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Referencing - BU Harvard 24-25 Full Guide: Placing Citations

Where to place citations in the main text of your essays

  • Place your citation where you decide it should naturally occur within a sentence.
  • Depending on your writing style, it may follow a phrase/idea or appear at the end of a sentence or paragraph. It should always appear before the full stop.

e.g. As Woods (2021, p.21) said, "good practices must be taught" and so we...

e.g. A more recent study (Woods 2021, p.21) found, "good practices must be taught" and so we...

Please note there's no comma between author and year, but there's a coma and space between year and page number.

e.g. In a popular study Woods (2021) argued that we have to teach good practices...

e,g. A more recent study (Woods 2021) found that sound practices need to be learnt and so we...

e.g. Theory rises out of practice, and once validated, returns to explain the practice (Woods 2021).