Harvard system of referencing

The name Harvard is often given to a system of academic referencing. Another name for this is the author-date system. The name author-date is preferable for two reasons.

First, author-date identifies the main element of the system concisely. It consists of naming a source by using only two words, in a way that allows the reader to find it more precisely. (One of the advantages of the system is that it also allows the reader to ignore the detail of the source and continue to read the text with the minimum of distraction.)

Second, the University of Harvard does not normally use the system. A Head of Department there said "It looks to me like what we call the Social Science system."

The name may owe something to academic snobbery: Harvard is one of the most prestigious universities in the world, and by using its name, scholars and students may be seeking to bask in its reflected glory. More to the point, the system seems to have been developed from something in Harvard University. It was originally the cataloguing system used in a library in the Department of Zoology.