ISBN to Harvard Citation Converter
Paste an ISBN-10 or ISBN-13 and get a full Harvard style book citation with edition and publisher. Free ISBN to Harvard converter, no sign-up.
Paste an ISBN to get a Harvard citation
What is an ISBN?
An ISBN (International Standard Book Number) identifies one specific edition and format of a published book. ISBN-13 is the current standard – 13 digits beginning with 978 or 979 – while older books also carry a 10-digit ISBN-10. Both work here, with or without hyphens. You will find the number above the barcode on the back cover or on the copyright page behind the title page. When you paste an ISBN into CiteTools, we look the book up in Open Library and Google Books and pull the fields a book citation needs: authors or editors, full title and subtitle, publisher, publication year, and edition. That is the tedious part of citing a book done for you; the formatter then applies the punctuation, capitalization, and author-name rules of the style you select.
How the ISBN to Harvard conversion works
- Find the ISBN above the barcode or on the copyright page and paste it in – hyphens optional.
- CiteTools looks the book up in Open Library and Google Books.
- Copy the finished book citation with publisher, year, and edition included.
Example input:
9780262033848
About Harvard Referencing
Harvard referencing - widely used in UK universities and business.
Harvard referencing, in the widely taught Cite Them Right form, is the default at most UK and Australian universities. It is an author-date system: the year follows the author in parentheses, article titles sit in quotation marks, and journal titles are italicized. CiteTools renders the reference-list entry with the punctuation and DOI treatment Cite Them Right specifies.
Frequently asked questions
ISBN-10 or ISBN-13 – which should I paste?
Either works, with or without hyphens. If the book prints both, prefer the ISBN-13; it is the current standard and matches more database records.
Does the Harvard citation include the edition?
When the book record carries an edition statement, it appears in the Harvard output where the style requires it. First editions are left unmarked, which is what every major style expects.
The lookup found nothing – what now?
Some regional or self-published ISBNs are missing from Open Library and Google Books. Paste the book’s title and author as plain text instead; CiteTools parses free-form references too.