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Harvard to MLA converter

Paste Harvard references, get MLA. Free, no sign-up.

Paste references written in Harvard and get them back in MLA, ready to copy into Word or Google Docs. The main changes: author–date in-text citations become author–page citations, your “Reference list” list becomes “Works Cited” and titles switch to title case. CiteSwap looks each reference up in the open Crossref catalogue, so authors, years and page numbers come from the publisher’s record rather than being rewritten by hand.

Harvard vs MLA: the same sources side by side

Each example below was formatted by CiteSwap’s engine, exactly as the converter outputs it.

Journal article

Harvard

Suri, T. and Jack, W. (2016) ‘The long-run poverty and gender impacts of mobile money’, Science, 354(6317), pp. 1288–1292. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah5309.

In-text: (Suri and Jack, 2016, p. 1290)

MLA

Suri, Tavneet, and William Jack. “The Long-Run Poverty and Gender Impacts of Mobile Money.” Science, vol. 354, no. 6317, Dec. 2016, pp. 1288–92, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah5309.

In-text: (Suri and Jack 1290)

Book

Harvard

Achebe, C. (1958) Things fall apart. London: Heinemann.

In-text: (Achebe, 1958, p. 1290)

MLA

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Heinemann, 1958.

In-text: (Achebe 1290)

Web page

Harvard

World Health Organization (2023) Malaria. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria (Accessed: 1 October 2026).

In-text: (World Health Organization, 2023, p. 1290)

MLA

World Health Organization. Malaria. 4 Dec. 2023, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria.

In-text: (World Health Organization 1290)

Key differences between Harvard and MLA

11 of 12 rules differ; they are listed first.

RuleHarvardMLA
Reference list headingReference listWorks Cited
In-text citationsauthor and year in parentheses, e.g. (Suri and Jack, 2016)author and page number in parentheses with no comma, e.g. (Suri and Jack 1290)
Author namesSurname and initials, joined with “and”, e.g. Suri, T. and Jack, W.First author inverted with full names, the second in normal order, e.g. Suri, Tavneet, and William Jack
Many authorsFour or more authors: first author followed by “et al.”Three or more authors: first author followed by “et al.”
DateStraight after the authors, in parentheses, with no full stop: (2016)Near the end, after the journal or publisher details
Title capitalisationSentence caseTitle case
Article titlesIn single quotation marks, sentence caseIn quotation marks, title case
ItalicsJournal names and book titlesContainers: journal, website and book titles
Journal namesFull journal name in title caseFull journal name in title case, followed by vol. and no.
Page rangesFull page range with “pp.”, e.g. pp. 1288–1292Shortened range with “pp.”, e.g. pp. 1288–92
DOIs and links“Available at:” before the DOI or URL, and “(Accessed: date)” for web pagesDOI written as https://doi.org/… at the end; URLs without “https://” are also accepted
List order(same)Alphabetical by first author’s surnameAlphabetical by first author’s surname

When to use MLA

MLA is the usual choice for English literature, modern languages and other humanities subjects, where quoting and pinpointing pages matters more than dates. It is published by the Modern Language Association; CiteSwap follows the 9th edition (2021).

Harvard is more common in business, economics, the social sciences, while MLA is usual in literature, languages, cultural studies. If your department or journal names a style, always follow it.

Harvard to MLA: frequently asked questions

How do I convert Harvard citations to MLA?

Paste your Harvard reference list into the box above (one reference per line, numbered, or separated by blank lines), check that “From” says Harvard or Auto-detect and “To” says MLA, then press Convert. You can also paste DOIs, BibTeX or RIS. Copy the result or download it for Word.

How do in-text citations change from Harvard to MLA?

Harvard uses author and year in parentheses, e.g. (Suri and Jack, 2016). MLA uses author and page number in parentheses with no comma, e.g. (Suri and Jack 1290). For the same article and page: Harvard gives (Suri and Jack, 2016, p. 1290), MLA gives (Suri and Jack 1290).

What is the reference list called in MLA?

In Harvard the list is headed “Reference list”; in MLA it is “Works Cited”. Change the heading when you paste the converted list into your document.

Do titles need different capitalisation in MLA?

Yes. MLA uses title case for article and book titles, so words like “Poverty” and “Gender” are capitalised. CiteSwap applies this automatically.

How are author names written in MLA?

MLA: First author inverted with full names, the second in normal order, e.g. Suri, Tavneet, and William Jack. Harvard: Surname and initials, joined with “and”, e.g. Suri, T. and Jack, W. When a reference is matched in Crossref, CiteSwap uses full first names from the publisher’s record, so it can produce either form.

Is the Harvard to MLA converter accurate?

Each reference is matched against the Crossref catalogue (over 150 million records) and only accepted automatically when the title, year and first author agree. Anything uncertain is marked “Needs review” so you can pick the right match, and references that aren’t in the catalogue, like websites or local journals, are parsed from your text and marked so you can check them.