Manuals of Style
Manuals of style, commonly referred to as citation manuals or style manuals, are invaluable not only because they prescribe the proper format for source documentation and citation, but because they recommend the latest best practices for writing in your field of study, from proper punctuation to preferred terminology to accepted discourse conventions; ignore their advice at your peril. Following are the styles used most commonly at Harvard.
APA Style
- Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition (Print Only)
- The print guide to APA is the official guide to citing in APA style.
- APA Style Reference Examples
- APA Style Blog
Chicago Style
- The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th Edition (Harvard Login)
MLA Style
- MLA Handbook, 9th Edition
- MLA Style Center -- can be very useful for help with types of sources that aren't covered in the Handbook
- Ask the MLA -- answers lots of "how do I cite" questions
Legal Citations
- Harvard Law School Library Legal Citation Guides and Abbreviations
- The Bluebook: a uniform system of citation, 20th Edition (Print Only)
Common citation styles used in STEM fields:
Guidelines Published by Selected Societies
- ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication (American Chemical Society)
- IEEE Reference Guide and Editorial Style Manual for Authors (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
- Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition (print only)
- The primary style for undergraduate and graduate students in psychology.
- Used most frequently by undergraduate students in biology and chemistry.
- The print guide to APA is the official guide to citing in APA style.
- APA Style Reference Examples
- APA Style Blog
- Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (Council of Science Editors)
Selected Journal Formats
- Communications of the ACM Author Guidelines (Association for Computing Machinery)
- Nature format
- Science Citation Style
Citation Tools
Harvard Library supports a selection of citation tools that allow you to:
- create a searchable database of the books, articles, book chapters, and more that you're using in your research
- import citations, abstracts, and more from online sources
- organize notes and full text documents, such as PDFs, images, spreadsheets
- share references when you're working on collaborative projects
- create reference lists in Chicago, MLA, APA and hundreds of other formats
Citations Tools we support include Zotero, EndNote, Overleaf Pro+, and Sciwheel.
To learn more about each tool, how they compare to one another, and for a list of upcoming classes, visit:
