Once you’ve watched all of the unboxing videos YouTube has to offer (assuming you have a spare century), you might want to check out the lectures and educational content available. In fact, you might even want to cite them in your work.
But since YouTube videos aren’t conventional academic sources, the rules for citing them are a little different. In this post, we look at how to cite an online video with Harvard referencing.
In-Text Citations
Since a YouTube video does not have an author in the conventional sense, you can instead cite the title and the year it was uploaded:
Ian Ayre describes Rawls’ veil of ignorance as important in philosophy and law (Rawlsian Veil of Ignorance, 2015).
Here, for example, we give the name of the video, even though the video names Ian Ayre as the presenter.
(Image: YaleCourses/YouTube)
You can even quote a YouTube video in your work. To do this, provide a timestamp to show where the quoted passage occurs in the video:
Decision makers behind a veil of ignorance make ‘better and less biased choices’ (Rawlsian Veil of Ignorance, 2015, 00:02:20).
In this case, the timestamp shows that the passage occurs two minutes and twenty seconds into the video. This is equivalent to giving page numbers when quoting a print source.
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In the Reference List
As with other sources, YouTube videos cited in your work should be added to a reference list at the end of your document. The format for these references is:
Title of Video (date uploaded) YouTube video, added by Username of uploader [Online]. Available at URL [Accessed date].
For the video cited in the examples above, for instance, we’d write:
Rawlsian Veil of Ignorance (2015) YouTube video, added by YaleCourses [Online]. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rRzMeAkULc [Accessed 19 December 2016].
Harvard Referencing: A Proviso
Keep in mind that Harvard referencing is not a single, unified system. As such, you should check your style guide in case the rules your university uses differ from those described here.
If your style guide doesn’t give specific information on citing a YouTube video, the method here should be fine. Just remember to make your referencing clear and consistent throughout!