Harvard referencing
How to cite a software or code repository in Harvard referencing
Research software requires exact version numbers and deposit DOIs (e.g. Zenodo) to ensure algorithmic reproducibility.
THE FORMAT
A software or code repository in Harvard, at a glance
Developer, A. (Year) Title of software (Version x.x) [Software]. Available at: DOI or URL (Accessed: Day Month Year).
Wickham, H. (2023) Tidyverse: Easily install and load the tidyverse (Version 2.0.0) [Software]. CRAN. Available at: https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=tidyverse (Accessed: 15 March 2024).
(Wickham, 2023)
In prose: Wickham (2023) introduced the tidy data processing ecosystem.
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 software or code repository
Elements to collect
- Software developer or organization
- Release year
- Title of the software package
- Version tag or release number
- Archive or repository host (Zenodo, GitHub)
- DOI or repository URL
Rules specific to this entry
- Software packages are cited with the [Software] descriptor in Harvard.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element Harvard needs for a software or code repository: Software developer or organization; Release year; Title of the software package; Version tag or release number.
Build the reference list entry
Arrange those details in the Harvard order: Developer, A. (Year) Title of software (Version x.x) [Software]. Available at: DOI or URL (Accessed: Day Month Year).
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as (Wickham, 2023) — or work the same reference into your sentence as Wickham (2023) introduced the tidy data processing ecosystem..
Check it against the exceptions
Software packages are cited with the [Software] descriptor in Harvard.
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 software or code repository in another style
Switching styles late in a draft is normal. Here is the same source formatted five other ways.
Questions about Harvard and software repositories
What if the software or code repository 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 software or code repository?
Software developer or organization, Release year, Title of the software package, and the rest of the elements listed above. Research software requires exact version numbers and deposit DOIs (e.g. Zenodo) to ensure algorithmic reproducibility.
Is there anything unusual about a software or code repository in Harvard?
Software packages are cited with the [Software] descriptor in Harvard.
Can I reformat this software or code repository 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.
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