Harvard referencing
How to cite a thesis or dissertation in Harvard referencing
A thesis needs its degree level and awarding institution, and the format changes depending on whether you read it in a repository or as an unpublished manuscript.
THE FORMAT
A thesis or dissertation in Harvard, at a glance
Author, A. (Year) Title of thesis. PhD thesis. Name of institution. Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year).
Berhane, S. (2021) Water rights and customary law in the Awash Basin. PhD thesis. University of Calder. Available at: https://repository.calder.edu/handle/10345/8890 (Accessed: 3 March 2024).
(Berhane, 2021, p. 88)
In prose: Berhane (2021, p. 88) traces the rules back to an agreement that was never written down.
Berhane, S. (2016) Irrigation cooperatives in the Middle Awash. MSc thesis. University of Calder.
In text: (Berhane, 2016, p. 41)
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 thesis or dissertation
Elements to collect
- Author
- Year the degree was awarded
- Title of the thesis
- Degree level — doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis
- Name of the awarding institution
- Repository or database name, plus URL, when it is published online
Rules specific to this entry
- Harvard italicizes the thesis title. This is the opposite of Chicago, which puts it in quotation marks — a useful thing to know if you are switching a document between the two.
- “PhD thesis” is the UK and Australian wording; US-influenced Harvard guides often say “Doctoral dissertation” instead. Use whichever your guide prints.
- The awarding institution comes after the degree, not the repository. The repository appears only inside “Available at:”, which is where its URL lives.
- For a thesis you consulted in print or in a departmental archive, drop the “Available at:” element and state where you consulted it if your guide provides wording for it.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element Harvard needs for a thesis or dissertation: Author; Year the degree was awarded; Title of the thesis; Degree level — doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis.
Build the reference list entry
Arrange those details in the Harvard order: Author, A. (Year) Title of thesis. PhD thesis. Name of institution. Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year).
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as (Berhane, 2021, p. 88) — or work the same reference into your sentence as Berhane (2021, p. 88) traces the rules back to an agreement that was never written down..
Check it against the exceptions
Harvard italicizes the thesis title. This is the opposite of Chicago, which puts it in quotation marks — a useful thing to know if you are switching a document between the two.
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 thesis or dissertation in another style
Switching styles late in a draft is normal. Here is the same source formatted five other ways.
Questions about Harvard and theses and dissertations
What if the thesis or dissertation 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 thesis or dissertation?
Author, Year the degree was awarded, Title of the thesis, and the rest of the elements listed above. A thesis needs its degree level and awarding institution, and the format changes depending on whether you read it in a repository or as an unpublished manuscript.
Is there anything unusual about a thesis or dissertation in Harvard?
Harvard italicizes the thesis title. This is the opposite of Chicago, which puts it in quotation marks — a useful thing to know if you are switching a document between the two.
What else catches people out here?
“PhD thesis” is the UK and Australian wording; US-influenced Harvard guides often say “Doctoral dissertation” instead. Use whichever your guide prints.
Can I reformat this thesis or dissertation 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.
