UOW Harvard

An information-prominent citation is when the focus is on the information from your source.

Template: (Author year, p. x) or (Author year, pp. x–x)

You give prominence to the information by placing the entire citation in brackets.

For one author, cite the author and the year, and the page number if required.

(Zepke 2017, p. 55)

For two or three authors, cite all authors and the year, and the page number if required.

(Fredricks & McCloskey 2012, p. 779)

(Howard, Ehrich & Walton 2014)

For more than three authors, use the first author’s name followed by et al. and the year, and the page number if required.

(Carpenter et al. 2015, p. 290)

For more information that is across more than one page, cite the author and the year, and the page numbers if required.

(Zepke 2017, pp. 55–56)

Referencing with et al.

“et al.” is short for the Latin term “et alia”, meaning “and others”. It is used in academic citations when referring to a source with multiple authors (in UOW Harvard it used when there are more than three authors).

The “al” in “et al.” is always followed by a full stop. This is because the term is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase, and the full stop indicates that it is an abbreviation.

“et al.” may be directly followed by other punctuation where necessary, such as a comma, but the full stop is always used before other punctuation symbols.

Different citation styles, including other forms of Harvard, have different rules for when to use “et al.”

An author-prominent citation is where the focus is on the author(s) of your source.

Template: Author (year, p. x) or Author (year, pp. x–x)

You give prominence to the author by using their name as an element of your sentence by incorporating it into the sentence structure. After the name, the date is provided in brackets.

For one author, list the year (and the page number if required) in an author-prominent citation:

 

Zepke (2017, p. 55)

 

For two or three authors, list all authors within the sentence, and then list the year (and page number if required) within the citation.

 

Fredricks and McCloskey (2012, p. 764)

Howard, Ehrich and Walton (2014)

 

When there are more than three authors, cite the first author followed by “et al.”

Carpenter et al. (2015, p. 290)