The short answer
Birmingham City University uses BCU Harvard. Author-date. The author surname and year go in the text, and the reference list is alphabetical by surname. The most common style in UK and Australian business, health and social science. Submissions go through Moodle. Departments publish their own variants of the university style, so where your module handbook differs from the formats below, the handbook is what your marker checks against.
In-text citations in Harvard
| Situation | What you write |
|---|---|
| One author | (Bell, 2021) |
| Two authors | (Bell and Okafor, 2021) |
| Three or more | (Bell et al., 2021) |
| Direct quote, page needed | (Bell, 2021, p. 44) |
| Author named in the sentence | Bell (2021) argues that… |
| Secondary source | (Marks, 2009, cited in Bell, 2021, p. 12) |
Reference list entries
Book
Surname, Initial. (Year) Title in italics. Edition. Place: Publisher.
Bell, J. (2021) Doing your research project. 8th edn. London: Open University Press.
Journal article
Surname, Initial. (Year) Article title. Journal Name, Volume(Issue), pp. pages.
Okafor, A. (2020) Reflective practice in nursing. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 29(4), pp. 612-620.
Website
Organisation (Year) Page title. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).
NHS England (2024) Clinical governance framework. Available at: https://www.england.nhs.uk (Accessed: 2 March 2024).
Chapter in an edited book
Surname, Initial. (Year) Chapter title, in Editor (ed.) Book title. Place: Publisher, pp. pages.
Shah, R. (2019) Ethics in practice, in Bell, J. (ed.) Research methods. London: Sage, pp. 88-104.
What loses marks in Harvard
Using et al. from the second author onwards
Harvard uses et al. only from three authors up. Two authors are always both named, every time.
Missing page numbers on direct quotes
Any quoted text needs a page number. Paraphrase does not, though some departments ask for it anyway.
Citing the secondary source as if you read the original
If you read Bell quoting Marks, you cite it as cited in. Claiming the original when you only read the summary is a common integrity flag.
Where we come in
If you would rather hand the referencing to someone who does it daily, that is what we do. Work for BCU students is written in BCU Harvard and matched to your module handbook, and nothing is charged until the finished work is with you.