NBS GUIDELINES TO THE HARVARD REFERENCING SYSTEM
This is a brief overview of how to use the Harvard Referencing System. Only the commonest form of referencing material has been used. For other, more obscure materials that you may reference to, please use the full version of Cite Them Right. http://northumbria.ac.uk/sd/central/library/ir/orginfo/?view=Standard
When writing a piece of academic work (normally assignments or third year dissertation), one of the greatest challenges that students face is how to reference correctly. This is because:
? Students don’t understand why they need to reference, and ? Students don’t understand how to reference
WHY:
There are three reasons why you need to reference your work:
? To bring evidence to your work of your research and reading ? To give authority and credence to the work you are presenting
? To enable the reader to locate the information that you have used within your
work (refer to the NBS Leaflet: ‘How Not to Plagiarise – A Guide for Students’)
HOW
Firstly, when you are referring or citing to a piece of work within the body of the text, there is one simple rule – you only quote the author’s surname and the year. The main exception to this is when you have used a direct quote, you would normally also include the page reference. However, author and year is the key. There is a good reason for keeping it simple: long, complex references spoil the flow of the text, and can spoil the look of well structured work.
Secondly, within the reference list, you need to use the following chart to identify the correct order of the key components: Book Journal Electronic Internet Newspapers journal site Author’s surname and 1 1 1 1 1 initial Yea