How to Write Better Essays

The Harvard system

Under this system the same references would appear as:

Rowe, 1997, p. 37.

Rowe, 1997, pp. 102–3.

Trainor, 1992, p. 145.

Trainor, 1992, pp. 138–9.

Endnotes

This is by far the simplest of the three systems. The numbers inserted

into the text refer to a numbered reference list at the back of the essay.

As with the footnotes system, repeated references to a text can be

abbreviated, but in this case you use three well-known Latin abbrevia-

tions. When you first meet these they can seem arcane and forbidding,

but use them once or twice and you will see how much time and effort

they can save.

Say your first reference was as follows:

1. P. Rowe, The Craft of the Sub-editor(Cambridge, 1997), p. 37.

A number of references later you may want to refer to this text

again. In this case you would use the Latin abbreviation ‘op. cit.’,

meaning ‘in the work cited’, instead of repeating the detailed descrip-

tion of the text, which you’ve already given. Let’s say it was the fifth

reference on your list:

5. Rowe, op. cit., pp. 102–3.

If, in the next reference, you wanted to refer to the same text again,

this time you would use another Latin reference, ‘ibid.’, meaning ‘in

the same place’:

6. Ibid., p. 84.

If, then, in the next reference, you wanted to refer again to the same

page of the same text, after ‘ibid.’ you would use the Latin abbrevia-

tion ‘loc. cit.’, meaning ‘in the passage just quoted’:

7. Ibid., loc. cit.

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