Harvard Outline: Basic Harvard Outline Format

Harvard Outline: Basic Harvard Outline Format

Harvard is a type of referencing also known as date and author referencing. It is an academic writing format used by students to indicate that they have taken specific ideas, facts, theories, quotes and other materials from external sources. The following is the Harvard outline:

1. Cover page

The cover page includes:

• The title. The title of the paper should be placed about halfway down the page in all capital letters.
• Author’s name. The name of the author should follow the title about three lines down. It should not be in capital letters.
• Name of the class and professor. Write these four lines down after the author’s name.
• Name of the school and state where it is located.
• Date.

2. Header

The header contains a short description of the title and a sequential page number. The title should be right justified.

3. Title

Your essay’s title should be centered and capitalized.

4. Introduction

The first paragraph of the essay should introduce the reader to your topic. It includes:

• A hook. This could be an interesting fact, a statistic, a lively quotation, or an anecdote that explains your topic.
• Thesis statement. Your thesis statement can sometimes be underlined depending on your professor’s preference.
• If your essay is long, use centered headings to break up the body of the essay. Use italicized headings for subsections

5. Body.

The body should include:

• Topic sentence. The topic sentence tells the reader what the paragraph will discuss. It should relate to the thesis and provide support for the claim made in the thesis statement.
• Supporting details. They are used to back up the topic sentence and provide more information about it. Each detail should relate back to the topic sentence.
• Concluding sentence. The paragraph should end with a sentence that sums up the paragraph and leads into the next body paragraph.

You should adhere to the following when writing your body paragraphs:

• New subheadings may be used to introduce new subtopics
• Use transition words to show how your next paragraph connects to the one before it.
• Each paragraph should have its own topic sentence and follow the same format as the first body paragraph, with supporting details and a closing sentence.
• Each body paragraph should repeat the topic sentence, supporting details, and closing sentence format.
• Use a new heading when you change major topics within your paragraphs.
• Cite your sources using in-text citations. In harvard style, these citations use the author’s name and first initial, the year of publication, and the page number on which the information appears.
• You should provide a citation for each fact, summary, paraphrase, or quotation you use from an outside source.
• Harvard style requires students to use a standard font, mostly times new roman, arial or courier new at size 12.
• The whole paper should be double-spaced with smooth left margins and jagged right margins.
• In harvard style, the titles of books, movies, long plays, tv shows, journals, newspapers, magazines, and websites should be italicized, while short stories, poems, and short plays are placed in quotation marks.

6. Conclusion

The first sentence of the conclusion should restate the thesis statement, reminding the reader in different words what the essay proved. You should also give a brief discussion of your topic, reminding the reader what the most important parts of the essay were.

7. References

The reference list comes after the conclusion and it lists on a separate page, all the sources used in the in-text citations, and only the sources used in-text.