Harvard Article & Journal Citation Generator

Harvard Journal Article Format

Harvard referencing is an author–date style widely used in the UK, Australia, and across many social science and science disciplines. Unlike MLA (which uses author–page) or Vancouver (which uses numbers), Harvard identifies sources by the author's name and year, making the citation blend naturally into prose.

For journal articles, the Harvard reference list entry follows this anatomy:

Key conventions to memorise: article titles use sentence case (only first word and proper nouns capitalised) and are wrapped in single quotation marks. The journal name is italicised and uses title case. The year always follows the author in parentheses.

Single Author Article

The most common scenario. The author's last name comes first, followed by a comma, then first initial(s).

With DOI

Always prefer a DOI over a URL — DOIs are stable and unlikely to break. Format as "doi: 10.xxxx/xxxxx" at the end of the entry.

Without DOI (Print Journal)

For print sources or online articles with no DOI, end the entry after the page numbers with a full stop.

Two and Three-Plus Authors

Harvard handles multiple authors differently in the reference list versus in-text citations. The full reference list entry names every author, no matter how many there are. In the text, you use "et al." once there are three or more authors.

Two Authors

Connect two authors with an ampersand (&) in both the reference list and in-text.

In-text: (Kahneman & Tversky 1979)

Three or More Authors

List all authors in the reference list. In the in-text citation, give only the first author followed by "et al."

In-text: (Bandura et al. 1961)

Online-Only Journal Articles

Many journals now publish exclusively online, sometimes without traditional volume and issue numbers, and with article numbers rather than page ranges. Adapt accordingly.

With DOI, No Page Numbers

With URL, No DOI

When no DOI exists, use the URL of the article, preceded by "Available at:" and followed by the date you accessed it in brackets.

Magazine Articles

Magazine articles follow a structure similar to journal articles but differ in a few ways: many magazines use a specific publication date (day and month) rather than volume/issue numbers, and do not always provide page ranges for online editions.

Print Magazine Article

Online Magazine Article

Note that for magazines without volume/issue numbers, use the date (month or specific date) in place of the volume/issue elements. If the magazine does use volume numbers (some academic-adjacent magazines do), include them as you would for a journal.

Newspaper Articles

Newspaper citations include the specific date (day, month, year) and, where relevant, the edition and section. Online newspaper articles include a URL and access date.

Print Newspaper

Online Newspaper Article

Newspaper Article with Edition

When citing a specific print edition (morning, late, regional), note it after the title:

In-Text Citations

Harvard in-text citations appear in parentheses within the sentence, typically at the end of the clause or sentence that uses the source. They follow the format (Author Year) for paraphrases and (Author Year, p. X) for direct quotes.

Harvard vs. APA: Article Format Differences

Harvard and APA (7th edition) are both author–date styles and look very similar at a glance, but they differ in several important details. Using the wrong style is one of the most common errors students make when switching between subjects.

The most visible day-to-day difference is the comma: APA always puts a comma between the author and year in parenthetical citations — (Smith, 2022) — while Harvard omits it — (Smith 2022). Similarly, APA formats the DOI as a full URL (https://doi.org/…) while Harvard uses a shorter "doi: 10.xxx/xxx" format.