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Leeds Harvard: Foreign language material

Reference examples

Reference the exact text used, in the same style as you would reference English language material. For example, for a foreign language book, use the following template:

Family name, INITIAL(S). Year. Title. Place of publication: Publisher.

Example:

Foucault, M. 1971. L'archéologie du savoir. Paris: NRF/Gallimard.

Non-Latin characters e.g. Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic etc

When referencing foreign language material where the information is written in non-Latin characters e.g. Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic, etc (not including Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Thai), you should transliterate (not translate) the details into the English alphabet. You only need to put the transliteration in your reference list.

Example:

The original: Набоков, В. 1999. Комментарии к «Евгению Онегину» Александра Пушкина. москва: нпк

Your reference: Nabokov, V. 1999. Kommentarii k ‘Evgeniiu Oneginu’ Aleksandra Pushkina. Moscow: NPK.

Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Thai

When referencing foreign language material where the information is written in Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Thai, you should transliterate (not translate) the details into the English alphabet, and include the original author names and the title of the source as the example shows. 

Example :

The original: 严曜中 2000《江南佛教史》上海人民出版社 

Your reference: Yan, Y. 严曜中. 2000. Jiangnan fo jiao shi 江南佛教史. Shanghai: Shanghai ren min chu ban she. 

See also Translated material

Citation examples

Author and date

When the author name is not mentioned in the text, the citation consists of the author’s name and the year of publication in brackets.

Example:

It was emphasised that citations in the text should be consistent (Jones, 2017).

If you have already named the author in the text, only the publication year needs to be mentioned in brackets.

Example:

Jones (2017) emphasised that citations in the text should be consistent.

Three or more authors

If a source has three or more authors, the name of the first author should be given, followed by the phrase "et al."

Examples

It was emphasised that citations in a text should be consistent (Jones et al., 2017).

Jones et al. (2017) emphasised that citations in a text should be consistent.

Ibid.

Leeds Harvard does not use ibid to refer to previously cited items. If you are citing the same item twice in a row (i.e. you do not cite any other items in the text between the two citations) you must write the full citation again. 

The key principle of referencing is that the reader should understand which information came from another source and which is your own idea, so you should provide citations as often as is necessary to make this clear. 
If you feel that you are citing the same source too many times in one paragraph, you could change the way that you are writing:

  • You could include the author’s surname or pronoun in the sentence, to show you are still referring to the same source.
  • You could include a second source to make your paragraph feel less repetitive and add further support to the point you want to make. See our guidance on incorporating evidence into your writing.

Example:

Jones et al. (2017) emphasised that citations in a text should be consistent and argued that referencing is a key part of academic integrity. Furthermore, having a broad range of references in a text is an indicator of the breadth of a scholar's reading and research (Jones et al., 2017). They also suggested that…

 

Corporate author

If the item is produced by an organisation, treat the organisation as a "corporate author". This means you can use the name of the organisation instead of that of an individual author. This includes government departments, universities or companies. Cite the corporate author in the text the same way as you would an individual author.

Example:

According to a recent report, flu jabs are as important as travel vaccines (Department of Health, 2017).
 

When to include page numbers

You should include page numbers in your citation if you quote directly from the text, paraphrase specific ideas or explanations, or use an image, diagram, table, etc. from a source.

Example:

"It was emphasised that citations in a text should be consistent" (Jones, 2017, p.24).

When referencing a single page, you should use p. For a range of pages, use pp.

Example:

p.7 or pp.20-29.

If the page numbers are in Roman numerals, do not include p. before them.

Example:

(Amis, 1958, iv)

Common issues

When you're referencing with Leeds Harvard you may come across issues with missing details, multiple authors, edited books, references to another author's work or online items, to name a few. Here are some tips on how to deal with some common issues when using Leeds Harvard.

Skip straight to the issue that affects you: