Leeds Harvard: X (formerly Twitter)
Reference examples
Family name, INITIAL(S) (or organisation). Year. Full text of tweet. [X]. Day and month tweet posted. [Date accessed]. Available from: URL
Use the full text of the tweet as its title. If a tweet is longer than 20 words, write the first 20 words and then use […] to indicate that extra words have been omitted.
Family name, INITIAL(S) (or organisation). Year. First 20 words of tweet. [X]. Date posted. [Date accessed]. Available from: URL
Examples
Dougill, A. 2013. Energising development with Jatropha curcas? Biofuel reflections from Mali in @PracticalAction briefing paper. [X]. 16 April. [Accessed 26 July 2013]. Available from: https://twitter.com/AndyDougill/status/324081303874052096
Guardian. 2017. North Korea warns UK faces 'miserable end' if it joins US-led military drills. [X]. 25 August. [Accessed 25 August 2017]. Available from: https://twitter.com/guardian/status/900983881729552384
Guardian. 2019. During a meeting with the secretary general of Nato, Donald Trump called for the media to look into the ‘oranges’ […]. [X]. 2 April. [Accessed 5 April 2019]. Available from: https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1113239919441235969
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 If you are citing the same item twice in a row (i.e. you do not cite any other items in the text between the two citations) you must write the full citation again.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).
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:
- Online items
- URL web addresses
- Multiple authors
- Editors
- Corporate author(s) or organisation(s)
- Multiple publisher details
- Editions and reprints
- Missing details
- Multiple sources with different authors
- Sources written by the same author in the same year
- Sources with the same author in different years
- Two authors with the same surname in the same year
- The work of one author referred to by another
- Anonymising sources for confidentiality
- Identifying the authors’ family name (surname)