Regulatory and Quality Sciences Department

Each department and degree program within the Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences sets their preferred citation style for written work. The Doctorate in Regulatory Science (DRSc) program has selected Harvard style. If you are writing for another degree or certificate program, check your class syllabus for information on which style to use for your work, and find guidance from the USC Libraries on many styles.

"Harvard style" is unlike other citation styles in that there is no group that owns the style and no single manual. The Harvard system asks writers to include author surnames and dates in parentheses throughout the text to indicate where an idea or image is taken from another source, and to include a reference list at the end of the writing that includes the sources, listing the names of the author(s), title of the item, and enough information to locate the item.

Harvard style is intentionally easy to use and flexible enough to allow you to cite any type of item (article, book, law, regulation, standard, newspaper article, etc.) . Each group that uses Harvard style will produce their own manual with detailed instructions on how to create citations; several from the DRSc program are copied here. DRSc students should contact their program office for a thorough, current guide including details on how DRSc students should cite all items they use in their writing. If a specific type of item you need to cite is not mentioned in the full guide, you can adapt a similar style to create a "Harvard-like" citation, and librarians can aid you with this.

You can contact the library or your librarian for help with determining what information needs to be cited in your work and help determining how to cite a specific item you need to use.

DRSc students are able to download EndNote, a citation management software tool, for free from the USC Mann School. Contact your program office to obtain a copy of the most recent EndNote Style Guide for DRSc students, which includes a special filter you can install to produce DRSc-styled Harvard citations, and extensive instructions on creating well-formatted citations. The library-produced tutorial below provides some additional help for using EndNote to cite items typically only used by writers in the regulatory and quality sciences fields.