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OSCOLA Referencing

OSCOLA referencing (The Oxford Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities) is a common referencing system used in Law Reports, Legislation, Legal Journals and Law Reviews. The OSCOLA system can be used to accurately cite all kinds of legal materials. OSCOLA was produced by the Oxford Law Faculty in collaboration with academic law publishers. It is the style guide for the Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal and for theses written in academic Law Faculties in most universities. OSCOLA has guidelines on using punctuation, quotations, footnotes, reference to law cases and the referencing of books and journals.

OSCOLA uses very little punctuation, for example, no full stops are used following abbreviations, nor after the 'v' between two parties in a case. A comma can be used occasionally when separating parts of a book reference, usually it is placed between the author and the title. The colon is used to separate a title from its subtitle. In OSCOLA referencing, quotation marks are used before punctuation. If, however, the punctuation is a part of the quotation itself, then the closing quotation mark should come afterwards. The other style requirement regarding quotation marks is that if the quotation is a short, part sentence, then the marks should come before the full stop, but if the sentence is whole, using OSCOLA, the marks should come afterwards. Quotations of three lines or less should be used in-text, if longer than three lines the quotation should be indented from both sides and set out in its own paragraph, single spaced.

OSCOLA referencing dictates that if you are quoting from an existing quote you should always make this clear by using double quotation marks around the original quote. It is important to use the exact words of the original in a quotation. If the quotation used starts mid sentence you should use ellipses ( … ) to indicate some words have been missed. In OSCOLA, ellipses are also to be used if words are missed out in the middle of your quotation. OSCOLA referencing encourages the use of footnotes instead of endnotes. Footnotes provide authority on a matter and can add important, supplementary information for the reader. To indicate a footnote, use a running number, preferably written in normal text and not superscript, after the reference in your text. In OSCOLA referencing, if you make another reference to the same text in your essay, you should always use a new numbered footnote, but you only need to repeat the author's name, the original footnote number (placed in brackets) and the new page numbers you are referring to. Footnotes in OSCOLA should always be kept brief as to be too long can prove distracting for the reader.

Using OSCOLA referencing, footnotes should begin with a capital letter, use no punctuation throughout, but end with a full stop, or other suitable punctuation mark. In accordance with OSCOLA referencing, footnotes should be entered in this format: initials (no punctuation or spaces), surname, title (italicised), edition, publisher, place of publication and year (all in brackets), page numbers. It is important to note again that no commas should separate these points of reference using OSCOLA referencing in the footnote itself, though they have been used here to clarify order.

When using OSCOLA referencing, case names should be italicised and in lower case (including the 'v'). The date should be in round or square brackets depending on the case series style requirements. If a report has several volumes in one year with the same numbering sequence every year, the date should be in square brackets. However, in OSCOLA referencing, if a report uses a numbered sequence to indicate the volumes, dates should be in round brackets. The report series in which the case appears is abbreviated and the volume number follows the date. Using dates with the OSCOLA referencing system, requires you write the dates in a specific way in your text. They should be written thus: 12 September 2008. No apostrophe should be used in dates when stating the year and 's', for example, 1980s, not 1980's. Dates should also be expressed in full and not abbreviated to 'the eighties' or '80s.

Using OSCOLA, when referring to cases in your text, the relevant parties should be cited in italics with an italicised 'v' without punctuation to separate the names of adverse parties. Dates are always put in brackets. In OSCOLA referencing, square brackets are used when the volume uses the date for identification; round brackets are used when the dates are for additional information given about the judgement. No punctuation should be used, except for where absolutely necessary to avoid confusion. It is usually useful when using OSCOLA referencing, to name the deciding judge in a case. To reference this you should use the judge's surname and follow this with the conventional abbreviation that identifies their judicial office. OSCOLA referencing requires that you should not use honorifics, such as 'the Honourable'.

In the bibliography, using the OSCOLA referencing system, a book by a single author is referenced by the author's surname with the initials coming before the surname, without punctuation. The title of the book or journal should be italicised, and the edition, publisher, place of publication, and date, come next and are placed in brackets. OSCOLA dictates that the edition of the book used should be specified and the page numbers used should also be detailed at the end of the reference. If the book is a collection that has an editor, you should write 'ed' after the editor's name.

The OSCOLA system references journal articles differently from books. The author of an article is referenced in the same way, (initials and surname), followed by the title which is placed in inverted commas and not italicised, with first letters of words capitalised. The titles of Law Journals are normally abbreviated and you should consult the Cardiff Index of Legal Abbreviations in order to ascertain the correct abbreviation for each journal title. Using OSCOLA referencing for journals, dates are in square or round brackets, as discussed earlier. The volume number or month should be listed next, then the issue number in brackets and finally the first page of the article.