How would you cite a song in Harvard style?

Here's the scenario:

You have found a song - an honest-to-goodness recording of a musical number - on iTunes or some other music platform, and you want to use that song in a presentation.  How do you cite it using Harvard*?

You should be able to find the details for the album the recording originally came from by looking at song in iTunes.  You might then need to look the album up somewhere else to get all of the details you need (Wikipedia is usually a good resource for things like this). 

For Harvard you would need:

• the name of the recording artist(s), 
• the year the album was produced, 
• the title of the song
• the title of the album, 
• the type of recording/format (CD, iTunes, etc), and 
• the publisher (in this case, the record label).  

Some times you have a song that was originally released on one album, but then included in a "best of" type album or a later compilation.  There's actually more than one "mix" of some songs, so the album is important - this is why you use the date the album was release, rather than the date the song was originally released.

So, take the Rolling Stone's song, "(I Can't Get No)Satisfaction". The copy of this song I found on iTunes wasn't the original release, it was a stereo remix on a later composition album.

This song would end up looking like this:

Rolling Stones 1971, '(I can't get no) satisfaction', Hot rocks 1964-1971, iTunes, ABKCO Records.

If the song was originally released on iTunes, and does not come from an album, then you would treat the song itself as if it were an album:

de Forest, E 2014, Rainmaker (Sidelmann remix), iTunes, Universal Music.

It's the same for Spotify, only you'd replace "iTunes" with "Spotify" in your reference.

*Remember, Harvard isn't a standardised style, and different institutions might be using different versions of Harvard.  This advice is based on the Harvard style used at JCU, which has been adapted from the Australian Government's Style manual for authors, editors and printers, 6th edition. You may have to adapt this format to match the style preferred by your lecturer.

How would you cite the Hansard in AMA?

This is how I would cite it based on the Australian Government's Style Manual (which is a Harvard style) and the AMA's guidelines for a "government or agency bulletin". For the PDF, you would need to add the URL and the dates you accessed it:

1. Senate of Australia. Parliamentary Debates: Senate Official Hansard. Canberra, Australia: Commonwealth of Australia; 2016. No. 5, 2016. http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/chamber/hansards/1ea904ea-ae93-4f0c-bb20-3d8c33e83f81/toc_pdf/Senate_2016_03_17_4198_Official.pdf. Accessed April 13, 2016.

Watch the URL for this - you don't want to include the fileType= stuff at the end that you get from copying and pasting from the website.

This is working on the assumption that you were trying to cite the PDF of the whole Hansard, which is the simplest and easiest thing to do.  You can access pieces of the Hansard online, but quite frankly the Parliament hasn't provided good details on their website to use for a citation.  Since you can cite the PDF, you may as well.

Keep in mind that I'm writing this in April, 2016.  By the time you feel the need to use it, some things may have changed.

In text citations using "et al." when the first author is the same

The question:

"I'm using Harvard, and I have two sources with the same first author and the same year but different contributing authors.  In text, both would be (Cass, 2004).  Can I make one 2004a and the other 2004b? Or can I not do this because they have different contributing authors? If not, how do I differentiate between these two sources when in text referencing?"

The answer:

With in-text citations, you keep adding authors until the citations are clearly unique.  So, if you have the same first author, but different second authors, you would have (Cass, Cunningham et al., 2004) and (Cass, Devitt et al., 2004).

If the first two authors were the same, you’d add the third author to your in-text referencing – and so on.


The only time you use the 2004a/2004b option is if all of your authors are identical – the exact same authors in the exact same pattern.

Referencing information from databases in AMA

The Question:

How do you reference information from a database like MIMS or AusDI?

The Answer:

With databases like these, you have the option of referencing a particular entry in the database or referencing the database as a whole.

If you referenced your entry, it would follow the same pattern as AusDI in the examples on the guide, and it would look like this:

1. Pevaryl for athlete’s foot [product information]. In: MIMS Online. St Leonards, Australia: MIMS Australia.  https://www-mimsonline-com-au.elibrary.jcu.edu.au. Updated August 11, 2011. Accessed May 1, 2014.

Some notes:

• When citing an entry, like this, the pattern bares more in common with a book chapter than a web site, but it still needs the dates that you would use for a web site.
• If there was a clear date of publication given for the database (not just a copyright year), you would include the year (or year range) after the publisher, just like you would in a book:
  e.g. St Leonards, Australia: MIMS Australia; 2006-2014.
• You need to ask your lectures if they wants you to include the full link back to the record.  Generally speaking, you don’t use a URL that includes a search-string if you can avoid it (they tend to be long, ugly and unstable), which is why I abbreviated the URL to just the address for this database.
• And you can skip the [product information] part if you want - especially if you took information from several subpages concerning the same entry.

If you referenced the database as a whole, it would look like this:

1. MIMS Online. St Leonards, Australia: MIMS Australia; 2014.  https://www-mimsonline-com-au.elibrary.jcu.edu.au. Accessed May 1, 2014.

Some notes:

• The standard reference pattern for a complete database looks a bit like a cross between a book pattern and a web site.  Just like a web site, the title of the database is not italicised in this case.  Just like a book, there is a place of publication and a publisher
• If you can't find a place of publication and publisher, click on the "about" page for the database and find the company responsible and their head offices.  Use the city for their offices as your place of publication, and the company as your publisher.
• Since there is less likely to be a clear "last updated" date for the database as a whole, rather than an individual entry, the copyright date is probably going to be your "year of publication".  Put it exactly where you would put the year for a book.

But you’re probably better off citing the entry, as it’s more precise and helps the person who may be trying to find your information.

APA in blogs

If you need to us APA citations in blogs, you may find that you can't make the hanging indent work.

Your lecturer may be okay with this if you talk to them (especially if you aren't very technologically minded), but if you know a little about html code and want to make your reference lists look more professional, use the following code:

REFERENCES
<div style="padding-left: 4em; text-indent: -4em;">

<p>...first reference...</p>
<p>...second reference...</p>
<p>...etc...</p>
</div>

(with thanks to Moonflowerdragon, for making it nice and simple).

This will make your references look like this:

Moonflowerdragon. (2010). HTML code for hanging indents for APA style reference list. Retrieved from http://moonflowerdragon.blogspot.com.au/2010/06/html-code-for-hanging-indents-for-apa.html

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Book chapters - APA: multiple editors

The Question:

How do you format book chapters if there are more than three editors?

The Answer:

If there are up to five editors, you list all of the editors (with an & between the last two):

T. Frogmouth, S. Goose, B. Swallow & B. Heron (Eds.)

If there are six or more editors, list the first editor followed by et al.:

T. Frogmouth et al. (Eds.)

The Example:

(Less than six):

Stone-Curlew, B. (2013). Stillness as a form of defence. In T. Frogmouth, S. Goose, B. Swallow & B. Heron (Eds.), Camouflage:  The essential life skill (pp. 84-102). Birdsville, Australia: Crazy Chook Press.

(Six or more):

Stone-Curlew, B. (2013). Stillness as a form of defence. In T. Frogmouth et al. (Eds.), Camouflage:  The essential life skill (pp. 84-102). Birdsville, Australia: Crazy Chook Press.