Creating in-text citations

Basic treatment (Australian Harvard)

As explained in the Australian Harvard overview, you need to insert a brief reference into your writing whenever you use a source. This is the in-text citation. It is made up of the author and the year of publication of the source. Include page numbers when you are quoting a source directly, or if the reference is long (e.g. a book or chapter) and it may be useful for the reader.

Basic author and year

(Author Year) or (Author Year, Page)

… which is confirmed by the most recent study (Jenkins 2013).

was ‘fully confirmed by these results’ (Jenkins 2013, p. 213).    

Author in sentence

… the study by Jenkins (2013) confirmed these results.

Author needing initial

… seemingly different from Twain’s later work (Grech, M 1994).

  • Enclose the author’s surname and year in round brackets without a comma between them.
  • Insert the citation before the punctuation mark that ends the sentence (or part of sentence) where you used the source.
  • If the author is already in sentence, give year alone in round brackets directly after the author’s name.
  • Write the initials and surname in your sentence if you have sources by authors with the same surname. Use their first initial/s in the reference list, as with other authors.

More than one author

2 or 3 authors

(Hendricks & Angwin 1975) OR Hendricks and Angwin (1975) …

(Smith, Hendricks & Angwin 1975) OR Smith, Hendricks and Angwin (1975) …

  • Name all authors in all in-text citations.
  • In your text, separate each author by a comma.
  • Join authors with ‘&’ in round brackets, or ‘and’ in the sentence.

4 or more authors

(Oakes et al. 1994) OR Oakes et al. (1994)

  • In your in-text citations, name the first author followed by ‘et al.’ (Latin abbreviation meaning ‘and others’) in all mentions.
  • Name all authors in the reference list, as given in the source.

Group author (government or organisation)

(Amnesty International 1997) OR Amnesty International (1997)

Long name, first citation

(World Health Organization [WHO] 2013)

Long name, subsequent citations

WHO (2009)

  • Give full name of group if you only cite it once in your work, without initials or abbreviations.
  • If you cite the same group source two or more times, include the initials in square brackets inside the round brackets for the first citation. For subsequent in-text citations, use only initials.
  • Long group names can be abbreviated in the text (optional), but show them in full the first time. Similarly, if the name is long and well-known by an abbreviation, give its full name plus the abbreviation in square brackets in the first mention.
  • In all later mentions, give the abbreviation only.
  • If you use an abbreviation in a sentence, put an extra line in your reference list:
    ‘WHO – see World Health Organization’.
  • Use the full group name for all entries in the reference list. Include initials in round brackets only if you used initials in your sentences.

Legislation/Criminal cases (government or organisation) 

Title in civil case law

Burger King Corp v Hungry Jack’s Pty Ltd [2001] NSWCA 187

Title in statutes

Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) s 124(1)

  • No punctuation is required when citing legislation/criminal case.
  • Formatting of civil law cases appears the same in the reference list as in your text. See the section on how to present a reference list for more examples.

No author (Australian Harvard)

Whole title, first mention

(Style manual for authors, editors and printers 1996)  OR Style manual for authors, editors and printers (1996)

Part of title, subsequent mentions

(Style manual 1996) OR Style manual (1996)

  • Use the title of the work in italics in place of the author.
  • If you only cite a source using the title in place of the author once in your work, use the full title without initials or abbreviations.
  • In second/subsequent citations of the same source, you can give an abbreviation of the title, e.g. the first two to three words. If you use an abbreviated title in your text, add a separate line in your reference list that refers to the full source. For example: ‘Style manual – see Style manual for authors, editors and printers (1996)’.

Page numbers 

Basic treatment

(Johnson 2003, p. 6) … (Kennett 1998, pp. 55­–63) … (Wong 2012, Figure 3)

  • Page numbers are required for all direct quotes. Page numbers are not required when paraphrasing, however may be included where it would be useful for the reader.
  • Add the page number after the year, separated by a comma.
  • Use ‘p.’ before a page, or ‘pp.’ before a page range, ‘Chapter’, Figure’, or ‘Table’ to refer to a particular section or item. Indicate non-consecutive pages as (p.23, p.31).

Quotations

It was described as ‘a stunning victory’ (Harrison 1965, p. 15).

Harrison (1965) described it as ‘a stunning victory’ (p. 15).

  • In direct quotations, use single quotation marks to indicate exact words from the source. Use double quotation marks for a quote within a quote.
  • Short quotes (less than 30 words) are incorporated into your sentence, with the page reference included after the closing quotation mark.
  • If author and year are already part of the sentence, give the page reference alone at the end of the sentence or section.
  • Long quotes (30 words or more) are often referred to as block quotations, and should be separated from your writing with a semi colon, and placed on a new line. Indent the whole quote, use single line-spacing in one size smaller font, without quotation marks. The brackets with page reference details sit outside the full stop.

Carter, Chitwood, Kinzey and Cole (2000) note that:

In order to understand this neurophysiological mechanism, it is important to discuss the two proprioceptive bodies in the muscle: the muscle spindles and the Golgi tendon organs (GTOs). Muscle spindles are found within the muscle belly and provide information to the central nervous system (CNS) regarding the absolute length and the velocity of the stretch in the skeletal muscles (p. 275).

No page numbers

(Duer, 1974, ‘Introduction’, para. 12).

If no page numbers are shown on the source, you can pinpoint the information by doing one of the following:

  • Give an approximate page number (p.3 or 9; pp. 3-7).
  • Give a paragraph number/s if shown (para. 2).
  • Give a relevant heading or sub-heading from the source, and paragraph number/s (as counted by you).