Importance of citing references correctly

This part of the website provides support to the Harvard reference wizard.

If you are submitting assignments, essays or theses then you are required to correctly reference any ideas, images, data, reference lists you have used which are not your own. This also includes data and information you have obtained from electronic sources including the internet.

Failure to give credit to the work of others can result in you being accused of plagiarism which if proven could result in no marks being given for your work or suspension from your course or even expulsion from your College or university.

There are two main methods of referencing articles. These are known as the author-date or the Harvard method and the author-number or Vancouver system.

Normally your university or College will specify how you should reference your work. The Harvard method is used frequently in scientific writing.

Note while the Harvard system of referencing is controlled, some variation in the use of capital letters, italics, the use of parentheses and text styles does occur in different institutions and journals. Please check the 'house style' that is specified for your publication, thesis, dissertation or assignment before submitting your work.

Some students have difficulty in citing particular types of reference. These in my experience include electronic media,including Emails, and Mintel reports. Wizards for the completion of these reference sources are included.

There are several ways in which Emails can be referenced. The Email addresses of the sender and the recipients can also be included however I do not recommend this approach for privacy and other reasons. If you have to include addresses then the permission of the other parties involved should be obtained.

In many institutions and journals, you are not permitted to include references that are not subject to authentication; Email and other personal communications belong to this category. Instead these are mentioned in the text e.g. Tribles have a very high reproductive capacity (J.T. Kirk, personal communication, June 12, 1989).

For more information on referencing using the Harvard style please see the article "Harvard style bibliographies and references" published by the University of Leeds. The site Links page contains a section on writing research reports that may also be useful to readers.

Return to Harvard reference wizard.

How to cite this article

Mullan, W.M.A. (2007) [On-line] UK: Available: Accessed:

© Copyright February 2001. All rights reserved. W M A Mullan.
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