Harvard referencing
How to cite a journal article in Harvard referencing
Journal articles carry the most metadata of any source — volume, issue, page range, and a DOI — and each style orders and punctuates them differently.
THE FORMAT
A journal article in Harvard, at a glance
Author, A. (Year) ‘Title of article’, Title of Journal, Volume(Issue), pp. 00–00. Available at: https://doi.org/… (Accessed: Day Month Year).
Marchetti, E. (2019) ‘Coastal retreat and the limits of managed adaptation’, Journal of Environmental Planning, 48(2), pp. 211–234. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2019.1583224 (Accessed: 3 March 2024).
(Marchetti, 2019, p. 218)
In prose: Marchetti (2019, p. 218) shows that managed retreat rarely stays managed.
Okonkwo, A., Lindqvist, P. and Salas, M. (2022) ‘Salinity thresholds in delta rice systems’, Agricultural Water Management, 264, pp. 88–101. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2022.107512 (Accessed: 3 March 2024).
In text: (Okonkwo, Lindqvist and Salas, 2022, p. 94) — though guides that switch to “et al.” at three authors would want (Okonkwo et al., 2022, p. 94).
Copyeditor formats APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE automatically — cite a source once and the reference list builds itself. See how citations work .
BEFORE YOU FORMAT
What Harvard needs from a journal article
Elements to collect
- All author names, in the order printed on the article
- Year of publication
- Article title
- Journal name (in full, not the abbreviation, unless the style asks for it)
- Volume and issue number
- Page range
- DOI, or a stable URL when there is no DOI
Rules specific to this entry
- Harvard guides disagree about the DOI. Cite Them Right wants “Available at:” plus an access date; many university guides accept a bare https://doi.org/ address with nothing after it. Either is defensible — mixing the two in one list is not.
- The issue number sits in parentheses immediately after the volume with no space: 48(2). Some guides drop the issue entirely when the journal paginates continuously through a volume.
- Use “pp.” for a page range and “p.” for a single page. Harvard also tends to print the full second number — pp. 211–234, not pp. 211–34, which is the Chicago habit.
- The article title takes sentence case in most Harvard guides while the journal name keeps title case. A minority ask for title case in both, which is the single most visible difference between two Harvard reference lists.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element Harvard needs for a journal article: All author names, in the order printed on the article; Year of publication; Article title; Journal name (in full, not the abbreviation, unless the style asks for it).
Build the reference list entry
Arrange those details in the Harvard order: Author, A. (Year) ‘Title of article’, Title of Journal, Volume(Issue), pp. 00–00. Available at: https://doi.org/… (Accessed: Day Month Year).
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as (Marchetti, 2019, p. 218) — or work the same reference into your sentence as Marchetti (2019, p. 218) shows that managed retreat rarely stays managed..
Check it against the exceptions
Harvard guides disagree about the DOI. Cite Them Right wants “Available at:” plus an access date; many university guides accept a bare https://doi.org/ address with nothing after it. Either is defensible — mixing the two in one list is not.
Harvard RULES
The conventions behind every Harvard entry
your institution’s Harvard style guide — Harvard has no single governing manual is the authority. Where a journal or department publishes its own house rules, those win — check your submission guidelines before the reference list is final.
The rules that apply across every source — author order, capitalization, how the reference list is sorted, and where Harvard entries most often go wrong — are collected on the Harvard referencing guide.
The same journal article in another style
Switching styles late in a draft is normal. Here is the same source formatted five other ways.
Questions about Harvard and journal articles
What if the journal article has no author?
Move the title into the author position and alphabetize by the first significant word of that title — ignoring an initial “A”, “An” or “The”. In the text, use a shortened form of the title where the author name would go.
What do I need before I can cite a journal article?
All author names, in the order printed on the article, Year of publication, Article title, and the rest of the elements listed above. Journal articles carry the most metadata of any source — volume, issue, page range, and a DOI — and each style orders and punctuates them differently.
Is there anything unusual about a journal article in Harvard?
Harvard guides disagree about the DOI. Cite Them Right wants “Available at:” plus an access date; many university guides accept a bare https://doi.org/ address with nothing after it. Either is defensible — mixing the two in one list is not.
What else catches people out here?
The issue number sits in parentheses immediately after the volume with no space: 48(2). Some guides drop the issue entirely when the journal paginates continuously through a volume.
Can I reformat this journal article in another style later?
By hand, you would retype the entry — the element order, punctuation and italics all differ between styles. In Copyeditor, sources are stored as structured data, so switching between APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE reformats every citation and the whole reference list at once.
Cite it once
and never reformat it again
Copyeditor keeps sources as structured data, so switching between APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE reformats every citation and the whole reference list at once.
