Harvard Referencing Guide for UK Students (2026 Edition)

What Changed in the 13th Edition (And What Didn't)

Let's get this out of the way first, because if you learned Harvard referencing before September 2025, this is the bit that's different.

Place of publication is gone for books. Previously, a book reference looked like:

Cottrell, S. (2023) The study skills handbook. 5th edn. London: Macmillan.

It now looks like:

Cottrell, S. (2024) The study skills handbook. 6th edn. Macmillan.

No city, no colon before the publisher. Just the publisher name. This applies to books, conference proceedings, and similar sources. The only exception is for older or historical works where the place of publication is essential to identifying which edition or printing you're referring to — which, realistically, you won't run into in most undergraduate work.

Titles in your reference list now use sentence case. Only the first word of a title (and any proper nouns) gets a capital letter. In-text, when you mention a title in your writing, you still use title case. So in your reference list: The study skills handbook. In your essay text: "Cottrell's The Study Skills Handbook remains a widely used resource..."

Journal articles with article numbers (common in open-access journals that don't use traditional page ranges) now use the word "article" instead of "article number" — a small wording tweak but one that examiners checking your reference list precision will notice.

There's now official guidance on referencing AI tools. If you've used ChatGPT, Copilot, or similar tools and the output appears in your work in some form, you need to reference it. If you've used AI for brainstorming, checking grammar, or structuring — without including its actual output — you should acknowledge this, typically in an acknowledgements section or methodology note rather than your reference list. We'll cover this properly later in this guide, because it's becoming one of the most-asked referencing questions among UK students right now.

Online sources without page numbers can now optionally use paragraph numbers in in-text citations, which is useful if you're quoting from a long webpage or report and want to point your reader to a specific section.

Everything else — the core author-date system, the structure of in-text citations, how you handle multiple authors — works the same as before.

One practical note: if your university library guide or referencing tool (Zotero, MyBib, ZoteroBib) hasn't updated to the 13th edition yet, don't panic. As several UK university library teams have confirmed, the priority is that your references are consistent and traceable throughout your document. If in doubt, check with your specific department, since some universities adopted the changes for 2025–26 and others may take a little longer to update their official guidance.

The Basics: How Harvard Referencing Actually Works

Harvard is an author-date system. Every time you use someone else's idea, finding, or words, you do two things:

1. Add a brief in-text citation showing who said it and when
2. Add a full entry in your reference list at the end, so your reader can find the original source

The in-text citation is short — just enough to point to the full entry. The reference list entry is complete, with everything someone would need to track down that exact source.

In-text citation, basic format:

Recent studies suggest that hybrid working improves employee retention (Carter, 2024).

Or, if you're naming the author directly in your sentence:

Carter (2024) found that hybrid working improves employee retention.

Reference list entry, same source:

Carter, J. (2024) Hybrid working and employee retention. Routledge.

That's the core pattern. Everything else in this guide is variations on it for different source types.

Referencing Books

One author:

Surname, Initial. (Year) Title in italics, sentence case. Edition (if not the first). Publisher.

Smith, A. (2024) Understanding consumer behaviour. 3rd edn. Palgrave.

Two or three authors — list all of them, separated by "and" before the last:

Smith, A. and Jones, B. (2024) Marketing principles. Sage.

Smith, A., Jones, B. and Clarke, C. (2024) Marketing principles. Sage.

Four or more authors — list the first author followed by et al.:

Smith, A. et al. (2024) Marketing principles. Sage.

Edited books — if you're citing the book as a whole:

Brown, K. (ed.) (2023) Social policy in practice. Bloomsbury.

A chapter within an edited book — this one trips people up. You're citing the chapter author, but the book title and editor still need to appear:

Davies, R. (2023) 'Welfare reform and its discontents', in Brown, K. (ed.) Social policy in practice. Bloomsbury, pp. 45–67.

E-books — reference as you would the print version if the pagination matches. If it doesn't, use a DOI (no access date needed) or a URL with the date you accessed it.

Referencing Journal Articles

This is the format you'll use constantly in any literature review or research-based assignment.

Surname, Initial. (Year) 'Title of article in single quotation marks, sentence case', Title of Journal in Italics, Title Case, volume number(issue number), pp. page range.

Okafor, T. (2024) 'Remote work and organisational culture: a UK perspective', Journal of Business Studies, 18(2), pp. 112–134.

If the article has a DOI, it's good practice to include it at the end:

Okafor, T. (2024) 'Remote work and organisational culture: a UK perspective', Journal of Business Studies, 18(2), pp. 112–134. doi: 10.1234/jbs.2024.0118.

If the journal uses article numbers instead of page ranges (common for open-access journals):

Okafor, T. (2024) 'Remote work and organisational culture: a UK perspective', Journal of Business Studies, 18(2), article 45.

Referencing Websites

Websites are the source type students get wrong most often — usually by leaving out the date accessed, or by trying to reference a whole website rather than a specific page.

Author or Organisation (Year) Title of page in italics. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

NHS (2024) Managing stress and anxiety. Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/managing-stress-anxiety [Accessed: 14 June 2026].

A few things worth knowing:

If there's no clearly identifiable author, use the organisation's name. If there's genuinely no author and no organisation, use the page title in the author position and move it accordingly — though for academic work, you should generally be wary of sources with no identifiable origin.

If there's no publication date, use "n.d." in place of the year — but treat this as a signal to double-check whether the source is reliable enough to use at all.

Always include the access date for websites, because web content changes or disappears. This is one of the few source types where the "Accessed" date remains essential.

Referencing Government Reports, Legislation, and Official Publications

These come up constantly in law, business, social policy, nursing, and public health assignments.

Government report:

Department for Education (2024) Skills for jobs: lifelong learning for opportunity and growth. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Legislation (Act of Parliament):

Equality Act 2010, c. 15. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

In-text, legislation is typically cited by its short title and year, written in italics: the Equality Act 2010 prohibits discrimination on the basis of...

If you're working heavily with legislation and case law — particularly for law degrees — Harvard isn't actually the right system. UK law schools use OSCOLA, which has its own footnote-based approach. If that's you, it's worth checking our separate OSCOLA guide.

Referencing Images, Figures, and Tables

If you've included a chart, diagram, photograph, or table from another source — even if you've redrawn it — it needs a citation underneath it and a corresponding reference list entry.

Underneath the figure:

Figure 2: UK graduate employment rates by region, 2020–2024 (Office for National Statistics, 2024).

In the reference list:

Office for National Statistics (2024) UK graduate employment rates by region, 2020–2024. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

If you've adapted or redrawn the figure rather than reproducing it exactly, add "Adapted from" before the citation.

Referencing AI Tools (New for 2025–26)

This is the section almost nobody's department has fully explained yet, and it's the one we get asked about most.

The rule, broadly, comes down to what the AI actually did.

If you've used AI-generated content directly — text, an image, a piece of code that appears in your work — you need to reference it as a source, in the same way you'd reference any other generated content. The 13th edition's guidance includes a format roughly like:

OpenAI (2026) ChatGPT response to prompt: "Explain the key differences between qualitative and quantitative research methods". Available at: https://chat.openai.com/ (Accessed: date).

If you've used AI to assist your process — brainstorming ideas, checking grammar, restructuring a paragraph — without any of its actual output appearing in your final work, you typically don't need a reference list entry. Instead, many universities ask for an acknowledgement, often in a declaration or methodology section, noting how AI tools were used.

The honest answer here is: check your specific university's policy before submitting anything. AI use policies vary significantly between institutions, and some departments have additional requirements beyond what Cite Them Right specifies. What's consistent everywhere, though, is that not disclosing AI use when your university requires it is treated as an academic integrity issue — regardless of what referencing system you're using.

In-Text Citations: The Details That Trip People Up

Direct quotes need a page number, even when the rest of your in-text citations don't:

"The shift to hybrid working has fundamentally altered expectations around workplace flexibility" (Carter, 2024, p. 56).

Paraphrasing doesn't need a page number, but including one is good practice when you're referring to a specific argument or finding within a longer work:

Carter (2024) argues that hybrid working has reshaped employee expectations.

Multiple sources making the same point go in one set of brackets, usually ordered by date:

Several studies have found similar effects (Brown, 2021; Patel, 2022; Carter, 2024).

Same author, multiple works in the same year — add lowercase letters:

Smith (2024a) explores this from a policy perspective, while Smith (2024b) focuses on implementation.

Secondary referencing (citing a source you found mentioned in another source, rather than reading the original) should be avoided where possible — go and find the original if you can. If you genuinely can't access it, the format is:

Festinger's (1957) theory of cognitive dissonance (cited in Brown, 2020) suggests that...

Only Brown (2020) goes in your reference list — you haven't actually read Festinger's original work, so you can't reference it directly.

Common Harvard Referencing Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)

Inconsistent capitalisation. Sentence case in the reference list, title case in-text. Mixing these up across a 3,000-word essay is one of the most visually obvious "this student didn't proofread" signals to a marker.

Missing access dates on websites. Every website reference needs one. No exceptions.

Referencing software that's behind on the 13th edition. If you're using Zotero, MyBib, or a similar tool, double check what it outputs against the current guidance — particularly for books, where the place-of-publication change is easy to miss if your tool hasn't updated.

Alphabetising incorrectly. Your reference list should be in alphabetical order by author surname — not by the order sources appear in your text, and not by date.

Citing sources you haven't actually read. This sounds obvious, but it happens more than you'd think when students lift citations from other people's reference lists without checking the original. Markers can often tell.

Forgetting in-text citations for paraphrased ideas. If the idea isn't yours, it needs a citation — even if you've rewritten it completely in your own words. Paraphrasing without citing is still considered a form of academic misconduct.

A Quick Word on Why This Matters Beyond Marks

It's easy to think of referencing as a box-ticking exercise — formatting for formatting's sake. But it's actually doing something important: it's showing your reader exactly where every idea in your work came from, and giving them a way to go check it themselves.

That's the whole foundation of how academic writing works. Get it right, and it becomes second nature within a couple of assignments. Get it wrong consistently, and it's one of the easiest ways to lose marks on work that's otherwise strong.

Need Help With Referencing or Your Whole Assignment?

If you're staring down a reference list with forty sources and an approaching deadline, you're not alone — referencing accurately across dozens of sources is genuinely time-consuming, even once you know the rules.

Our expert UK writers reference every piece of work to the correct edition of Cite Them Right (or OSCOLA, APA, Vancouver — whatever your course requires), so you can focus on the substance of your argument.

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the biggest change in Cite Them Right's 13th edition?

The main change is that books no longer require a place of publication — just the publisher name. Reference list titles also now use sentence case instead of title case, which was the format used throughout in earlier editions.

Do I need to reference ChatGPT if I used it for my assignment?

It depends on how you used it. If AI-generated content appears directly in your work, you need to reference it as a source. If you only used AI for brainstorming, grammar checks, or structuring — without its output appearing in your final text — most universities ask for an acknowledgement instead. Always check your specific university's AI policy, as requirements vary.

Is Harvard referencing the same as APA?

No, though they're similar. Both are author-date systems, but the formatting details differ — capitalisation rules, punctuation, and how certain source types are presented. Most UK universities use Harvard (specifically the Cite Them Right version), while psychology departments often use APA.

Do I need to include the place of publication for books?

Not anymore. As of the 13th edition (July 2025), place of publication has been removed from book references in Cite Them Right's Harvard style. Just the publisher name is needed.

What if my university's referencing guide hasn't updated to the 13th edition yet?

Some UK universities updated their guidance for 2025–26, while others may take longer. If you're unsure, contact your library or department directly. The most important thing is that your references are consistent and traceable throughout your work.

How do I reference a source with no author?

Use the organisation responsible for the content in place of an author. If there's genuinely no identifiable author or organisation, you should consider whether the source is reliable enough to use in academic work.