QCF Diploma – Harvard Referencing Guidance

Throughout the course of your diploma you may choose to support your own work by referencing other material. These references can come from many different sources such textbooks, newspaper articles, websites etc. When using a source for an assignment it is important to reference this source. In such cases the Harvard system of referencing is recommended.

Referencing in Text
When you use an idea or piece of information from a source such as those mentioned above it must be referenced within the text of your work. How this is done depends on the nature and number of authors of the source.

Single Author

If a source is used with only one author there are several ways to reference the source:

The surname of the author can be followed by the year of publication:

Smith (2011) suggests that …

If the authors name is not mentioned in the course of the sentence, then the surname can be followed by the year of publication at the end of the sentence:

It has been suggested that … (Smith 2011)

Multiple Authors

If a source is used that has multiple authors then it is referenced in the same way:

The surname of each author can be followed by the year of publication:

Smith and Brown (2011) suggest that…

Again if the authors name is not mentioned in the course of the sentence, then each surname can be followed by the year of publication at the end of the sentence:

It has been suggested that… (Smith and Brown 2011)

If there are more than two authors for the source then only the surname of the first author should be used, followed by the term ‘et al’ (which is Latin for ‘and all’) and the year of publication in brackets:

Smith et al (2011) suggest…

Again if the authors name is not mentioned in the course of the sentence, then