REFERENCING – FOCUS ON HARVARD REFERENCING STYLE INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND Referencing is an approach used to show that a piece of work recognizes pertinent research/ sources and acknowledges their origins. It entails the use of ideas from different resources that are relevant to a particular subject area of study, so as to support and reinforce it. This is to say that, it is a method used to strengthen an idea, argument, study or theory.

Referencing is essential because it places a study within a broader context and compares it with other studies within the same subject area. In addition, it shows the extent of previous research consulted and used in a study. Furthermore, in academic writing, referencing helps to ensure honesty thereby differentiating a given study form other studies.

Subsequently, it presents authority in academic writing, thereby indicating that a particular study is based on some evidence or previous studies, giving the work credibility. Importantly, referencing is used to avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism, simply put, is the use of someone’s idea or theory without acknowledging that person.

Different academic discipline adopt and use different referencing styles, for example: Harvard referencing style, which is mainly adopted by studies relating to education, management, business and social sciences. American Psychological Association (APA) referencing styles, which is predominantly used in psychology and social science studies. Oxford Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA) referencing style, which is usually used in legal studies. Numeric or Vancouver referencing style, which is typically used in engineering and medical studies.

The Harvard Referencing Style Harvard referencing, also know as the author-date style, is one of the most commonly used and adopted styles of referencing in different schools of faculties of higher education institutions. The Harvard referencing style (HRS) originated from the referencing technique used by a prominent zoologist, Edward Laurens Mark in 1881 (Chernin, 1988). The HRS consist of two main parts: 1. A citation. 2. A list of references.

Citation A citation is the in-text reference that is the source used with the text of a document. It includes the author surname(s) and the source’s year of publication written inside parenthesis. However, depending on how the sentence containing the reference is structured, only the source’s year of publication could be inside the parenthesis while the author surname(s) or organization name is written outside the parenthesis. The page number(s) of the reference is usually included in the citation if the reference is a direct quote, a figure, table, or statistical information. The author’s initials are not included in the text as part of the citation.

List of References A list of references containing details of the sources used in a piece of work needs to be included at the end of the document, assignment or report. This is to enable the reader to locate or retrieve any of the sources. Table 1 shows a list of what needs to be included in a list of references for key information sources.

Table 1. Checklist of what to include for information sources Author Year Article title Publi-cation title Issue Place Publi-sher Edition Page numbers URL Date accessed Book Y Chapter Journal article E-journal article Internet site News-paper article Source: Adapted from University of Wolverhampton (2009, p.1).

Thought most Harvard referencing guides state that citations in the text should contain authors’ surnames and the source’s year of publication (Aston University, 2007; Pears and Shields, 2005), they vary in the format with which the list of references is presented.

For example, two academic journals that require the HRS for their publications vary in their formats, as shown below: Hedges, L. V. (1987). How hard is hard science, how soft is soft science? The empirical cumulativeness of research. American Psychologist, 42(5), 443-455. Hedges, L. V. (1987). How hard is hard science, how soft is soft science? The empirical cumulativeness of research. American Psychologist, Vol. 42 No. 5, pp. 443-455.

Subsequently, two guidance materials on the HRS showed variations and inconsistencies in the referencing format. With respect to an edited book, one guidance material provided the following format: Wright, J. K. (1996). A plea for the history of geography. IN: Agnew, J. et al. (eds.) Human geography: an essential anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, 243-269.

While the other material structured the reference as below: Wright, J. K. (1996). ‘A plea for the history of geography’, in: Agnew, J. et al. (eds.) Human geography: an essential anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 243-269.

The above variations and inconsistencies in the format for the HRS create confusion for writers, thereby suggesting to writers that they may structure their references without following any particular format. In addition, these inconsistencies discourage the development of writers’ referencing ability from an early stage of their studies or careers.

This paper therefore recommends the need to use a consistent format in the HRS so as to reduce writers’ referencing errors and to ensure that our journal speak the same language, in terms of presenting the same format for a particular referencing system or style.

Publisher’s note: the Harvard reference system is easy to learn/ use and should be considered as the PentVars’ approved system of citing other works.

References Aston University (2007), “An introductory guide to citing references”, Aston University Library & Information Services, Birmingham, UK, August, available at: http://www1.aston.ac.uk/EasySiteWeb /GatewayLink.aspx?alld=25184 [accessed November 18 2009]. Chernin, E. (1988), “The ‘Harvard system’: a mystery dispelled”, British Medical Journal, Vol. 297 No. 6655, pp. 1062-1063. Parton, S. and Fleming, H. (2007), “Academic libraries and learning support in collaboration:

Library-based guidance for peer-assisted learning leaders at Bournemouth university: theory and practice”, New Review of Academic Librarianship, Vol. 13 No. 1-2, pp. 79-89. Pears, R. and Shields, G. (2005), Cite Them Right: The Essential Guide to Referencing and Plagiarism, Pear Tree Books, Newcastle, UK. University of Wolverhampton (2009), “Harvard referencing”, Department of Learning & Information Services, Wolverhampton, UK, available at: http://www2.wlv.ac.uk/lib/harvard/Harvard2009.pdf [accessed June 7 2010].