Skip to Main Content

Harvard UON Referencing Style:  Journal articles

UON Library guide to the Australian Harvard Style based on the online Style Manual: the standard for Australian Government writing and editing 2020.

Journal Articles - General Rules

 

The following information is for reference list entries. See also:

Author Names

  • Appear first in the reference. Use the surnames of authors followed by initials, eg Smith DL.
  • Include all author names in the reference list entry. 
  • If the article does not have an author move the title to the author position.

Year of Publication

  • Appear second in the reference. 
  • If year of publication is unavailable, use n.d. (no date) in the place of the year.

Article Titles

  • Capitalise the article titles in sentence case. 
  • Article titles appear in single quotation marks.

Journal Title

  • Capitalise all words in the journal title (except for common words - of, and, etc).
  • Journal titles appear in full (not abbreviated), and in italics. e.g. Journal of Politics.
  • An initial The in the journal title is usually dropped.

Volume Number

  • Volume numbers follow the journal title and a comma and space.
  • When a journal uses issue numbers only, without volume numbers, a comma follows the journal title.
  • When a journal uses volume numbers only, without issue numbers or month or season, the volume number is followed by a colon and the page range, with no intervening space, e.g. American Naturalist, 185:653–64.

Issue Number

  • The issue number follows the volume number, enclosed in parentheses, followed by page range, eg 11(3):263-269. 
  • The issue number should be included even if pagination is continuous throughout a volume or when a month or season precedes the year.
  • Where more than one issue number is included, follow the usage in the journal itself, eg 41(1/2) or 33(May/June)

Page Numbers

  • Include the beginning and ending page numbers of the entire article, e.g. 45-67.
  • If your article doesn't have a page number but an article number, use the article number instead, 11(2):RN1234. 

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • Most individual articles are assigned an identifying "digital object identifier" or DOI. If a DOI is available, include it at the end of reference.

  • DOI is cited in the format starting with doi:10.xxxxxxx, eg doi:10.1086/679716.

  • For a journal article located from a library database without a DOI, we don't recommend adding the database name in the citation.

  • For a free online article with or without a DOI, hyperlink the title using the URL. 

  • Check the What are DOIs? site for more information on DOIs.

 

Journal articles with 1, 2, 3 or more authors

 

The following is the general format of a reference to journal articles with one or more authors. 

See the general rules for journal articles for more details. 

 

In-text citation: format and examples

(Author Surname Year of Publication)  or  Author Surname (Year of Publication)

  • One author: (Kelleher 2009) or Kelleher (2009)
  • Two authors: (Narr and Krist 2015) or Narr and Krist (2015) 
  • Three and more authors: (Jackson et al. 2018) or Jackson et al. (2018)

Add the page number to the in-text citation when you including a direct quote, eg (Baron 2013:194).

 

Reference list entry: format and examples

Author Surname Initials and Surname Initials (Year) 'Article title: subtitle', Title of Journal, volume(issue):page range,  doi:10.xxxxxxxx.

Jackson D, Li X and Chandran P (2018) ‘Safety and equity’, Psychological Science Australia, 2(4):223–240.

Kelleher T (2009) ‘Conversational voice’, Journal of Communication, 59(1):172–188, doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2008.01410.x.

Narr CF and Krist AC (2015) 'Host diet alters trematode replication and elemental composition', Freshwater Science, 34(1):81–91, doi:10.1086/679411.

 

Journal articles with corporate authors

 

'Corporate authors' are organisations, associations, groups, or societies who have written publications. This includes universities, research groups, museums, government departments, professional associations, and so on.

To facilitate shorter parenthetical text citations, the organization may be listed under an abbreviation, eg (WTO 2019), in which case the entry must be alphabetized under that abbreviation (rather than the spelled-out name) in the reference list. The reference list entry should start with the abbreviation followed by the full name in brackets.

The following is the general format of a reference to a journal article by a corporate author with a DOI. 

See the general rules for journal articles for more details. 

 

In-text citation: format and example

... (Short Name of Corporate Author Year of Publication) ...

... (ECOSOC 2010)  or ECOSOC (2010)...

 

Reference list entry: format and example

Short Name of Corporate Author (Full name of Corporate Author) (Year), 'Article title: subtitle', Title of Journal, volume(issue):page range, doi:10.xxxxxxxx.

ECOSOC (United Nations Economic and Social Council) (2010) 'Health literacy and the Millennium Development Goals: United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) regional meeting background paper (Abstracted), Journal of Health Communication,15(sup2):211-223, doi:10.1080/10810730.2010.499996.

 

Journal articles with no author listed

 

  • If the journal article does not have an author move the title to the author position. An initial article (A, An, or The) is ignored in alphabetizing.
  • Text citations may refer to a short form of the title (up to four words) but must include the first word (other than an initial article).
  • Works explicitly attributed to “Anonymous” (e.g., on the title page or at the head of the work) should be cited accordingly, e.g. 

...(Anonymous 2015)...

 Anonymous (2015) 'Our family secrets', Annals of Internal Medicine, 163(4):321, doi:10.7326/M14-2168.
 

The following is the general format of a reference to a journal article without an author.

See the general rules for journal articles for more details. 

 

In-text citation: format and example

... ('Shortened Article title' Year of Publication) ...

... ('Pregnancy and diabetes' 1910) ...

 

Reference list entry: format and example

'Article title: subtitle' (Year) Title of Journal, volume(issue):page range, doi:10.xxxxxxxx.

'Pregnancy and diabetes' (1910) Hospital, 48(1260):736-737. 

Journal article accepted for publishing but not yet published

 

Many journal publishers provide access to articles before they have been assigned a volume, issue or page number, referring to them as "In Press", "Advance Publication", or "Online First" articles.

It is important to re-check references prior to submitting assessment tasks in case an 'in press' article has been assigned a volume, issue and page numbers. If this is the case, ensure you re-format the citation following the guidelines on the appropriate tab on this page for the number of authors the article has.

 

Referencing 'in press' articles:

 

If an article has been accepted for publication by a journal but has not yet published, use ‘in press’ instead of the year in the citation, leave the elements of volume, issue and page out if they are not available.  Any article not yet accepted should be treated as an unpublished manuscript. For example:

...  (Kelleher in press) or Kelleher (in press) states that ...

Kelleher T (in press) ‘Conversational voice’, Journal of Communication.

 

If an article is published by a journal electronically ahead of the official publication date, use the posted publication date. For example: 

... (Jubb 2015) ... 

Jubb R (2015) 'The real value of equality', Journal of Politics 77(3), published ahead of print, April 14, 2015, doi:10.1086/681262.

 

Where possible always refer to the final versions of your sources.

Subjects: Referencing