University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA) is a referencing style used by academicians and students in the fields of law. In this style small superscript numbers in your text are written and these are linked to footnotes at the bottom of each page.
Party names Year or (Year) Volume number Name of Report Page number or [Paragraph number]
Baldwin v Summers (1988) 85 Cr App R [9].
This style enables you to easily and quickly cite legal resources like legislation and cases. It is a numeric style which makes use of footnotes, as opposed to Harvard which happens to be Name and Date Style.
Each writing style is formatted to make citations for that particular field easier.
You will be able to minimize the stress of the law referencing by utilizing the referencing generator. You will be able to make use of the 'Cite This For Me' Online Tool or Mobile App to have the whole thing done for you consistently, accurately and quickly.
Each style contains own unique set of rules for properly citing references both in the bibliography as well as the main body of the text.
Act of Parliament | Cases | Case Note |
Book | Edited book (& chapters) | Journal paper |
Further sources | Blog | Book (translated to English) |
Book (read in another language) | Book review | Command Paper |
Conference Papers | Encyclopaedia | |
Conference Papers | Encyclopaedia | |
Entry in a reference book | European Court of Justice case | European Union regulation |
Hansard & Parliamentary reports | Interview | Letter |
In the OSCOLA type of reference, a citation footnote will appear in the situation when we you will be paraphrasing, quoting from or referring to the matter which is contained in the source in your running text.
To mark a footnote in the text with a correct footnote number is to place it at the end of a relevant sentence or clause. The correct methodology of displaying the footnote text is as a footnote number, which will be appearing after any given punctuation like a full stop or comma.
Example:-
In Ronald v/s Jackson2, the referee Carson J has observed that....
The footnotes will be containing complete and full details of the type of source cited. Specific formats for presenting the information depends on the type of source. Some more specific examples pertaining to how you will be making use of the footnote are presented depending in the following section.
Another activity in universities is the writing of dissertations or thesis. As per the guidelines of the OSCOLA style of references you will be needed to have details of cases or legislations and also bibliography listing of any secondary sources.
If you are required to write shorter essays, the step of giving bibliography citations is usually not required. But at the same time it is advisable that you try to check your institutions guidelines of how they are required to cite references in other this type of work.
The tables as well as bibliographies appear at the bottom of the text which you have written. The sequence in which you will be writing the other types of bibliography items are listed below:-
Listed below is how each and every element in the bibliographies is cited in the list of references:-
Williams v/s MacShane [2013] UKSC 15, [2013] 14 WLR 1676
In this reference type, the table of legislation all the different legal source apart from Cases- for examples, Acts of Parliament and SI's.
The items of legislation which have been listed are identical in the manner they have been cited main body of the text.
A bibliography will be containing a list of all your secondary sources- that is all the different types of references apart from cases and legislation. For example, we would be listing matter from other types of sources like newspapers, social media and blogs will be cited in this type of bibliography.
The main aspect in which the bibliography entries differ from other citations is in the way their presentation of their author's name. The names of the authors will be written in an inverted manner and in the only the initials of the first name will be used.
Henry J, Criminal Law: Materials, Texts and Cases (8th edn, OUP 2018)
Disclaimer:HelpAssignment's papers are for study only, not to submit. Use them to learn how to handle topics and structure your work. Create original content, avoid plagiarism, and always cite your sources.