Worked examples
What each source type looks like on the card
Real Irish sources, formatted the way a marker expects. Pick the matching type in the generator and the card above changes to this pattern.
Book
Ferriter, D. (2004) The transformation of Ireland 1900-2000. London: Profile Books.
In text: (Ferriter, 2004, p. 12)
Journal article
Honohan, P. (2009) ‘Resolving Ireland's banking crisis’, The Economic and Social Review, 40(2), pp. 207–231.
In text: (Honohan, 2009)
Website
Central Statistics Office (2023) Census of population 2022: summary results. Available at: https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cpsr/censusofpopulation2022-summaryresults/ (Accessed: 9 September 2026).
In text: (Central Statistics Office, 2023)
Newspaper
Leahy, P. (2025) ‘Budget 2026: what it means for you’, The Irish Times, 8 October, p. 1.
In text: (Leahy, 2025)
Before you submit
Five Harvard rules markers actually check
01
Alphabetical order.
The reference list is sorted by first author surname. The "Copy all" button does this for you.
02
Every citation has a reference, and vice versa.
Anything cited in the text must appear in the list; anything in the list must be cited.
03
Italics in the right place.
Book titles and journal names are italicised; article and chapter titles go in quotation marks instead.
04
Page numbers for quotes.
Direct quotations need (Author, Year, p. X). Paraphrases just need the author and year.
05
Accessed dates for web sources.
Web pages change, so Harvard wants the date you read them: (Accessed: 9 September 2026).
Guides
Referencing guides, one awkward case at a time
Harvard in-text citations →
Every rule with an example: quotes and pages, 2/3/4+ authors, no author, no date, citing twice in one bracket.
Reference a book in Harvard →
One author or six, chapters in edited collections, editions, translations and ebooks with no page numbers.
Reference a journal article →
Volume, issue, pages and DOI in the right order, plus what to do when the issue number or the pages do not exist.
Reference a website in Harvard →
The exact pattern with worked examples: organisations as authors, missing dates, and where the accessed date goes.
Reference a PDF →
There is no Harvard format for a PDF. Work out what the document is first (report, gov.ie paper, lecture slides), then use that.
No author, no date, et al. →
The awkward cases: missing authors, n.d., four or more authors, secondary citations and two works from the same year.
Questions
Questions students ask
What is Harvard referencing?
Harvard is an author-date referencing style: you cite sources in the text as (Author, Year) and give the full details in an alphabetised reference list at the end. It’s the default style in most Irish and UK universities and ITs, usually following the "Cite Them Right" conventions this generator uses.
How do I reference a book in Harvard style?
Author surname, Initials. (Year) Title of book in italics. Edition (if not the first). Place of publication: Publisher. Example: Murphy, S. (2021) Irish economic history. Dublin: Gill Books.
How do I reference a website with no author?
Use the organisation as the author: Central Statistics Office (2026) Census of population 2026. Available at: URL (Accessed: 20 August 2026). If there is no date either, write (no date). This generator handles that automatically.
What does an in-text citation look like?
The author’s surname and year in brackets: (Murphy, 2024). Quoting a specific page? Add it: (Murphy, 2024, p. 12). Two authors: (Murphy and Byrne, 2024). Four or more: (Murphy et al., 2024).
When do I use et al.?
In Cite Them Right Harvard, use the first author followed by et al. when a source has four or more authors, both in the reference list and in the text. Sources with two or three authors name them all.
Does the italics survive when I paste into Word?
Yes. The copy buttons put a formatted version on your clipboard, so book and journal titles stay in italics when you paste into Word, Google Docs or Pages. If an editor only accepts plain text, the same text is pasted without styling.
Is my reference list saved?
Your list is stored in your own browser (nothing is uploaded anywhere), so you can close the tab and come back to it. Clearing your browser data clears the list.
Which Harvard variant does this use?
The "Cite Them Right" flavour of Harvard, which most Irish and UK institutions follow. Always skim your department’s style guide, as a few colleges tweak details like punctuation or access-date formats.
Sources
Sources and method
Harvard is an author-date style, not a single published standard. Every university keeps its own house version. This generator follows the Cite Them Right conventions, which are the ones most Irish universities and technological universities point students to: surname and initials, year in brackets, italics for the title of a whole work, quotation marks for a part of one, and an accessed date for anything read online. The reference and the matching in-text citation are built in your browser from the fields you fill in.
The tool does not check whether a source exists, fetch details from a DOI or ISBN, or know your department’s local tweaks. Punctuation, et al. thresholds and access-date wording vary a little between colleges, so skim your own handbook before you submit.
- Cite Them Right Online: the Harvard style guide this site follows
- UCD Library: Harvard style guide
- TU Dublin Library: Harvard referencing
- DCU Library: citing and referencing
- University of Leeds Library: Harvard referencing examples
Page rebuilt 22 September 2026.