Verified metadata from Crossref & OpenLibrary — we never fabricate sources.
Not sure what to paste? See how to cite a website, book, or journal article.
Example · Harvard
Tian, J., Wang, Y., and Chen, Z. (2021) 'An improved single particle model for lithium-ion batteries based on main stress factor compensation', Journal of Cleaner Production, 278, pp.123456. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123456.
In-text: (Tian, Wang, and Chen, 2021)
1,000 of 1,000 characters remaining (free preview) · Sign in for 5,000 characters, or upgrade to Premium for unlimited.
How Harvard citations work
Harvard is a family of author–date referencing styles rather than one official manual. It is the most common style at UK and Australian universities, across most subjects. Universities publish their own versions with small punctuation differences, so check your course guide.
- In-text citations give the author's surname and the year in brackets, plus a page number for direct quotes.
- The reference list is alphabetical by surname, with authors written as surname plus initials.
- The year goes in round brackets straight after the authors; article titles are in single quotation marks and journal names in italics.
- A DOI is added at the end when the source has one.
Instant DOI to Citation
Don't waste time typing. Just paste the DOI, ISBN, or URL, and our system will fetch the exact metadata to build a flawless reference.
In-Text Citation Generator
Every reference you create comes with a perfectly formatted in-text citation, ready to be copied and pasted directly into your academic paper.
Batch Citation Style Converter
Have a messy list of sources? Paste your entire bibliography and let our AI automatically correct punctuation, italicize journal names, and format your references in seconds. Every entry is checked against Crossref, and anything we can't confirm is clearly flagged, not silently guessed.
Frequently asked questions
Still stuck? See how to cite a website, a book, or a journal article, or write to support@makecitation.org.
Is Harvard the same as APA?
Both are author–date styles, so they look alike. Harvard usually writes “and” between authors, puts article titles in single quotation marks, and gives pages with “pp.”; APA uses “&”, no quotation marks, and a doi.org link.
Do I need a reference list or a bibliography in Harvard?
A reference list includes only the sources you cited. Some universities also ask for a bibliography of everything you read; your course guide will say which.
Can I generate a citation directly from a DOI or ISBN?
Yes. Paste a DOI or ISBN and MakeCitation fetches the metadata automatically from Crossref and OpenLibrary, so you don't have to type out authors, titles, or publication details by hand.
Does this tool make up sources like some AI chatbots do?
No. For single-source lookups, every detail comes from verified academic databases, never from the AI's memory. The AI only handles formatting — it never invents authors, dates, or DOIs.
Can I convert a whole reference list to a different citation style?
Yes. Paste your existing list into the batch tool, choose a new style, and MakeCitation normalizes every entry — punctuation, italics, and order — to match it.
Can I remove duplicate references and sort my bibliography alphabetically?
Yes. Batch formatting can remove duplicate entries and sort your list alphabetically by author with one click, for the styles where alphabetical order applies.
Can I export my citations to Word with correct formatting?
Premium accounts can download a .docx file with hanging indents and italics already applied, ready to drop into your paper.
Is there a citation generator for legal (OSCOLA) or medical (Vancouver, CSE) sources?
Yes. Alongside APA, MLA, Chicago, and IEEE, MakeCitation supports Harvard, Vancouver, OSCOLA, ASA, Turabian, and CSE — covering law, medicine, and the social sciences.
What happens if a source's metadata is missing or incomplete?
MakeCitation only fills in details it can verify from Crossref or OpenLibrary. If a field like the publication date is missing from the source itself, we won't guess — you'll be prompted to add it manually, so your citation stays accurate.