Law

There are many systems for the presentation of references in academic work.

Which system a writer adopts, depends upon many things, including what their subject area is, what part of the world they work in, and who is going to publish the work and for what purpose.

Broadly speaking however, these systems fall into three general formats:

• Citing sources using brackets within the text of the work. Included in this category is the Harvard Reference System.

• Citing sources at the bottom of the page, often called the Footnote Reference System.

• Citing sources at the end of the work, usually called the Endnote Reference System   (Do NOT confuse this with the University’s licensed Endnote Programme for collating and saving references. You are able to get training on creating an Endnote Library using this programme via the Library, but should note that it is different from using the Endnote Referencing System.

Of these, Law uses only the Footnote and Endnote Reference Systems, in both cases using the Oxford Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA). 

Please always use footnotes when you have a word limit (endnotes when you have a page limit).

Adapted from UoP Law Coursework Manual 2022-2023

If you have any questions you cannot answer by using the OSCOLA guides please ask your Personal Tutor.

General Principles

General referencing principles are contained in Part 1 of the OSCOLA full guide.

Primary sources

The main primary sources are legislation and case law. How to reference these is contained in Part 2 of the OSCOLA full guide. Guidance on citing foreign and international law is in a separate guidance document: OSCOLA International Law

Secondary sources

Common examples of secondary sources are:

• Books

• Journal articles

• Official documents and government publications

• Hansard

• Websites and internet sources

• Media, television, films, newspaper and magazine articles

• Dissertations and projects

How to reference secondary sources is contained in Part 3 of the OSCOLA full guide.

Adapted from UoP Law Coursework Manual 2022-2023

You generally should NOT refer to any of the following, on the basis that they are not suitable/appropriate for degree level work (unless specifically advised otherwise by the relevant module assignment briefing or tutor. If in doubt, contact the relevant Module Leader directly for advice):

• Wikipedia

• Other non-verified websites, including Blogs

• A level material

• LexisNexis and Westlaw per se (these are search engines and databases where you can find primary and secondary sources)

Adapted from Law Coursework Manual 2022-2023

The OSCOLA referencing system advises you to avoid the use of ‘Latin gadgets (such as supra, infra, ante, id, op cit, loc cit, and contra).

These can cause problems if you, for example, amend the main body of your work (which may remove or move footnotes), and can also be problematic when dealing with long documents.

Instead, you should follow OSCOLA guidance, which you will find in Section 1.2 of the full OSCOLA guide.

Adapted from Law Coursework Manual 2022-2023

Footnotes/ can also be a vehicle for the inclusion of extra material, which although relevant to your theme and of likely interest to the reader, would interfere with the flow of your argument if included in the main text.

These are referred to as textual footnotes.

You do not have to use textual footnotes but if you do, you must not abuse the ability to include them as a means of providing large amounts of text to avoid the page or word length imposed.

Adapted from UoP Law Coursework Manual 2022-2023