Unless otherwise stated, when submitting any written coursework at the University, you are required to use the Harvard style for citing and referencing your literature sources. This is also known as the author-date style.
The Harvard style (or similar) is adopted by many publishers because it is regarded as being easy to use by writers, publishers and, most importantly, readers. You will find other styles have been used by some publishers in the past, and some still use other styles (eg numbering of in-text citations, with the sources cited listed by number at the end). It is important that you are not confused by this, but stick to the Harvard style in your own writing. The following links will take you to webpages giving guidance on citing and referencing literature, using the Harvard style. All the webpages linked are produced at UK universities, so that British English spelling is shown and so that the appropriate method of citing and referencing government documents is tailored to the UK context. You can use this webpage to access the webpages:
However, do be aware that there are variations in the Harvard style. These mainly the way that author names are shown (eg in upper case, ie capital letters or not?), presentation of titles of journal articles (eg in quotation marks? single or double?), how journal and book titles are shown (eg in bold? italic? upper case? etc, and how details of publisher and place of publication are shown (which first? separated by comma or colon?). In terms of the work you do here at the University, these are relatively minor as long as you are consistent (unless you are specifically instructed on the required format by your module tutor).
A Guide to Referencing
on University of Bedfordshire Learning Resources website
Harvard style bibliographies and references (University of Leeds)
The Harvard Style of Referencing Published Material (Leeds Metropolitan University)
Harvard referencing guide (Sheffield University)
Harvard system (Bournemouth University) (NB a .pdf file)
References and bibliographies: A Guide to the Harvard system of referencing (Edge Hill)