Skip to Main Content

Referencing - BU Harvard 24-25 Full Guide: Authors

Authors

  • Use the name(s) of the person or organisation shown most prominently in the source as being responsible for the content.
  • If no author is given and there is clearly no identifiable person or organisation, use ‘Anon.’, except for webpages, newspapers, film, dictionaries or encyclopaedias (see No author or clearly identifiable person/organisation responsible for further guidance).
  • For all examples use the same author notation in both the main text of your work and in the list of references at the end - they must match.

Two authors

When citing in the main text of your work the surnames of both should be given:-

  • e.g. Matthews and Jones (2022) have proposed that…
  • e.g . It was proposed that ......  (Matthews and Jones 2022)

More than two authors (3+ authors)

When citing in the main text of your work the surname of the first author only should be given, followed by et al.:

  • e.g. Office costs amount to 20% of total costs in most business (Wilson et al. 2020).

Then all authors’ names should be noted in the reference list at the end.

et al. means 'and others'

Organisations

Write an organisations' name in full, and, include the abbreviation or acronym in brackets. Thereafter in your work, when you refer to the organisation, you can use the abbreviation.

e.g. According to the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI)…

In the reference list always write the organisations' name in full.