Harvard referencing for marketing assignments: common mistakes and fixes

What Harvard Referencing is?

Harvard referencing is basically two parts:

1. In-text citations inside your paragraphs (author + year, and sometimes page/paragraph).

2. A reference list at the end with full details, sorted alphabetically by author.

Your reference list should only include sources you actually used in the writing. A bibliography is wider (includes background reading), but many modules only want the reference list.

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Mistake 1: Your in-text citations don’t match your reference list

What it looks like

You cite (Kotler, 2019) in the text, but your reference list has Kotler and Keller (2016), or nothing at all.

Why it matters

Markers often check quickly: “Is it in the list?” If it isn’t, it looks careless and can raise questions about your sources.

Quick fix

Do a fast sweep at the end:

• Highlight every in-text citation author name (or copy them into a note).

• Check each one exists once in the reference list.

• Remove anything in the list that never appears in the text.

Tip for marketing reports: this happens a lot when you swap a source late on (e.g., replacing an old “digital trends” blog with a newer industry report).

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Mistake 2: Missing page numbers when you’ve clearly used a specific point

What it looks like

You write:

Customer loyalty falls when promotions are too frequent (Jones, 2022).

…but the idea came from a specific argument on one page.

What Harvard expects

If you quote, paraphrase, or use an idea from a specific page range, add page numbers using p. or pp.

Fix (example)

• Better in-text: (Jones, 2022, p. 41)

• Multiple pages: (Jones, 2022, pp. 41–42)

What about websites?

If the source has no page numbers (common for marketing sources), use a paragraph number if it’s available.

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Mistake 3: Quoting without quotation marks (or quoting too much)

What it looks like

You paste a line from a report into your paragraph, no quotation marks, then drop a citation.

Why it’s risky

Even if you cite it, it still looks like you’re trying to pass off wording that isn’t yours.

Fix

• If it’s a direct quote: use “quotation marks” + page number.

• If it’s not essential to keep the exact wording: paraphrase properly and still cite.

Marketing-specific note: quotes are rarely needed in marketing assignments. You usually get more credit for explaining the meaning in your own words and linking it back to the case/company.

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Mistake 4: Treating a company like it’s not an author

In marketing, you constantly use corporate sources: brand websites, annual reports, press releases, and campaign pages.

What it looks like

You write something vague like:

According to the website…

Fix: use a corporate author

If a source is created by an organisation, use that organisation as the author in both in-text citations and the reference list.

In-text examples (made-up):

• (Tesco, 2024)

• (Department for Business and Trade, 2025)

If the corporate name is long

You can introduce the full name once, then use an acronym afterwards, as long as it’s clear what it stands for.

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Mistake 5: Using “no date” wrongly (or guessing dates)

What it looks like

You see no publication date on a web page and write (Brand, 2025) anyway.

Fix

If no publication date is given, use “no date” in the citation and the reference list.

Example: (Harvey and Williams, no date)

Marketing-specific tip: for brand pages, there’s often a “last updated” date at the bottom, or in the page footer. If you can find it, use it. If not, “no date” is safer than guessing.

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Mistake 6: Messy website references (missing access date, broken titles, random capital letters)

Web references are where marketing students lose easy marks.

Common problems

• No “Available at:” line

• Missing Accessed: date

• Title is just “Home” or copied in ALL CAPS

• You reference the site homepage when you used a specific page

Fix (clean web template)

Use a consistent template and keep it neat:

This matches the general structure shown in the official guide (author/date first, and web items include an accessed date).

Marketing examples you can adapt (fictional):

• BrightJuice (2024) “Summer campaign launch”. Available at: https://… (Accessed: 3 February 2026).

• GreenRide (no date) “Pricing and plans”. Available at: https://… (Accessed: 3 February 2026).

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Mistake 7: Incorrect use of “et al.” (and mixing name formats)

What it looks like

You write: (Wong, et al, 2020) or (Wong et al 2020) with inconsistent punctuation.

Fix

Follow the standard pattern for 3+ authors: Wong et al. (2015) or (Wong et al., 2015) as shown in the guide.

Also, be consistent across your whole paper:

• Either “and” or “&” depending on your uni’s version

• Same punctuation every time

• Same ordering rules every time

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Mistake 8: Secondary referencing when you didn’t read the original

This is common when you find a great quote in a textbook that refers to another author.

The problem

You cite the original author as if you read them, but you didn’t.

Fix (the proper “cited in” method)

If you haven’t read the original, cite it as quoted in / cited in, and only put the source you actually read in your reference list.

Example format:

• West et al. (2007, quoted in Birch, 2017, p. 17) …

Use this sparingly. In marketing assignments, it’s usually better to track down the original source if it’s important.

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Mistake 9: Same author, same year, you forget the letters (a, b, c)

What it looks like

You use two articles by the same author from 2023, and both appear as (Khan, 2023). That’s confusing.

Fix

Add a letter to the year in both the in-text citation and the reference list to separate them.

Example idea:

• (Khan, 2023a) and (Khan, 2023b)

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Mistake 10: Referencing images, charts, and campaign screenshots badly

Marketing assignments love visuals: funnels, perceptual maps, competitor tables, Instagram screenshots, ad creatives.

The common mistake

You drop an image into your report and don’t reference it, or you reference the whole website instead of the specific post/page.

Fix

• Label the figure (Figure 1, Figure 2…)

• Add a short source note in the caption (author/organisation + year)

• Add the full source in your reference list

If you made the figure yourself from data: cite the data source in the caption and explain briefly in the text: “Author’s own figure based on …”

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Mistake 11: Confusing a reference list with a dumping ground

Some students paste every link they opened at 2am into the reference list.

Fix

A reference list should include only what you actually referred to in your writing.
If you didn’t cite it in-text, it shouldn’t be there (unless your module explicitly asks for a bibliography).

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Mistake 12: Over-relying on citation generators (and not checking)

Generators can be helpful, but marketing sources confuse them:

• corporate authors

• reports with no named person

• web pages with unclear dates

• social media posts

Fix

Use a generator as a starting point, then manually check:

• Is the author correct? (company vs person)

• Is the year correct (or “no date”)?

• Is the title sensible (not “Untitled page”)?

• Is the access date there?

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Quick “marketing source” templates you can copy

These are simple templates (you fill in the blanks). Your uni’s exact punctuation may differ, but the key details are consistent with the Harvard approach: author/date, title, and enough info to find the source again.

Journal article

Book

Report (common in marketing)

Web page (brand / campaign page)

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A quick final checklist before you submit

Run through this once. It catches most easy mistakes:

• Every in-text citation appears in the reference list (and nothing extra is hanging around).

• Page numbers are included where you used a specific page or a direct quote.

• Corporate authors are used properly for company/government/organisation sources.

• “No date” is used when a date genuinely isn’t available.

• Same author + same year sources are labelled a/b in both places.

• Web references include an accessed date and point to the exact page you used.

• Your formatting is consistent (capital letters, italics, punctuation, spacing).

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Hire An Expert to Have Your Reference List Checked

A clean reference list is one of the easiest ways to lift your grade, especially in marketing reports where you use a mix of journals, reports, and online sources. If you’d like help checking formatting, fixing missing details, and making sure everything matches, see our marketing assignment help page.