Academic Integrity and Plagiarism

Student Guide to
Harvard Referencing Style
APIC Library
APIC Student Guide to Harvard Referencing Style | 1
Introduction to Harvard Referencing Style
Academic Integrity and Plagiarism
Academic integrity is based on honesty in all scholarly work. This includes always
acknowledging ideas, opinions, theories and information that comes from the work of others
in your academic work. If you do not acknowledge the author of ideas, opinions and theories
that you present then it appears that you are attempting to present the work of another
person as your own, which is known as plagiarism.
Plagiarism is a form of academic misconduct and is taken very seriously by the College and
may result in a finding of academic misconduct that can incur penalties including loss of
marks, a fail grade for an assessment, a fail grade for a unit, or expulsion from the College.
Plagiarism can be accidental / unintentional, and this most often occurs when people do not
understand what plagiarism is. Deliberate plagiarism is much more serious, and occurs
when a person fails to acknowledge sources although they understand the implications of
choosing not to do so. For this reason, the College seeks to educate students about
plagiarism and to support new students to understand their responsibilities so as to ensure
that they do not accidentally or deliberately plagiarise the work of others.
For more information on academic integrity and plagiarism, please see the APIC Student
Handbook and the APIC Academic Integrity Policy.
What is Referencing?
Referencing is a method of acknowledging the sources of information that you use in writing
your assignments, such as essays and reports, or any other work of scholarship.
Whenever you present a statement in your assignment that is not your own original idea,
opinion or theory, whether it is presented in your own words (paraphrased) or in the
author’s exact words (quoted), you must include a reference to acknowledge your source.
Use in-text citations in the body of your writing to briefly refer to a work and acknowledge
the source of information. Provide a reference list at the end of your paper with full details
of the in-text citations. The information in the reference list should be sufficient for someone
else reading your assignment to find the source themselves if they wish.
There are conventions for how to present in-text citations and reference list entries and
these are described below. You are expected to follow these conventions in all of your
written work submitted for assessment at APIC unless you are specifically advised
otherwise.
Harvard Style of Referencing
At APIC students are expected to use the Harvard style for referencing / acknowledging
sources. Harvard style is used widely for academic writing and is commonly used in
business disciplines.
Unlike many other styles, there is no source document for a Harvard style, and this guide
was developed from a range of online Harvard style guides, most of which were based on
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Commonwealth of Australia 2002, Style Manual for authors, editors and printers, 6th edn,
rev. by Snooks & Co, John Wiley & Sons, Queensland.
This guide includes examples and basic explanations for the most common types of citations
used by students. More detailed explanations and examples can be found here and here.
In-Text Citations: Primary References
Primary references are works that you have read yourself, such as journal articles, books,
book chapters, websites, government reports and a range of other information sources. To
cite primary references follow the conventions below.
• Harvard uses author-date style of referencing. When you incorporate information from a
source in your text, place the author’s surname and year of publication in parentheses at
the end of the sentence.
Example: The results conclusively proved a correlation between the risk priority number
and severity of occurrence (Khanal 2018).
• If you use the name of the author(s) in your sentence, place the year of publication in
parentheses and omit the author’s last name from the brackets.
Example: Khanal (2018) observes that there is a correlation between risk priority and
severity of occurrence.
• For two or three authors, use the word ‘and’ or place an ampersand (&) between the last
two author’s names.
o Use “and” if you are writing the author’s names as part of your sentence as in the
example below:
Example: Khanal, Lyon and Choudhary (2018) observe that there is a strong
correlation between risk priority and severity of occurrence.
o Use “&” if you are placing the author’s names in brackets as in the example below:
Example: It has been shown that there is a strong correlation between risk priority
and severity of occurrence (Khanal, Lyon & Choudhary 2018).
• For more than three authors, the first time that you cite the authors you need to write all
of the names. However, for all other references to the same authors this becomes the
surname of the first listed author, followed by the term ‘et al.’, where ‘et al.’ is a latin term
meaning ‘and others’. So, to cite a work published in 2017 with four authors, namely
Annelli, Singh, Smith and Wynn, the first time you cite the reference you would write
either:
o Example: Annelli, Singh, Smith and Wynn (2017) argued that it is important
to consider gross domestic product (GDP) in developing the model. OR
o Example: It has been argued that it is important to consider gross domestic
product (GDP) in developing the model (Annelli, Singh, Smith & Wynn 2017).
However, if you are citing the same reference again later in your paper you would write
either:
o Example: Annelli et al. (2017) considered GDP to be an important indicator.
OR
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o Example: It has been suggested that GDP is an important indicator (Anelli et
al. 2017).
• If you directly quote from a source (fewer than 30 words), you must include the page
number and enclose the quoted phrase in quotation marks.
Example: Khanal (2018, p. 108) referred to this correlation as a “statistical anomaly”,
contributing….. OR
Example: It was found that the correlation was a “statistical anomaly” (Khanal 2018, p.
108).
• If the quotation is >30 words do not use quotation marks. Instead, start the quotation on
a new line, indent the entire quotation, and finish with the in-text reference.
Example:
It was stated that:
Contractors and consultants view risks differently. Contractors always try to transfer
the risk to the owner to gain more time and money on the project. The consultants
try to save the owner time and money and transfer the risks to the contractor,
forcing the contractor to accept the risks and mitigate the contractor’s own cost and
minimize the project duration (El-Sayegh & Mansour 2015, p.120).
• If you are giving a direct quote from a source that does not have a page number (such
as a web page), provide the section heading and/or paragraph number:
Example: Retailers must not mislead customers, and “a supplier must accurately
describe their goods or services” (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
2018, ‘False or misleading claims’, para. 1).
In-Text Citations: Secondary References
Secondary references are works that you have not read yourself but which are cited in a
source that you have read. For example, if you have read a book by Kirsner (2017) that
refers to a finding by Smith and Rathdown (2014), but you have not actually read the work of
Smith and Rathdown, then to refer to the finding of Smith and Rathdown you would use
secondary referencing. You should use secondary references sparingly and rely mainly on
primary references. To cite secondary references follow the conventions below.
• In the text, refer to the secondary source and note that was ‘cited in’ the source that you
actually read. In the example above this would be:
Example: Smith and Rathdown (2014, cited in Kirsner 2017) stated that..…
This clearly shows that you are basing your understanding of Smith and Rathdown’s
work (a secondary source) on what you have read in Kirsner’s book (a primary source).
• In the reference list, include the reference to the primary source only. In the example
above this would be:
Kirsner, L.S. 2017, Introduction to Accounting, McGraw Hill, London.
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Reference List
The reference list should only include references that you have directly cited in your work. To
prepare your reference list please use the following formatting checklist:
1. The reference list is on a new page at the end of your assignment ❑
2. References are located under a centre aligned title “References” ❑
3. The reference list is double-spaced ❑
4. The references are listed in alphabetical order ❑
5. Each reference has a hanging indent approximately 1.25cm from left margin ❑
6. When referring to books, book chapters, article titles or webpages, the title
is italicised and only the first word of the title or subtitle and proper nouns
are capitalised ❑
The tables below provide examples of required format for in-text and reference list citations
for a range of information sources and should be consulted for further information about how
to prepare in-text and reference list citations.
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AssignmentTutorOnline

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