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Harvardauthor–date

How to cite a book in Harvard

Short answer

How do you cite a book in Harvard?

You need author(s), year of publication, title, edition (if not the first), place of publication, publisher. The reference list entry looks like this:

Bolton, G. (2018) Reflective practice: writing and professional development. 5th edn. London: SAGE Publications.

The matching in-text citation is (Bolton, 2018).

Step by step

Building the reference

Do it automatically

  1. Gather the details

    You need: Author(s), Year of publication, Title, Edition (if not the first), Place of publication, Publisher. Take them from the source itself, not from a database record, which is often incomplete.

  2. Order the elements

    Harvard is an author–date style, so the author and year come first. Follow the pattern in the example below exactly, including its punctuation.

  3. Add the in-text citation

    Every reference needs a matching in-text citation. In Harvard that is (Bolton, 2018). Missing or mismatched in-text citations are penalised more often than formatting slips.

  4. Check against your own guide

    Institutional variants exist, particularly in Harvard. Where your department's published guide differs from any generator, the department's guide wins.

What you need

Details to collect

  • Author(s)
  • Year of publication
  • Title
  • Edition (if not the first)
  • Place of publication
  • Publisher

Watch out

Mistakes this pairing invites

  • Omitting the edition when you used anything other than the first.
  • Citing the reprint year rather than the edition year.
  • Using the imprint rather than the publisher shown on the title page.
  • There is no single Harvard authority — always use your institution's published guide.
  • Cite Them Right (the most common UK variant) uses single quotation marks around article titles.

Compare

The same book in all eight styles

  • Harvard

    This page

    Bolton, G. (2018) Reflective practice: writing and professional development. 5th edn. London: SAGE Publications.

  • APA 7

    Bolton, G. (2018). Reflective practice: writing and professional development (5th ed.). SAGE Publications.

  • MLA 9

    Bolton, Gillie. Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development. 5th ed., SAGE Publications, 2018.

  • Chicago 17

    Bolton, Gillie. Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development. 5th ed. London: SAGE Publications, 2018.

  • Vancouver

    Bolton G. Reflective practice: writing and professional development. 5th ed. London: SAGE Publications; 2018.

  • OSCOLA

    Gillie Bolton, Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development (5th edn, SAGE Publications 2018)

  • IEEE

    G. Bolton, Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development, 5th ed. London: SAGE Publications, 2018.

  • AMA 11

    Bolton G. Reflective practice: writing and professional development. 5th ed. SAGE Publications; 2018.

Frequently asked questions

How do you cite a book in Harvard?
Bolton, G. (2018) Reflective practice: writing and professional development. 5th edn. London: SAGE Publications. — that is the reference list entry. The matching in-text citation is (Bolton, 2018). You need author(s), year of publication, title, edition (if not the first), place of publication, publisher.
What details do I need to cite a book?
Author(s), Year of publication, Title, Edition (if not the first), Place of publication, Publisher. If a detail is genuinely unavailable, most styles have a defined substitute — for example 'n.d.' or 'no date' where no publication year exists — rather than simply omitting the element.
What is the in-text citation for a book in Harvard?
(Bolton, 2018). It appears in parentheses at the point the source is used, not only at the end of the paragraph.