styles in one document?

    No. Consistency is part of what makes citations readable and verifiable. Choose one style and apply it to every citation, every entry and every locator throughout the document.

    Does citing always prevent plagiarism?

    Citing is necessary but not sufficient. You must also signal borrowed wording with quotation marks or proper paraphrasing. A citation attached to copied text without quotation marks is still plagiarism — citing and quoting are two separate obligations.

  • APA Reference List Format: Worked Examples

    An APA reference list is the alphabetically ordered set of full source entries placed at the end of a document, each formatted with a hanging indent and corresponding to an in-text citation. It follows the author–date conventions of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition). Every work cited in the text appears once in the list, and every entry in the list is cited at least once in the text — the two must match exactly.

    The reference list is where APA’s four-element logic — author, date, title, source — becomes a precise, repeatable format. If you are new to the author–date system, start with our APA 7th edition essentials before building a full list.

    The three formatting rules that govern every entry

    Three mechanical rules apply to the whole list. First, alphabetical order by the first author’s surname; works by the same author are then ordered by year, earliest first. Second, a hanging indent: the first line of each entry sits at the left margin and every subsequent line is indented, so surnames are easy to scan. Third, the list is double-spaced with no extra blank lines between entries, and titled “References”, centred and bold, on a new page.

    Worked examples by source type

    The table below shows a correctly formatted entry for each major source type. Author names and years are illustrative placeholders, but the punctuation, italics and ordering are exactly as APA 7 requires.

    Source type Worked example
    Journal article Smith, J. A. (2021). Open-access uptake in clinical trials. Journal of Research Standards, 14(3), 220–238. https://doi.org/10.1000/jrs.2021.0143
    Book Brown, T. R. (2019). Foundations of research integrity. Academic Press.
    Chapter in an edited book Lee, S. (2020). Data-sharing norms. In R. Patel (Ed.), Open science in practice (pp. 45–67). University Press.
    Website / web page Jones, R. B. (2022, March 4). Metadata standards for research outputs. Research Standards Institute. https://example.org/metadata-standards
    Dataset Patel, A., & Khan, M. (2021). Citation-coverage survey 2021 [Data set]. Open Data Repository. https://doi.org/10.1000/odr.2021.0099

    Reading the journal-article entry

    Take the journal example apart. The author block inverts the name and uses initials. The year sits in brackets. The article title is in sentence case and not italicised — only the first word and proper nouns are capitalised. The journal name and volume number are italicised; the issue number, in brackets, is not. The page range and DOI close the entry, with no full stop after the DOI. This single pattern, with small variations, drives most of the references you will ever write.

    Handling books, chapters and the publisher rule

    Books reverse the italics: now the title is italicised in sentence case, and the publisher closes the entry. APA 7 dropped the publisher’s city, so “Academic Press” stands alone. For a chapter, you cite the chapter author and chapter title first, then “In”, the editor(s) with initials before the surname, the italicised book title, the page range in brackets, and the publisher. Knowing exactly who is credited at chapter versus volume level matters for fair attribution of credit.

    Websites, datasets and DOI formatting

    Web pages need a specific date where available — year, month and day — and the name of the hosting organisation as the “source”. Datasets are cited as first-class outputs: author, year, italicised title, a bracketed format description such as [Data set], the repository name and a DOI. Treating data this way reflects the modern research-outputs landscape, where datasets, software and protocols are citable on their own terms.

    For DOIs, always use the full https://doi.org/ form, with no trailing punctuation. If an online source has no DOI but has a stable URL, give the URL; if the content is likely to change, add a retrieval date. A persistent identifier is what links your entry to the durable scholarly record.

    Ordering edge cases

    Two situations trip people up. When one author has several works in the same year, distinguish them with lowercase letters on the year — (2021a), (2021b) — ordered by title, and mirror those letters in the in-text citations. When alphabetising, treat “nothing before something”: Smith, J. comes before Smith, J. A. Single-author entries precede multi-author entries that begin with the same surname.

    Frequently asked questions

    Should every cited source appear in the reference list?

    Yes — with one exception. Standard in-text-only items such as personal communications (emails, interviews not recoverable by a reader) are cited in the text but not listed, because there is nothing the reader can retrieve. Everything recoverable must appear.

    How do I order two works by the same author?

    By year, earliest first. If the years are identical, add lowercase letters to the year and order alphabetically by title. Single-author works always come before that author’s collaborative works.

    Do I keep the hanging indent in a numbered or bulleted list?

    The reference list is never numbered or bulleted in APA. It is a plain, double-spaced list with a hanging indent on each entry. Numbered referencing belongs to other styles, such as Vancouver.

    Where can I confirm an unusual entry?

    For conference papers, theses, software or grey literature, check your institution’s APA guide or the Publication Manual. CASRAI’s author guidance and standards dictionary can help you decide how to describe an output before you format it.

  • APA Referencing Style Essentials (7th Edition)

    APA format is the author–date referencing style of the American Psychological Association, set out in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition, 2020). It pairs a brief in-text citation — author surname and year — with a full, alphabetically ordered entry in a reference list at the end of the document. APA is the dominant style across psychology, education, nursing and the social and behavioural sciences.

    Because APA is built on the author–date principle, every claim that draws on a source carries a signal the reader can resolve immediately: who said it, and when. The year matters because evidence in these disciplines ages, and recency is part of how readers judge relevance. To understand where APA sits among the major systems, it helps to read it alongside our overview of how APA, MLA, Chicago and Vancouver compare.

    How APA in-text citation works

    APA in-text citations name the author and the year, and add a page or paragraph number for direct quotations. Two formats exist. A parenthetical citation places everything in brackets: (Smith, 2021). A narrative citation weaves the author into the sentence and brackets only the year: Smith (2021) argued that… For a direct quote, add a locator: (Smith, 2021, p. 14).

    Works by two authors name both every time, joined by an ampersand inside brackets — (Smith & Jones, 2020) — or by “and” in narrative form. Works by three or more authors use “et al.” from the first mention: (Smith et al., 2019). This shortening was one of the headline changes in the 7th edition.

    Anatomy of an APA reference entry

    Every full reference answers four questions in a fixed order: Who (author), When (date), What (title), and Where (source). A journal-article entry illustrates the pattern:

    Smith, J. A., & Jones, R. B. (2021). Measuring open-access uptake in clinical research. Journal of Research Standards, 14(3), 220–238. https://doi.org/10.1000/jrs.2021.0143

    Element Example Rule
    Author Smith, J. A., & Jones, R. B. Surname, then initials; invert all authors; ampersand before the last
    Date (2021). Year of publication in brackets
    Title Measuring open-access uptake in clinical research. Sentence case; article titles not italicised
    Source Journal of Research Standards, 14(3), 220–238. Journal name and volume italicised; issue in brackets; page range
    DOI https://doi.org/10.1000/jrs.2021.0143 Presented as a full clickable URL

    Authorship order in the reference list is not cosmetic — it carries credit. The conventions for who appears, and in what order, connect directly to broader debates about contribution and credit and the standards around authorship that CASRAI documents.

    Common source types

    The four-part skeleton flexes to fit different materials. A book gives author, year, italicised title in sentence case, and publisher: Brown, T. (2019). Foundations of research integrity. Academic Press. A chapter in an edited book adds the editors and book title: Lee, S. (2020). Data-sharing norms. In R. Patel (Ed.), Open science in practice (pp. 45–67). University Press. A web page gives author, date, italicised title and the site, then the URL. A dataset is treated as a recoverable output with author, year, title, a bracketed description such as [Data set], the repository, and a DOI.

    DOIs as URLs

    One of the clearest shifts in APA 7 is DOI formatting. A digital object identifier is now always presented as a full https://doi.org/ URL rather than the older “doi:” prefix. No full stop follows the DOI or URL, because trailing punctuation can break a link. When a DOI exists, include it for every source type that has one, online or print. The DOI is the source’s persistent address — closely related to the role of a stable identifier in the wider scholarly record.

    What changed in the 7th edition

    The 7th edition (2020) made several practical changes. Publisher locations were dropped from book references. The “et al.” rule now applies from the first citation for three or more authors, and the reference list may name up to 20 authors before truncating. The phrase “Retrieved from” before URLs was removed unless a retrieval date is genuinely needed. Singular “they” is endorsed as an inclusive pronoun. And the manual added explicit, format-specific guidance for student papers versus professional manuscripts.

    Frequently asked questions

    Do I need a page number for every APA citation?

    No. A page or paragraph number is required only for direct quotations and is recommended when you point to a specific passage. Paraphrased material needs author and year but no locator, though giving one is courteous when paraphrasing from a long work.

    How do I cite a source with no author?

    Move the title to the author position. For an in-text citation, use the first few words of the title in italics or quotation marks, matching how the work is formatted in the reference list, followed by the year. Use “n.d.” for no date.

    Is APA the same as Harvard referencing?

    They share the author–date family resemblance, but they are not identical. Harvard is a style family with many institutional variants, whereas APA is a single, centrally published standard with precise rules. Always follow the specific guide your publisher or institution names.

    Where can I check the correct entry for an unusual source?

    Consult the Publication Manual directly, or your institution’s APA guide, for materials such as conference papers, theses, software and social media. CASRAI’s guidance for authors and our research-standards dictionary can help you reason about how an unfamiliar output should be described and credited.

  • IEEE and AMA Citation Styles Explained

    IEEE citation uses bracketed numbers in the text that point to a numbered reference list, and is standard across engineering and computer science. AMA citation, used widely in medicine, uses superscript numbers instead. Both are numeric systems, but they differ in formatting, ordering and discipline.

    This guide explains how each style handles in-text markers and reference entries, with worked examples and a side-by-side table.

    IEEE: numbers in square brackets

    In IEEE style, each source is assigned a number the first time it is cited, in square brackets, and that number is reused for every later citation of the same source. References are listed in the order they first appear — not alphabetically.

    • In-text: Recent work on neural search has improved recall [1], and later studies confirmed it [2], [3].
    • Reused number: The original architecture [1] remains the baseline.
    • As a noun: As shown in [4], latency dropped sharply.

    A reference-list entry abbreviates author first initials and places the number in brackets:

    [1] J. Smith and A. Jones, “A scalable indexing method,” IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng., vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 110–128, 2021.

    AMA: superscript numbers

    AMA style places superscript numerals after the relevant text, again numbered in order of first appearance. The reference list follows the same numeric order. AMA dominates clinical and biomedical journals.

    • In-text: Adherence improved across the cohort.1
    • Multiple sources: Several trials reported the same effect.2,3
    • Range: The pattern held across studies.4-6

    A reference entry uses journal abbreviations and a specific punctuation pattern:

    1. Smith J, Jones A. Outcomes in the treatment cohort. J Clin Res. 2021;12(3):110-128.

    IEEE versus AMA at a glance

    Feature IEEE AMA
    Discipline Engineering, computer science Medicine, biomedicine
    In-text marker Square brackets [1] Superscript 1
    List order Order of appearance Order of appearance
    Author names Initials before surname: J. Smith Surname then initials: Smith J
    Title style Article title in quotes Article title, no quotes
    Journal name Abbreviated, italic Abbreviated, italic

    Why discipline drives style choice

    Numeric styles keep the running text uncluttered, which suits dense technical and clinical writing where a single sentence may lean on several sources. IEEE’s bracketed numbers double as compact cross-references to equations, figures and prior work; AMA’s superscripts keep medical prose readable at speed. Compare this with author-date approaches in our guide to Harvard referencing, where the author’s name carries into the sentence.

    For a wider map of the field, see citation styles compared, and for general technique, our practitioner guide to citing sources.

    Common pitfalls

    The most frequent IEEE error is alphabetising the reference list — it must follow first-appearance order. The most frequent AMA error is mixing in author-date phrasing (“Smith showed¹”) inconsistently; keep the superscript doing the work. In both styles, every number in the list must be cited at least once in the text, and vice versa. Our for authors guidance covers reference hygiene before submission.

    How citation style fits research outputs metadata

    Citation style governs the visible reference; controlled vocabulary in our dictionary and contributor attribution through CRediT govern the structured metadata around it. Together they make a paper’s outputs machine-readable. Explore more in research outputs.

    Frequently asked questions

    Are IEEE and Vancouver the same?

    They are close cousins — both numeric, both ordered by appearance — but differ in formatting detail, and Vancouver is associated with biomedicine while IEEE is associated with engineering. AMA is itself a Vancouver-derived medical style.

    Do IEEE numbers go inside or outside punctuation?

    IEEE brackets typically sit before the full stop, treated as part of the sentence: “…confirmed the result [2].”

    Can I cite the same AMA source twice?

    Yes — reuse its original number every time it appears, just as in IEEE.

    Which style should a computer science thesis use?

    IEEE is the conventional default for computer science and electrical engineering, but always follow your department’s or publisher’s stated requirement.

  • Footnotes and Endnotes in Academic Writing

    Footnotes are notes placed at the bottom of the page, marked by a superscript number in the text; endnotes collect the same notes together at the end of a chapter or document. Both are central to note-based citation styles such as Chicago notes-bibliography and Oxford (OSCOLA-influenced) referencing, common in history, law and the humanities.

    This guide explains how notes work, the difference between citation and content notes, and when to choose notes over an author-date system.

    Footnotes versus endnotes

    The mechanism is identical — a superscript number in the text points to a numbered note — but placement differs:

    • Footnotes sit at the foot of the same page, so the reader can glance down without losing their place. Preferred where notes are frequently consulted.
    • Endnotes gather at the end, keeping the page clean. Preferred for note-heavy texts where footnotes would crowd the layout.

    Numbering usually runs continuously through a chapter or the whole work. The choice is often set by the publisher’s house style rather than the author.

    Citation notes versus content notes

    Notes do two distinct jobs, and good practice keeps them clear:

    • Citation notes give the source: author, title, publication details and page. They replace the parenthetical (author, year) of author-date styles.
    • Content notes add commentary, a caveat, a translation or a tangent that would interrupt the main argument if left in the body text.

    A full citation note in Chicago notes-bibliography looks like this on first appearance:

    1. Jane Smith, Designing the Research Question (London: Academic Press, 2020), 114.

    Subsequent references to the same work are shortened:

    2. Smith, Designing the Research Question, 121.

    Chicago notes-bibliography and Oxford style

    Chicago offers two systems: author-date (similar in spirit to Harvard referencing) and notes-bibliography, the note-based variant described here. Oxford style, widely used in UK humanities and the basis of much legal referencing, follows the same note-and-bibliography logic with its own punctuation. Both pair numbered notes with a full bibliography at the end, alphabetised by author.

    Element First footnote Bibliography entry
    Author order Forename Surname Surname, Forename
    Punctuation Commas, parentheses Full stops
    Page Specific page cited Whole-work range or none

    When to use notes instead of author-date

    Note-based styles suit work that:

    • Cites many primary sources, archives or legal materials whose full details do not compress neatly into (author, year);
    • Needs frequent discursive commentary alongside citations;
    • Follows a humanities or legal house style that expects notes.

    Author-date systems suit the sciences and social sciences, where the year of publication is immediately relevant and brevity in the body text is prized. For the numeric alternatives used in technical and clinical writing, see IEEE and AMA citation styles explained, and for the broader landscape, citation styles compared.

    Formatting good notes

    Keep superscript markers at the end of the relevant clause, after punctuation in most styles. Avoid stacking several markers on one word. Use shortened forms after the first full citation, and reserve content notes for material that genuinely cannot sit in the body. Our for authors guidance covers consistency checks before submission, and our practitioner guide to citing sources covers the underlying principles.

    How notes fit the research record

    Whatever the citation mechanism, the goal is an unambiguous, traceable record. Controlled terms in our dictionary and contributor roles via CRediT complement careful notes by structuring the rest of a work’s metadata. See more in research outputs.

    Frequently asked questions

    Should I use footnotes or endnotes?

    Follow your publisher or department. Footnotes aid readers who consult notes often; endnotes keep pages uncluttered in note-heavy texts.

    Do I still need a bibliography if I use footnotes?

    In Chicago notes-bibliography and Oxford style, yes — the notes give running citations and the bibliography gives the full alphabetised list.

    Can a footnote contain both a citation and a comment?

    It can, but separating citation notes from content notes keeps the apparatus clearer. Use comments sparingly.

    Are footnotes outdated?

    No. They remain standard in history, law and many humanities fields where discursive commentary and primary-source citation are essential.

  • Harvard Referencing Style: A Complete Guide

    Harvard referencing is an author-date citation system in which sources are cited in the text by the author’s surname and the year of publication, with full details listed alphabetically in a reference list. There is no single governing body for Harvard, so exact punctuation varies between universities; consistency within one document matters more than any universal rule.

    This guide covers the in-text format, the reference-list format, the major institutional variants and worked examples you can adapt.

    Why there is no single “Harvard” authority

    Unlike APA, which is maintained by the American Psychological Association, Harvard is a family of author-date styles rather than a centrally published standard. Many institutions publish their own Harvard guide, and the British Standard BS ISO 690 informs several of them. The practical consequence: punctuation, italicisation and the use of “and” versus “&” differ between guides. Always follow the specific guide your department or journal mandates, and apply it uniformly.

    For a wider comparison of conventions across the citation landscape, see our overview of citation styles compared.

    In-text citations: (author, year)

    Harvard in-text citations name the author and year in parentheses, adding a page number for direct quotations.

    • Paraphrase: Research participation rose sharply over the decade (Smith, 2021).
    • Direct quote: The findings were “unambiguous and replicable” (Smith, 2021, p. 14).
    • Author named in sentence: Smith (2021) argued that the trend was structural.
    • Two authors: (Smith and Jones, 2020) — some variants use an ampersand: (Smith & Jones, 2020).
    • Three or more: (Smith et al., 2019).

    Where an author has several works in the same year, distinguish them with letters: (Smith, 2021a), (Smith, 2021b).

    The reference list

    The reference list appears at the end, ordered alphabetically by author surname. A typical journal-article entry reads:

    Smith, J. (2021) ‘Patterns of research participation’, Journal of Research Methods, 12(3), pp. 110–128.

    A book entry:

    Jones, A. (2020) Designing the Research Question. 2nd edn. London: Academic Press.

    Core elements are author, year, title, source and locator. Italicise the title of the standalone work (the journal or the book), and place the article title in quotation marks where the variant requires it.

    Institutional variants you will meet

    Because Harvard is decentralised, you will encounter small but stubborn differences. The table below illustrates a few common points of divergence; treat them as examples, not as ranked authorities.

    Feature Variant style A Variant style B
    Two-author connector Smith and Jones Smith & Jones
    Year placement Smith, J. (2021) Smith, J., 2021.
    Article title ‘In quotes’ No quotes, sentence case
    Page abbreviation pp. 110–128 110–128

    The recurring lesson is the same one we stress in our for authors guidance: choose one variant, document it, and apply it without exception.

    Citing electronic sources in Harvard

    Web pages take the same author-date logic with an access date added, because online content can change. For a full walkthrough across styles, see our companion piece on how to cite a website correctly. For numeric and superscript alternatives used in engineering and medicine, see IEEE and AMA citation styles explained.

    How Harvard fits the wider research output

    Referencing is one strand of describing scholarship clearly. Controlled terminology in our dictionary and contributor roles via CRediT complement consistent citation by making the rest of a paper’s metadata as unambiguous as its reference list. Browse more in research outputs.

    Frequently asked questions

    Is Harvard the same as APA?

    No. Both are author-date systems, but APA is a single published standard with fixed rules, whereas Harvard is a family of similar styles with institution-specific punctuation. Our APA essentials guide details the APA-specific conventions.

    Which Harvard variant should I use?

    The one your department, publisher or journal specifies. If none is mandated, pick a reputable institutional guide and follow it consistently throughout the document.

    Do I need page numbers for paraphrases?

    Page numbers are required for direct quotations and recommended when pointing to a specific passage. For general paraphrase of a whole source, author and year usually suffice.

    How do I cite a source with no author?

    Use the title in place of the author, or the organisation responsible. Practical strategies for missing metadata appear in our practitioner guide to citing sources.