• 2-minute read
• 27th November 2020

How to Cite a Podcast in Harvard Referencing

Podcasts are becoming a common source in academic writing. But since they’re not print sources, it might not be obvious how you cite them. To help out, we’ve prepared this post about citing a podcast in Harvard referencing.

Citing a Podcast in Harvard Referencing

Harvard referencing is a generic term for parenthetical author–date referencing. This means you give the author’s surname and date of publication in brackets in the text to cite it. For a podcast, this means giving the name of the main creator or presenter and the year of release:

For some, ISIS turned fantasy into reality (Callimachi, 2018).

Here, for example, we’re citing the Caliphate podcast by Rukmini Callimachi.

If you are quoting or citing a specific part of an episode, though, you may want to include a timestamp in the citation. For instance:

Neil Gaiman says writers need to work hard (Tennant, 2020, 00:36:39).

In the citation above, for instance, we’re referring to something from 36 minutes and 39 seconds into an episode of a podcast. And by giving this detail, we help readers to find the exact section we’ve cited.

Adding a Podcast to a Harvard Reference List

If you cite a podcast in the main text of your work, you’ll need to include it in your reference list. And the format for a podcast here is:

Surname, Initial(s). (Year of release) “Title of Podcast Episode,” Title of Podcast, Host Site [Podcast]. Date of release. Available at URL (Accessed date).

You can see examples of how this would look below:

Callimachi, R. (2018) “Chapter Three: The Arrival,” The Caliphate, The New York Times [Podcast]. May 3. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/podcasts/caliphate-isis-rukmini-callimachi.html (Accessed October 20, 2020).

Tennant, D. (2020) “Neil Gaiman,” David Tennant Does a Podcast with…,  Apple Podcasts [Podcast]. October 13. Available at https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/david-tennant-does-a-podcast-with/id1450005207?mt=2 (Accessed October 19, 2020).

Harvard Variations and Proofreading

Harvard referencing is a style rather than a unified system. And this means there are many versions! We’ve used the Open University’s version as a basis for this post, but remember to check your own institution’s style guide.

And if you need any help making sure your references are clear and consistent, our academic proofreaders can help. Why not submit a 500-word trial document today and find out what we do for free?