Parenthetical Referencing

Parenthetical referencing, also known as Harvard referencing, is a citation style in which partial citations— for example (Smith 2010, p. 1)—are enclosed within parentheses (round brackets) and embedded in the text, either within or after a sentence, as opposed to the footnote style. They are accompanied by a list of the full citations in alphabetical order in an end section, which is usually called "references," "reference list," "works cited" or "end-text citations."

There are two styles of parenthetical referencing:

• Author-date: primarily used in the sciences and social sciences, and recommended by the American Chemical Society and the American Psychological Association (APA);
• Author-title or author-page: primarily used in the arts and the humanities, and recommended by the Modern Language Association (MLA).