How to Cite Films in Harvard Style

To cite a film in Harvard style you will need the following:

Film Title (Year of distribution) Directed by Director Initial(s). Surname [Film]. Place of distribution: Production company.

Citizen Kane (1941) Directed by O. Welles [Film]. Los Angeles: RKO Radio Pictures.

If the film was viewed on DVD or Blu-ray, the format is as follows:

Film Title (Year of distribution) Directed by Director Initial(s). Surname [DVD/Blu-ray]. Place of distribution: Production company.

Bridesmaids (2011) Directed by P. Feig [Blu-ray]. Los Angeles: Apatow Productions.

If you viewed a film on a streaming service like Netflix, Amazon Prime or Mubi, or on a catch-up service like BBC iPlayer or All 4, the format is as follows:

Film Title (Year of distribution) Directed by Director Initial(s). Surname. Available at: Name of Streaming Service (Accessed: Day Month Year).

Phantom Thread (2017) Directed by P. T. Anderson. Available at: Netflix (Accessed: 25 April 2022).

How to Write a Reference List in Harvard Style

A reference list is a formatted list of the sources that contributed to the creation of your academic writing. This list should be arranged alphabetically by author surname and located at the end of your work.

What is the difference between a bibliography and a reference list?

A reference list should include all the sources that are directly cited in your text, while a bibliography should cite all sources that contributed to your work, including background reading and descriptive notes.

Different organisations may require a bibliography or a reference list, so be sure to check with your institution before you begin your academic projects.

How to Cite Films and Documentaries in APA Style

Citing short and full-length feature films is similar to citing TV shows (link). A number of referencing styles require you to include the name of the film director, producer, distributor and year of release. This also applies to the APA referencing system.

Based on the APA style guide, we recommend you use the following structure.

APA Film and Documentary citation format:

Producer Last Name, Initials. (Producer), & Director Last Name, Initials. (Director). (Year). Film title [Motion picture]. Country of origin: Studio.

Welles, O. (Producer and Director). (1941). Citizen Kane [Motion Picture]. USA: RKO Radio Pictures.


Ruddy, A. (Producer), & Coppola, F. (Director). (1972). The Godfather [Motion Picture]. USA: Paramount Pictures.


Thomas, E. (Producer), & Nolan, C. (Director). (2010). Inception [Motion Picture]. USA: Legendary Pictures.

How to Cite Artworks in Harvard Style

The rules for citing an artwork found in a museum or a museum website differ substantially from those for an image found in a secondary source like a book or blog post.

When citing an artwork found in a museum or a museum website you will need the following:

Medium (“oil on canvas”/“graphite on paper”, etc.)

Link to artwork on the museum/gallery website (if viewed online)

Format for citing artwork in a gallery or museum

Surname, Initial(s). (Date) Title [Medium]. Museum/Gallery, City.

Pollock, J. (1946) Eyes in the Heat [Oil and enamel on canvas]. Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice.

To cite an artwork viewed online, the format is as follows:

Surname, Initial(s). (Date) Title [Medium]. Museum/Gallery, City. Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year).

Constable, J. (1821)The Hay Wain [Oil on canvas]. The National Gallery, London. Available at: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/john-constable-the-hay-wain (Accessed: 9 November 2020).

To cite a museum or gallery exhibition, you will need the following:

Exhibition Title (Year) [Exhibition]. Museum/Gallery, City. Date(s) of exhibition.

Modernism in Miniature (2022-2023) [Exhibition]. Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena. 12 August 2022-9 January 2023.

Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms (2022-2023) [Exhibition]. Tate Modern, London. 18 May 2021-11 June 2023.

Format for citing an individual artwork in an exhibition

Artist Surname, Initial(s). (Year) Title of artwork [Medium] in Title of Exhibition [Exhibition]. Gallery/Museum, City. Date(s) of exhibition.

Klee, P. (1922) Park [Colour collotype on laid paper] in Modernism in Miniature [Exhibition]. Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena. 12 August 2022-9 January 2023.

How to Cite Images in Harvard Style

People can be protective of their images and take badly to finding them used online without permission. Thankfully, the fair use doctrine allows both students and researchers to use copyrighted images without first having to acquire permission. However, the fair use doctrine does not protect students from plagiarism, therefore images must still be cited appropriately.

To cite an image it is important to include the following:

Surname, Initial(s). (Year) Image Title [Description of media]. Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year).

Gustafsson, J. (2005) Dog [Photograph]. Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hunden/8545183695/in/photolist-e27ipn-aiTNYw-4CLJtR-XbiSoH-7QFV6c-SMQ3kL-wAuyJ6-RED8ts-25hDpuo-bFDKMM-btkyiC-p46xHE-RiaSLE-bFDKn4-pzTULx-8T3nXL-fVduaQ-aPR1RT-SLVKhH-P7r48L-7QKde3-hYEo5p-M82MKA-9t1T2c-K7EPSk-CED5W3-FAAAud-8DRPes-qrBkfC-4CR1Mj-7QKdnL-9SErb6-Z7waXA-232ok4m-h3gL6w-22hBtTh-6EuENc-opGBxD-du329G-QHraGc-57vwQ7-868hPT-ZMq6mw-24yqbT6-gCur4i-9SHj3q-25BQts4-rWEZPy-22de8h5-aJfzMn (Accessed: 7 July 2019).

Sato, A. (2010) Doge [Photograph]. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_(meme)#/media/File:Original_Doge_meme.jpg (Accessed: 13 December 2021).

Why is Referencing Important? | Perlego

Not only does it demonstrate that you have thoroughly researched the topic you have chosen to investigate and that you have leveraged reliable sources and evidence to support your arguments, it also protects you as a student or academic researcher against accusations of plagiarism and intellectual theft.

Universities differ but all agree on a single point: plagiarism is a serious academic offence. Students have failed papers and even been excluded from their course for leveraging someone else’s work without openly acknowledging their contribution.

Some universities require students to hand in a signed statement with their work. And others will use anti-plagiarism software that draw from a huge database of books, journals and previously submitted student work to greenlight submitted work.

Put simply, if you plagiarize you risk getting caught. Reference your work correctly and graduate risk-free.

As a student, you should keep an eye out for the following:


Copying materials, ideas or concepts without using quotation marks or acknowledging the author of the original text.


Changing a few words here and there but retaining the initial ideas and structure without proper acknowledgement.


Handing in an assignment completed by someone else or working as a team to complete an assignment to be submitted individually.


Referencing the original source but failing to cite secondary sources from which ideas have been leveraged to complete the assignment.


Recycling work that you have previously submitted for a different assignment without proper acknowledgement or citation.


Keep in mind that small details matter and that solid referencing demonstrates knowledge and academic confidence. By citing experts in your field, you frame your work as standing on the shoulder of giants. Your observations make intellectual progress. You are seen as having a thorough and solid understanding of your field.

Take a look at the following extracts borrowed from The Origin of Sea Salt in Snow on Arctic Sea Ice and in Coastal Regions (Dormine et al., 2004):

Interactions between the snowpack and the atmosphere lead to important modifications of atmospheric composition, and the most dramatic example is perhaps the complete destruction of ozone from the ground up to altitudes greater than 1000 m, observed in the Arctic and in Antarctica in the spring, when the frozen sea and the ground are almost entirely snow-covered. It is now reasonably certain that brominated species, derived from sea salt bromide, are key species in the chemistry of this ozone destruction. However, many aspects of this chemistry are not fully understood and prevent the detailed modeling, let alone the prediction, of these ozone depletion events.

Interactions between the snowpack and the atmosphere lead to important modifications of atmospheric composition (Domine and Shepson, 2002), and the most dramatic example is perhaps the complete destruction of ozone from the ground up to altitudes greater than 1000 m, observed in the Arctic (Bottenheim et al., 2002) and in Antarctica (Tarasick and Bottenheim, 2002) in the spring, when the frozen sea and the ground are almost entirely snow-covered. It is now reasonably certain that brominated species, derived from sea salt bromide, are key species in the chemistry of this ozone destruction (Barrie et al., 1988; Fan and Jacob, 1992; Tang and McConnell, 1996). However, many aspects of this chemistry are not fully understood and prevent the detailed modeling, let alone the prediction, of these ozone depletion events (Bottenheim et al., 2002).

You will notice that the second paragraph is more authoritative than the first. It shows that the authors have done their research, that their work is valuable to a particular academic community and that they are confident enough to show their sources.

APA, MLA, Chicago, Oxford, Harvard, Vancouver, OSCOLA and IEEE. It can all be very confusing. There are almost as many citation styles are there are European languages. Each style has its own syntax and set of rules to cite sources in academic writing.

To know which style you should be using for your assignments, ask your professor or teacher.

We’ve created some easy-to-understand guides to help you master the style you’re using.

Why is Referencing Important?

How to Cite Books in APA Style

When citing a book or source with a single author, students are required to invert author names (last name provided first) and write the first name as an initial.

For example, the reference list entry for a source written by David Ricardo would begin with “Ricardo, D.” and one for a piece written by Karl Marx would begin with “Marx, K.”

After proving the author’s name, students are required to display the following:

Overall, a reference entry should appear as follows:

Last name, initial. (Year published). Title (Edition). City published: Publisher.

Kuhn, T. (2012). The Structure of Scientific Revolution (4th ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Saunders, G. (2017) Lincoln in the Bardo (1st ed.). New York: Random House.

Wootton, G. (1970) Interest-groups (1st ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Remember: Reference lists should be ordered alphabetically on the basis of the last name of the authors of each work. Should an author appear multiple times, students are required to list entries in chronological order, from earliest to the most recent.

When citing a book or source with two or more authors, students are required to follow the same formatting as when citing a book from a single author; namely, inverting author names (last name provided first) and writing the first name as an initial, before displaying the following:

For in-text citations, when referring to a source with more than three authors, students can use the Latin term “et alia” (which means “and others” and is abbreviated to “et al.”). This abbreviation cannot be used for reference lists however, as students are required to name all the authors, even if there are a dozen of them.

A book with two or more authors will appear as follows:

Author 1 , Author 2 & Author 3 (Year published). Title (Edition). Publisher.

Arciero, G. & Bondolfi, G. (2009) Selfhood, Identity and Personality Styles (1st ed.). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Gravelle, H. & Rees, R. (1981) Microeconomics (1st ed.). London: Longman.

Berger, P. & Luckmann, T. (1967) The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (1st ed.). New York: Anchor.

Citing chapters in edited books and anthologies is more complicated than citing books written by one or even multiple authors, as you are required to reference both the chapter’s authors and the anthology’s editors.

Notice however that the chapter title is not italicized to distinguish it from the book’s title:

Last name, initial. (Year). Chapter Title. In Editor Name (ed(s)) Book Title (Edition). City: Publisher.

Forester, J. (2008). Policy Analysis as Critical Listening. In Moran, M. et al. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lyons, T. & Jolley, D. (2018). Post-independence Africa. In Binns, T. et al. (eds) The Routledge Handbook of African Development (1st ed.). Abingdon: Routledge.

Rosenfeld, J. & Laird, J. (2016). Unions and Poverty. In Brady, D & Burton, L. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of the Social Science of Poverty (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

How to cite Artworks in APA Style | Perlego

Keep in mind that the citation of an original work of art differs significantly from an image from a secondary source, such as a book or website.


When citing artwork, you are required to provide the artist’s name, the title of the artwork and the date of composition. You are also required to cite the gallery or museum that houses the artwork followed by the location of that institution.


Last Name, Initial. (Year). Title [Medium]. Museum, City, Country.

Da Vinci, L. (1503). Mona Lisa [Painting]. Louvre Museum, Paris, France.

Pollock, J. (1946). Eyes in the Heat [Painting]. Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy.

Michelangelo (1504). David [Sculpture] Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence, Italy.

In addition to the traditional referencing list entry, it’s a good idea to include a picture of the work. You can do this in the bibliography or directly in the text.

How to cite Artworks in APA Style

How to Write In-Text Citations in Harvard Style

In-text citations are brief references made within the body of your academic work. These citations enable readers to quickly identify the sources you have referenced without disrupting the flow of the sentences in which they appear. In-text citations provide all the information needed to identify the full reference in the reference list at the end of your assignment.

How to use in-text citations: Harvard style

There are two main types of in-text citations, parenthetical and narrative citations. Both require you to cite the author’s surname, date of publication, and page numbers (when quoting directly from a source).

Parenthetical citations appear in parenthesis directly after the quote or concept that has been paraphrased. The author’s surname, the year of publication, and page numbers (where relevant) are each separated by a comma.

Parenthetical citation format: Harvard style 

(Author’s surname, year of publication, page number/numbers)

“Drawing is now used to convey a technical or mechanical language of industries and technology” (Dagoon, 1995, p. 48).

Researchers have argued that chromosomal rearrangements are the most important karyotype changes in mammals for thinking about the role of chromosomes in speciation (Pavlova and Searle, 2018).

When referencing a quote found on a single page use “p.”. Use “pp.” followed by the range of pages (“pp. 89-94”) when citing multiple pages.

If you mention an author’s surname in the body of your essay – “Smith argues that” – this requires you to produce a narrative in-text citation.

For narrative citations, place the date of publication in parenthesis after the author’s name.

Kierkegaard (1843) posited that God is revealed mysteriously to each and every person.

For an in-text citation with two authors, separate each author’s surname with “and”.

When citing a source with three authors, separate the first and second author’s surname with a comma, and the second and third author’s surname with “and”.

When citing a source with four or more authors, use the Latin term “et al.,” (meaning “and others”).

These abbreviations are only to be used for in-text citations. For your reference list, you are required to provide the names of all authors.

How to cite corporate authors in Harvard style

When citing a corporate or group author for the first time, provide their name in full.

For any subsequent citations, you do not need to write out the corporate author’s name in full: just use an abbreviation.

Some sources may not have a clear publication date. For sources without a date, place “n.d.” (short for “no date”) after the author’s surname.

How to Cite Emails and Interviews in APA Style

Any communication that cannot be retrieved by a reader – such as a private interview, email, or telephone conversation – is cited as a personal communication.

To cite a personal communication you will need the following:

Medium of communication (email, text, Skype, etc.)

Personal communication format: Harvard style

Author/Sender/Speaker Surname, Initial(s). (Year of communication) Medium of communication to Receiver of communication, Day Month of communication.

Hardy, D. (2021) Email to George Owen, 11 February.

Broadchurch, C. (2022) Text message to Clive Woods, 7 March.

How to Cite Court Cases in APA Style

Legal citations can be difficult as their format varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. You will notice that the formatting of American and French case law differs, for example.

Case law citation formats can also vary within a country. This is the case in the US, as federal and state courts have different formats and abbreviations.

When citing court cases, you should capture the most important information and present it in a clear, straightforward and uniform manner. Traditionally, when citing using the APA format, we recommend that you gather the following information:

And the APA citation structure is as follows.

Case Name [Year] Case Source (Name of the Court)

People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson [1994] BA097211 (Los Angeles County Superior Court)

Brown v. Board of Education [1954] 374 U.S. 483 (Supreme Court of the United States)

Batson v. Kentucky [1986] 476 U.S. 79 (Supreme Court of the United States)

How to Cite Newspapers in Harvard Style

Academic referencing is becoming increasingly complex as students are leveraging new sources of information to strengthen their research.

Only a few decades ago, students would limit their research to books, academic journals, and printed news articles. Nowadays, with the emergence of online search engines and digital media, online news outlets have become significant sources for research projects.

Author Surname, Initial(s). (Year) ‘Title of Article’, Newspaper, Day Month of publication, page number(s).

Sample, I. (2014) ‘Why an octopus’s suckers don’t stick its arms together’, The Guardian, 16 May, p. 17.

Author Surname, Initial(s). (Year) ‘Title of Article’, Newspaper, Day Month of publication. Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year).

Schwartz, M. (2020) ‘Stay Safe, Justice Ginsburg’, New York Times, 20 July. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/opinion/ruth-bader-ginsburg-health.html (Accessed: 12 February 2022).

Strauss, B. (2018) ‘Ted Cruz’s Basketball Charm Offensive’, The Atlantic, 12 August. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/ted-cruzs-basketball-charm-offensive/567104/ (Accessed: 4 March 2022).

Billen, A. (2019) ‘David Cameron Interview: Boris, Brexit and the Referendum’, The Times, 13 September. Available at: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/david-cameron-interview-boris-johnson-brexit-and-the-referendum-9gkxqghv9 (Accessed: 12 December 2021).

How to Write In-Text Citations in APA Style

In text citations are references to other sources that are quoted or referenced in your work. These should be placed directly within the text to ensure that readers can acknowledge that quotes or ideas have been borrowed from others, without having to flip through to the reference list.

In-text citations are very brief to avoid disrupting the flow of the paragraph in which they appear. They provide the information needed to identify the ‘full’ reference in the reference list or bibliography at the end of your paper. The full reference gives the reader the information they need to find the original source you cited.

How to use in-text citations in APA Style

Unlike the Harvard Referencing style, in text citations in the APA format appear directly before the quote or idea that has been paraphrased. They inform the reader of the name of the author and of the year of publication.

Students may also choose to include a page number or page range where applicable, to direct readers to a specific extract. The page number is placed between brackets and located directly after the extract.

In-text citations for a single author should appear as follows:

If the author’s name is not included in the text it must be included in parentheses after the quotation or extract, as follows:

It is important to note that “p.” is used for a single page and “pp.” followed by a range of pages (pp. 83-89) is used to cite multiple pages.

In-text citations for two or three authors

In-text citations with two or three authors are very similar to single author citations. They appear in parentheses directly after a quote or paraphrased idea and notify the reader of the original authors and of the year of publication.

You should cite all of the authors followed by the year of publication:

Sanger, Nicklen & Couslon (1977) suggested… (p.54)

Chomczynski & Sacchi (1985) made the case… (p.71)

Again, if the authors’ names are not cited directly in the text, they must be included in parentheses after the quotation or extract, as follows:

(Author 1, Author 2 & Author 3, Date, Page(s))

In-text citations for four or more authors

Academic research can take years to accomplish and teams may be composed of  dozens of researchers, all having contributed directly to the end product.

Thankfully, you don’t need to cite every single contributor.

When referring to a source with multiple authors, you can use the Latin term “et alia” which means “and others” and is abbreviated to “et al.” Keep in mind that the “al” in “et al.” is always followed by a full stop:

Similar to in-text citations with from a single or fewer than three authors, if the authors’ names are not cited directly in the text, they must be included in parentheses after the quotation or extract, as follows:

The APA style book states the period is followed by a comma.

It is also important to respect the APA referencing format when referencing a piece published by a corporate author or organization.

You must replace an unspecified individual author with a corporate name, both within the text and within the reference list at the end of your piece.

This rule applies to companies, organizations, societies and government departments:

Keep in mind, if the organization is not cited directly in the text, it must be included in parentheses after the quotation or extract, as follows:

Students should do their upmost to gather a much information as is possible about their sources to acknowledge other people’s work and demonstrate the breadth and of their research. Based on the documentation they are working with, this can sometimes prove difficult. Some sources, such as website and archival documents, do not have clear timestamps. If a source doesn’t have a clear publication date, the APA citation style says that students can omit the date in the in-text citation.

Students should nevertheless attempt to provide all the information they have within the text, to contextualize their sources and to allow their readers to fully understand and even find their source material for themselves.

How to Cite Youtube Videos in Harvard Style

Aside from the cat videos, beauty vlogs and viral challenges, YouTube can be a powerful source of knowledge and numerous universities, research centres, thinktanks and educators regularly produce and distribute great content on YouTube.

To cite a YouTube video you will need the following:

Name of the account that published the video

Name of account that published the video (Year video was uploaded) Title of the Video. Day Month the video was uploaded. Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year).

CNN Business (2018) These are the most confusing questions Congress asked Zuckerberg. 24 January. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHckZCxdRkA (Accessed: 17 March 2021).

World Economic Forum (2019) Innovation Skills and the Future of Jobs. 3 November. Available at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgI_z3ttFWs (Accessed: 23 May 2020).

How to Cite Translated Books in APA Style

Translating a novel or report is a complicated endeavor and translators often leave their mark on the translated work. It is therefore important to highlight the translator’s contribution by including their name in the reference list.

To cite a translated work, it is important to include the following:

Last name, initial. (Year published).Title (Translator). City published: Publisher.

Dostoevsky, F. (1994). The Karamazov Brothers (I. Avsey, Trans). Oxford: Oxford World Classics.

Alighieri, D. (2012). The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso (R. Kirkpatrick, Trans). London: Penguin Classics.

Ludwig, E. (2005). Napoleon (E. Paul and C. Paul, Trans). London: Book Jungle

How to Cite Websites in APA Style

Referencing is becoming increasingly complex as students are leveraging new sources of information to build and strengthen their academic arguments.

A few decades ago, students would limit their research to books, academic journals and the written press. Nowadays, with the rise and democratization of the online search engines and digital media, Google, Wikipedia and online news outlets have become the first step in a student’s research process.

It is therefore natural that websites are now a significant part of referencing.

To cite websites, we recommend you use the following structure.

Last name, initial (Year, Month, Date). Page Title. Website name. URL

Hasen, R. (2020, June 29). Bring on the 28th Amendment. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/opinion/voting-rights.html

Lowrey, A. (2020, June 29). Close the Racial Gap with Baby Bonds. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/close-racial-wealth-gap-baby-bonds/613525/

Grant, J. (2020, June 28). Powell Has Become the Fed’s Dr. Feelgood. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/powell-has-become-the-feds-dr-feelgood-11593370222?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Using an Abstract with APA Citation Style

Abstract are quick summaries located between the title page and the beginning of your essay. They give readers a quick glimpse of your problem statement, arguments and conclusions.

As such, your readers are not obliged to delve into lengthy articles to find out whether or not they are relevant for their research. Creating powerful abstracts is therefore crucial to entice readers and to make sure they keep reading.

Do I need to write an abstract in APA style?

Referencing and Citations