Harvard referencing
How to cite a YouTube video in Harvard referencing
The person who uploaded a video is often not the person who made it, and styles disagree about whether the channel name, the real name, or both belong in the entry.
THE FORMAT
A YouTube video in Harvard, at a glance
Uploader (Year) Title of video. Day Month. Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year).
Whitlock, A. (2020) How a linotype machine actually works. 12 August. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Pd9Qw2LmA (Accessed: 3 March 2024).
(Whitlock, 2020)
In prose: Whitlock (2020) walks through the casting cycle a line at a time.
Northgate Institute for Public Health (2022) Air quality sensors: a field demonstration [YouTube video]. 2 May. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz7Ax0QpN4c (Accessed: 3 March 2024).
In text: (Northgate Institute for Public Health, 2022)
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 YouTube video
Elements to collect
- Uploader — the channel name, plus the creator’s real name when it is known
- Full date the video was posted
- Title of the video, exactly as it appears
- Platform name
- URL of the specific video
Rules specific to this entry
- Attribute the video to the account that posted it, since that is what a reader can find. When the creator is a different person, name them in your sentence rather than inventing a second author slot.
- Many Harvard guides add a medium marker after the title — [YouTube video], [Online video], or simply “YouTube” — and many do not. Adding one when your guide is silent is harmless; omitting one when your guide asks for it is not.
- Timestamps are not covered by most Harvard guides. If you need to point at a moment, (Whitlock, 2020, 4:12) is the usual improvisation, but describing the moment in your prose is safer.
- The video title is italicized because the video is a standalone work. A single episode of a series is the exception and takes quotation marks, with the series italicized.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element Harvard needs for a YouTube video: Uploader — the channel name, plus the creator’s real name when it is known; Full date the video was posted; Title of the video, exactly as it appears; Platform name.
Build the reference list entry
Arrange those details in the Harvard order: Uploader (Year) Title of video. Day Month. Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year).
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as (Whitlock, 2020) — or work the same reference into your sentence as Whitlock (2020) walks through the casting cycle a line at a time..
Check it against the exceptions
Attribute the video to the account that posted it, since that is what a reader can find. When the creator is a different person, name them in your sentence rather than inventing a second author slot.
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 YouTube video in another style
Switching styles late in a draft is normal. Here is the same source formatted five other ways.
Questions about Harvard and online videos
What if the YouTube video 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 YouTube video?
Uploader — the channel name, plus the creator’s real name when it is known, Full date the video was posted, Title of the video, exactly as it appears, and the rest of the elements listed above. The person who uploaded a video is often not the person who made it, and styles disagree about whether the channel name, the real name, or both belong in the entry.
Is there anything unusual about a YouTube video in Harvard?
Attribute the video to the account that posted it, since that is what a reader can find. When the creator is a different person, name them in your sentence rather than inventing a second author slot.
What else catches people out here?
Many Harvard guides add a medium marker after the title — [YouTube video], [Online video], or simply “YouTube” — and many do not. Adding one when your guide is silent is harmless; omitting one when your guide asks for it is not.
Can I reformat this YouTube video 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.
