Harvard referencing – otherwise known as parenthetical referencing – is a widely used system for citing sources in academic writing. It’s therefore something every student needs to understand.
Likewise, academic journals are an essential resource for any scholar and often where groundbreaking research is first published. All in all, this makes it pretty important to know how to cite a journal article using Harvard referencing.
In-Text Citations: The Basics
Conventions can differ from one university to the next (so remember to check your style guide!), but the typical system for citing a journal article with Harvard referencing is to provide the author name and year of publication in parentheses:
Ricoeur and Irigaray both appeal to imagination in their work (Joy, 2013).
If the author is named in the text, just give the year of publication in parentheses. The only other information you’ll need to include in your citations are relevant page numbers when quoting a source directly:
Joy (2013, p. 72) identifies ‘a definite lacuna’ in Ricoeur’s work regarding critiques by women philosophers.
In-Text Citations: Multiple Authors
However, if an article has three or more authors, name only the first listed author followed by ‘et al.’ (meaning ‘and others’):
According to Wang et al. (2005), solute transport is essential for osteocyte survival.
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The Reference List
As with citations, the conventions for what to include in a Harvard reference list can vary, but the general format for a journal article is:
Author Surname(s), Initial(s). (Year) ‘Article Title’, Full Title of Journal, Volume Number, Issue/Part Number, Page Numbers.
Thus, for example, the Joy article cited above would be listed in your reference list as:
Joy, M. (2013) ‘Explorations in Otherness: Paul Ricoeur and Luce Irigaray’, Ricoeur Studies, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 71-91.
You should list all authors of an article in the reference list, even when there are more than three. Furthermore, if you’re citing an online version of an article, provide a valid URL and the date you last accessed the source:
Wang, L., Wang, Y., Han, Y., Henderson, S. C., Majeska, R. J., Weinbaum, S., and Schaffler, M. B. (2005) ‘In Situ Measurement of Solute Transport in the Bone Lacunar-Canalicular System’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 102, no. 33, pp. 11911-6. [Online]. Available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/3376369 [Accessed 2 May 2016].