Hello and welcome to this short video prepared by the Learning Experience Team. In this video
we’ll show you how to write an in-text citation for a paraphrase using Harvard referencing
style. So paraphrasing means expressing someone else’s
ideas in your own words. When we paraphrase something, we express the original meaning
of the idea that we’re using, but we use different words.
Now, when we paraphrase, it’s very important to acknowledge where we got the idea from
by including a citation. This is why in-text citations are important: they allow your readers
to link your main points to where the information was sourced.
So, let’s have a look at how this is done using Harvard referencing style.
There are basically two ways to reference a paraphrase in the body of your assignment
– an author-focused format or an information-focused format.
Author-focused citations have the author’s name outside the brackets. These citations
are integrated into the sentence, and are either at the beginning or in the middle of
sentences.
We use this format when we want to draw attention to the author.
So, here we have an example of some original text written by Smith, who is our author.
And Smith states that “students often find referencing in the body of their work difficult
to understand and do correctly.”
So those are the author’s words. We will use that idea by paraphrasing it into our
own words and then referencing the author. Here are some examples of how this might look
using an author focused style:
The sentence in the first example is “Smith argued that in-text citations can be confusing.”
So here we have the author first, then the year in brackets, then the reporting clause
“argued that”, and then the paraphrase of the original idea.
In the next example, we can see that the author has been integrated further into the middle
of the sentence: “According to Smith, in text citations can be confusing.”
In this sentence, we have the reporting verb (“According to”) first, then the author,
“Smith”, then the year in brackets, followed by a comma, and then the paraphrased idea.
And finally in this last example, we can see that the author has moved toward the end of
sentence: “In-text citations can be confusing, as Smith (2020) pointed out in a recent study.”
Here we have the paraphrase first, followed by a comma, and then the author, and the year,
followed by the reporting clause. Now, let’s take a look at information focused
citations. In this format, the authors name is contained inside the brackets. This type
of citation most frequently appears in the middle or at the end of the sentence. And
unlike author focused referencing, we use this kind of referencing to draw attention
to the actual information.
So, let’s look at some examples. So, here again is the original text by our
author Smith. You can see that In the first example, the citation appears right at the
end of the sentence: So we have our paraphrase first, “It has been argued that in-text
citations can be confusing” and then at the end, we have the author and year contained
in round brackets followed by a full stop. It’s important to note that there is no
comma between the author and the year, just a space.
This is an important feature of Harvard style referencing.
In the second example, the citation is in embedded in the middle of the sentence. So,
the paraphrase comes first, “In-text citations can be a little confusing”, followed by
the citation (Smith 2020). Notice again that there is only a space between the author name
and the date, there’s no comma. This is then followed by an additional idea, “which
poses a challenge for many students”.
So when thinking about which way to reference in your paper, author focused or information
focused are both suitable styles to use, one is not better than the other. In fact, it’s
a good idea to mix it up a little and use both styles in your paper.
Now let’s have a look at how to cite multiple authors in-text.
When a work has 2 or 3 authors, we cite all the names in the order in which they appear
in the reference.
So, the first example shows how to reference a paraphrase with two authors using an author-focused
style. Remember, an author focused style integrates the authors into the sentence. So this sentence
starts with the author names, ‘Smith and Jones’, and the year in round brackets.
Notice that the word ‘and’ is used between the author names instead of the symbol. Then
the reporting verb, and then the paraphrase.
The second example shows how to cite in-text using an author-focused style when the work
has 3 authors. Here we can see the first author’s name, followed by a comma, the second author’s
name, then the word “and” and the last author’s name, and then the year in round
brackets.
The third example shows how to cite in-text using an information-focused style, where
you place the citation in brackets after the paraphrase. So notice that we have the paraphrase
first and then, at the end of the sentence, we have the first author’s name, followed
by a comma, the second author’s last name followed by an ampersand, then the last author’s
name, and the year. Note that the full stop comes after the citation.
Notice again that there is no comma between the last author’s name and the year.
If a work has 4 or more authors, we cite only the last name of the first author followed
by ‘et al.’ ('et al.' is the Latin term for 'and others’).
So, our first example shows how more than three authors are cited when using an author-focused
style (integrated into the text). You can see that the abbreviated word “al” is
punctuated with a full stop, and there is only a space between the full stop and the
date, there is no comma.
Now, the second example shows how more than 3 authors are cited using an information-focused
style. Again, the word “al” is punctuated with a full stop, and then there is a space
before the date. So in a nutshell, when we paraphrase, we use
our own words to explain someone else’s idea, and then we reference the idea to avoid
plagiarism.
Remember, you can use information-focused or author-focused formats in your writing.
Using both styles is a good idea because it will add variety to your referencing.
We hope this video has been helpful, and best of luck with all of your referencing!