Harvard Referencing Style Of Writing

By Author: Anthony W Bills
Total Articles: 158
Comment this article

Harvard Referencing Style of Writing

Harvard style is one of the most preferred layout references; therefore, many essay writers worldwide use it. This style originated from Harvard University. The importance of using Harvard style is that, it’s easily identifiable even without looking at the reference page and it works well in combination with endnotes and footnotes. This style is also known as author date because its the author and the date of publication that are presented in parenthesis it is the simplest style compared to APA and MLA thus making it easier to be used in small papers.
However, you have to follow a certain format if you are using Harvard style of referencing. First, you should have a header that will contain a brief description of the title and a sequential the page number. An example of a title can be: “the Kenyan presidency” and an example of a title and a page number in Harvard format could be presidency 1 .it is important to note that the title is right justified instead of putting it on the right or centre, there should also be a partial title expressing the main idea in the essay ...
... and there should be exactly five spaces between the partial title and the number. You should use a space bar and just five spaces, go to the top of any page in the document and double click so as to access the header in MS WORD, then a blue dotted line will appear with a small box on the lower left hand corner that leads “header” and a cursor will appear. When a box drops down click the” page number” box and follow the following instructions: click on the first option that is on the top of the page ,then you will click the one that leads” plain number 3”a number corresponding to the page that you are using will appear on the right hand side of the header, and the cursor will be on the left hand side of the number, you will then type your partial title here and then press the space bar for exactly five times .After this you are supposed to double click anywhere in the body of the main document and if you followed the instructions well the page head number is automatically going to be properly set.
After the header is set, you are required to come up with a cover page. Harvard formatting requires a very specific title page and this title should be in capital letters, after a space of three lines you should write the name of the author in small letters, skip four lines again and then indicate the name of the class, and on the line after that the name of the professor, the next line should contain the name of the school, then the city and you should state where it is located, finally the date. Here is an example of a cover page in Harvard format.

A HISTORY OF A KENYAN PRESDENCY
By Jane
American History
Dr. Wilfred
University of Washington
Feb 4, 2011

Its important to note that Harvard in text citations are nearly identical to APA,the only difference is that in APA, after the quotation passage you are supposed to place the name of the author and date of publication in parenthesis way for example: the vice-presidency has been described “the most useless job in American’s government”(Jane 2011) but if you are naming the author in your sentence you should the date directly after the name for example Jane (2011) describes the vice-presidency as being the most useless job in American government
For every in-text citation there must a reference listed and vice versa, this reference should be a complete acknowledgement of the author and also it should contain clear information on how the audience can find the referenced material. The reference page which is the same as the title page should be completely separate from the rest of the paper. After you finish writing and entered the last period on the document, you should press enter to add an extra space, then press the “insert” button in the tool bar. From the menu select “page break” and a new page where you can record your reference list is going to appear. It is important to note that every reference must have a hanging indent when using the Harvard style.

Author's bio:

The author is associated with the www.urgentdissertations.com and he can help you with research papers,term papers,dissertations,thesis,course work