Law

The primary purpose of a reference is to enable a reader to be able to locate a copy of the original text to which you refer in order to check the validity of the claims you make in support of your argument or your empirical material . It also enables readers to follow up scholarly work to which you refer, just as the references you find in published material provide a good basis for your own literature surveys.

Accurate referencing guards against an allegation of committing an academic offence.

There are three aspects to the proper acknowledgement of sources:

1. You must acknowledge sources (primary and secondary) for specific points using footnotes (i.e. by inserting references);

2. In law, you are also required to provide full references (citations) for all cases and legislation

3. You must always list the sources referenced in a bibliography at the end.

Your aim should be to ensure that all sources are fully referenced using an appropriate system for law and that the references you have included are consistent in style.

Adapted from UoP Law Coursework Manual 2022-2023

Many people can find it very difficult to understand when and what needs to be referenced/ cited.

As a general rule of thumb, you should reference the source(s) of all of the following five things:

1. All primary and secondary sources

2. All direct quotes (e.g. from a textbook, speech, judgement, statute). You must enclose the quote within quotation marks, and include a reference - see Section 1.5 of the full OSCOLA guide. Please note that work which consists of excessive use of direct quotations, e.g. a series of quoted paragraphs with linking sentences, is not work of an acceptable degree standard.

3. Ideas and interpretations that are not your own

4. Statistics and research results

5. Facts that are not common knowledge

Adapted from UoP Law Coursework Manual 2022-2023

The essential notion of the Footnote Reference System is that where an author wishes to make a reference they do so by placing a number above the relevant part of the text, and then placing a corresponding numbered reference at the bottom of the page.

It is convention to start with number 1 for the first reference and continue with a consecutive numbering system throughout a single document (although each chapter of a book or thesis (i.e. long pieces of work) will usually re-start the numbering sequence)

Adapted from UoP Law Coursework Manual 2022-2023

 In Microsoft Word, go to the ‘references’ tab; you will see ‘insert footnote’ and ‘insert endnote’ options;

 Switch to using ordinary numbering (1, 2, 3 etc. instead of numerals (i.e. iv, v etc.) or you will find your endnotes very cumbersome;

 Footnotes and endnotes should be in the same font style but one font size smaller than the body of the essay i.e. Arial font 11. (If you ever use endnotes, put them on a separate page at the end.)

Adapted from UoP  Law Coursework Manual 2022-2023