Unit 4: Legal Writing

17. Referencing (Video transcript)

We have dealt with the citation of statutes and cases in Units 2 and 3. Here we will look at
referencing books, articles and internet resources using both the Oxford Standard Citation of Legal
Authorities (OSCOLA) and the Harvard system of referencing. For the purposes of the Undergraduate
Laws programme it does not matter which form of referencing you use as long as you adopt one and
are consistent in its use.

The OSCOLA system uses numbered footnotes while the Harvard system uses brief citations within
the body of the text and provides the full citation in a reference list at the end of the work.
Whichever system of citation you use, the same basic information must be included. When citing
books you need to include the authors name (or authors’ names), the title of the book (in italics), the
edition, publisher, place and date of publication and, if quoting directly from the work or referring to
a specific point, the relevant page number. The OSCOLA system discourages the use of full stops and
commas in citations and includes the full reference in a numbered footnote at the bottom of the
page.

An example of a short paragraph, which includes a direct quotation from a book, illustrates the
different approaches:

When speaking of the ratio decidendi of a case it is tempting to think in terms of a fixed and
single entity with an objective and continuing existence, which merely needs to be located and
identified, just as a treasure hunter may seek to locate and identify a sunken wreck within a
given area of the seabed. As we shall see in the remainder of this chapter, however, this model is
seriously misleading1.
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1
Ian McLeod, Legal Method (9th edn. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2013) 142

The Harvard system on the other hand would produce:

When speaking of the ratio decidendi of a case it is tempting to think in terms of a fixed and
single entity with an objective and continuing existence, which merely needs to be located and
identified, just as a treasure hunter may seek to locate and identify a sunken wreck within a
given area of the seabed. As we shall see in the remainder of this chapter, however, this model is
seriously misleading. (McLeod 2013 p. 142)

The full reference would then appear at the end of the work in the reference list (or bibliography) as
follows:

McLeod, I., 2013. Legal Method. 9th edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Note that the full citation does not include the page number, since this is cited in the short reference
in the main body of the text.

Where you are citing from an article you will need to include the author’s/authors’ name(s), the title
of the article (in single quotation marks) and the year, volume and page reference of the article.
Most law journals have preferred abbreviations of the journal title. The OSCOLA system encourages
the use of standard abbreviations where possible.

An example of an OSCOLA journal article citation, from the New Law Journal is:

JR Spencer, ‘Retrial for reckless infection’ (2004) 154 NLJ 762

The Harvard citation for this article could use either the accepted abbreviation, as in the OSCOLA
form, or the full title of the journal, with the latter appearing thus:

Spencer, J.R., 2004. ‘Retrial for reckless infection’. New Law Journal vol. 154, p. 762

Internet resources often provide very little citable information and frequently disappear into
cyberspace as quickly as they appeared online. If you must use internet resources make sure you
include the author (if identified), the title of the article or the title of the page, the URL and the date
the resource was accessed.

Using an article from a UK online newspaper to illustrate, an OSCOLA reference would appear as
follows:

Haroon Siddique, ‘Is the EU referendum legally binding?’ The Guardian (London, 23 June 2016)
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/23/eu-referendum-legally-binding-brexit-lisbon-
cameron-sovereign-parliament accessed 26 June 2016

A Harvard style citation would be:

Siddique, H. (2016, 23 June) ‘Is the EU referendum legally binding?’ (The Guardian), Available:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/23/eu-referendum-legally-binding-brexit-lisbon-
cameron-sovereign-parliament (Accessed: 2016, 29 June).

If you are using an e-book that is an exact copy of the printed version (e.g. with the same page
numbers) then cite the e-book as if it was printed as a book. If the e-book has no page numbers,
follow the normal book (or edited book) citation form but include the e-book type/edition before
the publisher. It will also be helpful to provide chapter or section number (or name) and subsection
or paragraph number if provided.

Footnoting and referencing, like grammar that follows standard conventions, makes your work
easier to read. Inconsistent footnoting and referencing in your work will undermine your attempts to
create a well presented piece of work. Finally, it is worth repeating that full referencing and citation
are important to avoid any claims of plagiarism.