How do I use the Harvard citation style?

Question

I am writing a 6000 word essay on the economic implications of cryptography and was wondering how to use Harvard referencing on latex as support seems somewhat limited. If the support of Harvard referencing is poor, which referencing system would you advise for the field of computer science? Any further questions, please leave a comment.

Answer 1

The Harvard style is basically an author-year style; there are various versions of the general style. You have two routes that you can use:

natbib

The standard way to do bibliographies with author-year citations is to use the natbib package and any one of the many bibliography styles available for it. A basic Harvard style is the agsm style. Other similar styles are apalike and lsalike. So you would use in you document:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{natbib}
\bibliographystyle{agsm}
\begin{document}
...
\bibliography{<your-bib-file>}
\end{document}

Check the natbib documentation for the relevant citation commands.

biblatex

You can also use the biblatex package which offers extensive author-year type referencing. An alternative to the basic author-year style is the apa style.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[style=authoryear]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{<your-bib-file.bib>} % note the .bib is required
\begin{document}
...
\printbibliography
\end{document}

Check the biblatex documentation for relevant citation commands.

For more information on these two alternatives see:

• bibtex vs. biber and biblatex vs. natbib