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Leeds Harvard: Book

Reference examples

Family name, INITIAL(S). Year. Title. Edition (if not first edition). Place of publication: Publisher.

The name of the publisher can usually be located on the front cover or spine of the book. The place of publication is usually the main office of the publisher and can be found on the copyright page near the beginning of the book. 

Examples:

Adams, A.D. 1906. Electric transmission of water power. New York: McGraw.

Finch, E. and Fafinski, S. 2015. Legal skills. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Book as a volume in a series

If you are referencing a book that is part of a series, you should reference as follows:

Family name, INITIAL(S). Year. Book title. Series title, Volume number. Edition (if not first edition). Place of publication: Publisher.

Example:

Bowlby, J. 1998. Separation. Attachment and loss series, Vol 3. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

Editor(s)

If you are referencing a book with an editor rather than an author, this should be indicated in the reference.

Family name, INITIAL(S) (of editor). ed(s). Year. Title. Edition (if not first edition). Place of publication: Publisher.

Examples:

Crandell, K.A. ed. 1999. The evolution of HIV. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.

Wexler, P., van der Kolk, J., Mohapatra, A. and Agarwal, R. eds. 2012. Chemicals, environment, health: a global management perspective. Boca Raton, FL: CRC.

For an edited book with chapters written by different authors, see Book chapter (in an edited book).

Author and editor

Family name, INITIAL(S) of author. Year. Title. Edition (if not first edition). Family name, INITIAL(S) of editor. ed(s). Place of publication: Publisher.

Example:

Hobbes, T. 2012. Leviathan. Malcolm, N. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Translated book

You should reference exactly what you read so, if you read a translation, you should reference the translated version. Include the details of the author(s) or editor(s) of the work and also the details of the translator(s). 

Family name, INITIAL(S) of author. Year. Title. Edition (if not first edition). Translated by INITIAL(S) Family name. Place of publication: Publisher.

Examples:

Kafka, F. 2007. Metamorphosis and other stories. Translated by M. Hoffman. New York: Penguin Books.

García Márquez , G. 1970. One hundred years of solitude. Translated by G. Rabassa. London: Jonathan Cape. 

The in-text citation should only include details of author’s name and year of publication in brackets and NOT the translator’s details.

Example:

(García Márquez, 1970) 

Author, editor and translator

Family name, INITIAL(S) of author(s). Year. Title. Edition (if not first edition). Family name, INITIAL(S) of editor(s). ed(s). Translated by INITIAL(S) Family name. Place of publication: Publisher.

Example:

Freud, S. 1963. Civilization and its discontents. Rev ed. Strachey, J. ed. Translated by J. Riviere. London: Hogarth Press. 

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: