Citelle · Library

Leeds Harvard: cite a journal article

A source-specific Leeds Harvard example, the details to collect and the checks needed for a journal article.

Choose the actual source form

Start with the article itself rather than the page that merely links to it. Verify the author list, article title, journal, publication year, volume, issue and the page range or article identifier that the journal actually uses.

Use the named convention

Harvard is a family of author-date conventions. This guide explicitly uses the University of Leeds version and its published source-type guidance. Check that your institution requires this variant before copying the punctuation or element order.

This guide explicitly uses Leeds Harvard.
Journal title is italicized; the source example is print.

Gather the source details

Open the article or its publisher record.
Record authors in the published order.
Distinguish the article title from the journal title.
Check volume, issue, pages or article number and any assigned DOI.

Author: Maya Stone
Title as supplied: A small study
Publication year: 2024
Containing work or site: Journal of Sample Studies
Volume: 12
Journal issue: 2
Published pages: 12-18

An independently written example

This is an invented publication used to demonstrate the reference structure. The text below is a plain-text example; use the typography notes above for the required italics or quotation marks.

Stone, M. 2024. A small study. Journal of Sample Studies. 12(2), pp.12-18.

Review the part that is easy to miss

A journal title is a container, not the article’s author. An article number is not a page span, and a PDF page count is not necessarily the article’s published pagination.

The workbench does not provide a Leeds Harvard template; follow the linked Leeds guidance for this example.

Follow the Leeds guidance directly