OSCOLA Referencing

General Principles

In-Text Citations in the form of footnote

• There are no 'in-text' citations.
• OSCOLA uses FOOTNOTE style 
• All in-text citations are in FOOTNOTES

Elements

1. Citation

When you acknowledge a source, place a footnote marker after the full stop at the end of the sentence or after the word or phrase to which it relates.

2. Footnote

When referring to a publication for the first time, provide a full reference to the source at the foot of the page. Subsequent references to the same source can then be provided in abbreviated form.

3. Bibliography

A bibliography listing all of the sources that you have cited in your work should be provided after the main body of text and any appendices.

Primary sources

Primary sources tells you how to cite Cases, Legislation and Statutes.

Understand the legal terminology 

Types of Legislation

1. Primary legislation  - Acts of Parliament or Statutes

2. Secondary legislation - Statutory Instruments (SIs, which are often called Codes, Orders, Regulations, Rules)

Understand the Common Abbreviations

Abbreviations

• Do not use full stops in abbreviations.
• EU indicates that it is a decision by one of the courts of the EU 
• C indicates that the decision was delivered by the Court of Justice
• 2005 is the year decision was made
• 542 indicates that it is the 542nd ECLI in respect of the year in question.

Formats and Examples

Secondary Sources

Secondary sources tells you how to cite everything else i.e. Books, Journal Articles, Conference Papers, Websites, Blogs, Newspaper articles etc.

Formats and Examples

Reference List

Your bibliography will be made up of all the sources you have cited in your work. It should be placed at the end of your work after the main body of text and any appendices. References are listed alphabetically in the bibliography.

References is bibliography are similar in format too, but not quite the same, as the citations you would use in footnotes. 

• Do not close a bibliography reference with a full stop
• The author's surname precedes their forename for which only an initials should be used in a bibliography
• Case names are not italicised in a bibliography

In the footnote, the whole name is displayed followed by a comma e.g. John Smith

In the bibliography, only surname followed by initials and a comma are used e.g. Smith J,

General Rules

Author's Name

• Give author's name exactly as it appears in the publication.
• If there are more than 3 authors, give the name of the first author followed by 'and others'.
• if no individual author is identified, but an organisation, begin the citation with the title.
• if there is no mention of any author or organisation, begin the citation with the title. 
• Treat editors' names in the same name as authors' names. 

Titles

• Italicise titles of books and similar publications, including all publications with ISBNs. 
• Capitalize the first letter in all major words in a title.
• Minor words such as 'for', 'and', 'or', and 'the' do not take a capital unless they begin the title or subtitle.

Examples

Citation in a footnote: 

 Reference in a bibliography: 

If you are citing more than one item by the same author, list the items chronologically starting with the oldest. After the reference to the first item, you can replace the author's name with two em-dashes(--).