A Harvard Referencing Generator for the Leeds Variant

Harvard Referencing Is a Family, Not One Style

The University of Leeds names its own version Leeds Harvard, and Imperial College London says plainly that different versions of Harvard referencing exist, advising readers to check a lecturer or course handbook whenever a detail looks uncertain. The University of York’s guide takes the strongest position on origin, saying the style “originated at Harvard University” and with no set manual. Harvard Library — Harvard University’s own library, read 15 October 2026 — disagrees: “There is no official guide to the format”. AUT University goes further, saying the “Harvard System” “has no official institutional connection with Harvard University”, and traces the name instead to Harvard faculty among the style’s early users — a habit of naming, not a licence any institution granted. Even inside one university the guide can split: The Open University follows Cite Them Right for most students but runs a separate guide for Law undergraduates in modules W1xx, W2xx and W3xx.

Sellers of Harvard generators already use similar language without showing the punctuation it implies. MyBib, which sells a Harvard reference generator, says there isn’t “one true way” to do it, because “many universities have their own slightly different guidelines”. CiteMe, which sells a Harvard reference generator, read 15 October 2026, calls Harvard a family of author-date styles with university-specific variants, naming Cardiff, Leeds and Bath as examples with minor formatting differences. Neither shows two universities’ formats side by side, which is what follows.

Book, Article and Web Page, Compared Across Four Universities

Start with the book. Leeds Harvard’s own example is “Finch, E. and Fafinski, S. 2015. Legal skills.… Oxford: Oxford University Press.” — a colon joins place and publisher, year unbracketed. Imperial’s own example, “Simons, N. E., Menzies, B. & Matthews, M. (2001)… London, Thomas Telford Publishing.”, brackets the year and uses a comma instead — the one mark separating two otherwise similar shapes.

Sheffield, which names Cite Them Right (2016) 10th edition, brackets the year and keeps the colon: “Bryman, A. (2016)… Oxford: Oxford University Press.” York’s own example agrees on the bracket and the colon, but spells out “edition” where Sheffield abbreviates to “edn.”

A journal article pulls the four further apart, mostly over the DOI. Leeds Harvard’s own example writes “Available from:” before it: “… Journal of International Business Studies. [Online]. 39(4), pp.652-669. [Accessed 3 April 2024]. Available from:” a doi.org link. Imperial’s own example has no DOI field at all and ends on the page range alone: “… Journal of Law & Economics. 42 (1), 209-238.”

The web page repeats the pattern. Leeds Harvard’s own example closes “… [Accessed 25 August 2017]. Available from: http://www.hawking.org.uk/”. Imperial’s own example, “… http://envisat.esa.int/ [Accessed 15th June 2015]”, has no “Available at” or “Available from” phrase at all — the URL simply follows the title. Sheffield’s own example puts “(Accessed: 26 April 2021)” in brackets after the URL, where Leeds puts its accessed date before the URL instead. York’s own example adds a line none of the other three have: “Last updated: 18 April 2012. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17748586 [Accessed 10 March 2017].” Four universities agree a web page needs an author, a year and a title; they disagree on nearly every mark of punctuation after that.

A Leeds Harvard Reference Generator, Built From the Published Examples

The generator below produces only the Leeds Harvard shape, because Leeds Harvard’s own guide states its exceptions — et al., a corporate author, no ibid — on the very pages read for this guide.

Formatting a DOI in a Harvard Reference

This is the How DOI format a reference citation in Harvard style? question, and the four universities read for this page do not agree. Leeds Harvard writes “Available from:” immediately before the DOI, as shown above. Sheffield takes the opposite approach: its own journal example carries no DOI phrase at all, and it says why — a DOI “you don’t need to include ‘Available at’ or ‘(Accessed: date)’ in the reference”, because a DOI is stable while a URL can change. York disagrees with Sheffield directly, writing “Available at: doi:” before the same kind of identifier Sheffield says needs no such phrase. Leeds says “Available from”, York says “Available at”, Sheffield says neither is needed. The generator below follows Leeds Harvard’s own convention, because that is the variant it builds.

Which Edition of Cite Them Right Each Generator Uses

Cite Them Right, published by Bloomsbury, is the book two of the universities above declare outright — Sheffield and the Open University; Leeds, Imperial, York and AUT do not mention it in the pages read here. Sheffield names its own edition: “Cite Them Right (2016) 10th rev. and expanded edn.”. Cite This For Me, which sells a Premium citation tool, “currently uses the Cite Them Right 10th Edition” too.

Three more vendors each name a different edition, read 15 October 2026. Scribbr follows the “12th edition… by Richard Pears and Graham Shields”; BibGuru’s own page says it is based on the 11th edition; and CiteMe declares the newest, naming the 13th edition (2025) and its headline change — dropping the place of publication before the publisher. Four generators declare four editions — 10th (Cite This For Me), 11th (BibGuru), 12th (Scribbr) and 13th (CiteMe) — while the University of Sheffield, not a commercial generator, also uses the 10th. MyBib, Citation Machine and PapersOwl name none at all.

The book itself keeps moving: Bloomsbury’s US store lists the printed Cite Them Right as the 13th edition, published 10 July 2025, priced at $21.95 and discounted to $15.36 there. Its online platform sells only “to universities, colleges, schools and public libraries… via an institutional subscription”, no individual price published. A reference built to one edition can look, by a different generator’s own rule, like it used the wrong one.

The Claim That Harvard University Created This Style

Bibcitation, which sells a Harvard citation generator, describes the Harvard Referencing Style on its own page as one created by Harvard University, read 15 October 2026. Two more directly relevant sources contradict it. AUT University says the “Harvard System” “has no official institutional connection with Harvard University”. And Harvard Library — Harvard University’s own library, read 15 October 2026 — says “There is no official guide to the format” at all. The two agree with each other and disagree with Bibcitation.