• 3-minute read
• 20th May 2019

How to Cite an Edited Book in Harvard Referencing

It’s said that nothing in life is certain beyond death and taxes. But if you’re a student or academic, we can add referencing to that list, as there’s no way you can write a decent essay without citing sources. That’s why we’ve prepared this guide to citing an edited book using Harvard referencing.

In-Text Citations for an Edited Book

Harvard referencing is a type of parenthetical referencing. This means you cite sources by giving the author’s surname and a date of publication in brackets. And if you’re quoting a source directly, this should include citing the relevant page number(s). For instance:

Cookery is“more of a craft than an artform” (Telfer, 2008, p. 17).

If you have named the author in the text, don’t repeat it in the citation. Instead, cite the year and any page numbers immediately afterwards:

Telfer (2008, p. 17) asks us to consider whether “cookery is really a craft.”

Remember that it’s usually the chapter or essay author you should cite. Only cite the name(s) of the editor(s) if you’re referencing the book as a whole.

Listing an Edited Book in a Reference List

Every source you cite should also appear in a reference list at the end of your document, with full publication information specified. For a chapter from an edited book, the format to use is:

Chapter Author Surname and Initial(s). (Year of Publication). “Title of Chapter,” in Editor Surname and Initial(s), (ed[s]) Title of Book, Place of Publication: Publisher, page range.

We would thus list the essay from the examples above as follows:

Telfer, E. (2008) “Food as Art,” in Neill, A. and Ridley, A. (eds.) Arguing about Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates, 3rd ed, New York, Routledge, pp. 11–29.

Finally, if citing an edited volume as a whole, the editor or editors are treated as the authors. The format for this in the reference list is:

Editor name(s), Initial(s) (ed[s]) (Year). Title, Place of Publication, Publisher.

For example, we would list the Neill and Ridley text from above as follows:

Neill, A. and Ridley, A. (eds) (2008) Arguing about Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates, 3rd ed, New York, Routledge.

A Cautionary Note

Although people (including us) frequently refer to “Harvard referencing,” there’s actually no systematic form of citation that goes by this name. As such, you should always check your style guide to make sure you’re using the correct version of Harvard referencing.