Free tool
Citation generator
Eight referencing styles. Fill in what you have and get both the reference-list entry and the in-text citation — the half most generators leave out, and the half students most often get wrong.
Your citation
Harvard (Cite Them Right)
Fill in the fields on the left and your reference appears here, formatted live.
Author and year are the minimum for a usable entry.
Always check the output against your own institution’s guide. “Harvard” in particular is not one style — Cite Them Right, Leeds and AGPS Harvard all differ.
Short answer
How do I write a reference correctly?
Every reference answers four questions in the order your style requires: who wrote it, when it was published, what it is called, and where it can be found. Styles differ in punctuation and element order, not in that underlying logic. The two errors that cost the most marks are references that do not match their in-text citations, and paraphrased ideas with no citation at all.
Frequently asked questions
- Which Harvard referencing style should I use?
- There is no single Harvard style. Cite Them Right Harvard is the most common in the UK, but Leeds Harvard, Coventry Harvard and AGPS Harvard in Australia all differ in punctuation and element order. Always follow the guide your own institution publishes — our generator produces Cite Them Right by default.
- What is the difference between a reference and an in-text citation?
- The in-text citation is the short marker in your sentence — (Smith, 2024) or a superscript number. The reference is the full entry in your list at the end. Every in-text citation must have exactly one matching reference, and every reference must be cited at least once in the text. Mismatches between the two are one of the most commonly penalised technical errors.
- How do I cite a source with no author?
- Move the title into the author position and keep everything else in the same order. For organisational sources, the organisation is the author — 'World Health Organization (2024)'. Do not use 'Anonymous' unless the source is genuinely credited that way.
- How do I cite a source with no date?
- Use 'n.d.' in APA and Harvard, or 'no date' in Cite Them Right. For web pages, check the page source or the site's copyright line before concluding there is no date — a missing date usually means it was not looked for.
- Do I need a DOI?
- Include one whenever the source has one. APA 7 and Harvard both require the DOI in preference to a URL, formatted as a full link — https://doi.org/10.xxxx — because DOIs remain stable when URLs break.