bibliottHarvard Citation Generator — Cite Them Right 12th
Free, accurate Harvard citations in seconds. Built for universal — common in uk, australia, social sciences. We auto-fill details from Crossref, OpenLibrary, or the page you paste.
What is Harvard Cite Them Right 12th?
Harvard is an umbrella term for author-date referencing styles used widely in the United Kingdom, Australia, and former-Commonwealth universities. There is no single "Harvard authority" — most institutions follow Cite Them Right (Pears & Shields), now in its 12th edition (2022). It looks similar to APA but with subtle punctuation and capitalization differences.
When to use Harvard
- Most UK universities (default style for many disciplines)
- Australian and New Zealand higher education
- Business and management programs worldwide
- When your institution simply says "Harvard" without further specification
Harvard quick reference
In-text citation
Author–date in parentheses: (Author, Year, p. number).
(Smith, 2023, p. 45) or Smith (2023, p. 45) found that…
Reference list (alphabetical, hanging indent)
Author, A. (Year) 'Title of article', Journal Name, Volume(Issue), pp. pages. doi: xx.xxx.
Smith, J. (2023) 'The future of artificial intelligence in academic research', Nature Machine Intelligence, 5(3), pp. 234–245. doi: 10.1038/s42256-023-00001-x.
Author, A. (Year) Title of book. Edition. Place: Publisher.
Brown, P. (2021) Citation in the digital age. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author (Year) Title of page. Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year).
World Health Organization (2024) Mental health: strengthening our response. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-health (Accessed: 7 May 2024).
Key Harvard formatting rules
- Always check your specific university's Harvard guide — house rules vary.
- Article titles in single quotes; book and journal titles in italics.
- Sentence case for titles. Use "and" not "&" between authors.
- For online sources, always include "Available at:" before the URL and an access date in brackets.
- For 4+ authors use "et al." in-text but list all in the reference list (Cite Them Right rule).
Cite AI tools in Harvard
Other citation styles
Harvard FAQ
They look similar (both author-date) but punctuate differently. Harvard uses single quotes around article titles and "Available at:" before URLs; APA italicizes journal volumes and uses DOIs as plain links.
There is no single Harvard authority — every institution publishes its own Harvard guide. Cite Them Right is the most common reference, but always cross-check with your university's style page if there is one.
Most Harvard guides (including Cite Them Right) prefer "and" in the reference list. Some institutional variants use "&" — check your university's guide.