Reference Machine - Books

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On this page: How to make a bibliographic reference for a book using the Harvard style.

Related pages: Referencing, Reference Machines for an article in a journal, an edited book, a newspaper or magazine article or an Internet reference.

Instructions: Read the following example, then fill in the form below to make a reference using the Harvard style.

Example:

Murphy, R., 1992. English grammar in use. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

Fill in the boxes, and then press the 'Create Reference' button:

1.	Main author's family name: (Help)	->	e.g. Wong
2.	Main author's other-name initials: (Help)		e.g. W.M. e.g. John = J
	If there is a second author, fill in points 3. and 4. If there is only one author, go on to number 7.
3.	Second author's family name: (Help)		e.g. Chan
4.	Second author's other-name initials: (Help)		e.g. W.M.
	If there is a third author, fill in points 5. and 6. If there are only two authors, go on to number 7.
5.	Third author's family name: (Help)		e.g. Fu
6.	Third author's other-name initials: (Help)		e.g. W.M.
..
7.	Year of publication:		e.g.
8.	Title (Capital letter for the first letter of the first word. If there is a sub-title, use a capital letter for the first letter of the first word.):		e.g. Modern linguistics: Surveying the literature
9.	Edition: (no need if it is the first edition)		e.g. Third Edition
10.	Name of the publishing company:		e.g. Oxford University Press
11.	City of publication: (Help)		e.g. Oxford

Click this button for your reference:

Click this button to empty all the boxes and start again:

Last updated: Tuesday, 28 October 2014

Author's Family Name Help:

If you can't find an author's name, for example in a newspaper or magazine, use the title of the newspaper or magazine.

Do not use 'et al.' in bibliographies: quote the names of all the authors and/or editors.

If you don't know which name is the family name and which are the other names:

Look at the pages in the front of the book for the Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data. If you see the author's name with a comma after the first word, then that first word is the author's family name.
Use the library catalogue to search for the title of the book, then look for the author's name.
Search for the book at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble, find the book by its title, then look for the author's family name.
Check the list of other names.
If you can't find the information in the sources above, use all of the name.

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Author's Initials Help

The author's initials are the first letters of each of the author's family names. For example, if the author is Wong Wai Man, then the initials are W. M.

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