The profound importance of research in the completion of your essays is its ability to substantiate your essay statements to a higher degree. By providing more facts in your essays, you have shown proof that your essay is supported by other authorities. By doing research, you may also encounter other ideas that you have not previously included in your essay that can be very helpful to support your essay statement. To prove that you have indeed researched your topic, you have to do proper referencing as required by your professors. Another advantage you can get from referencing is that it is a foolproof indicator that your essay is not plagiarised. There are a number of formats you can use in referencing. The Harvard referencing format is one of them.

Also known as author-date referencing, the Harvard referencing system includes an in-text citation and bibliography at the end of the essay. In the in-text citation, the author’s name and year of publication is included after every researched sentence, enclosed in brackets. The bibliographic entry is arranged alphabetically, which contains the name of the published or unpublished material and the publisher, among others. When using the Harvard referencing format, the information you include in the reference is based on what you initially included in your cited passage. If you did not mention the author’s name in your passage, you must include the author’s name and year of publication at the ends as your reference.  If you directly quote the author’s name in your pages, however, the reference you will include after the passage will only be the date of publication.

In making bibliographic entries using the Harvard referencing system, the following information must be included:

• Name(s) of author(s)
• Year of publication
• Title of published material
• Title of article/journal entry
• Location of publication
• Publishing company

In making references from electronic sources, the reference must include the following:

• Title of published material
• Author of material
• Date of publication
• URL of the Web page
• Specific date the information is accessed.

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