OSCOLA Referencing Tips and Guidelines

Summary:

The text provides a beginner’s guide to OSCOLA referencing, a citation style commonly used in legal and academic writing. It covers primary and secondary sources, explaining how to format citations for cases, statutes, EU legislation, European Court of Human Rights cases, books, encyclopedias, journal articles, online journals, command papers, law commission reports, websites, blogs, newspaper articles, and Hansard. The guide emphasizes general rules for creating bibliographies, categorizing and sub-categorizing sources and organizing entries alphabetically. It also highlights specific formatting rules for different types of primary and secondary sources, including the exclusion of page numbers, sections, and subsections and the removal of full stops at the end of citations.

Excerpt:

OSCOLA Referencing Tips and Guidelines

CONTENTS:
– How To Apply OSCOLA Referencing To Your Bibliography:
– Primary Sources:
– Cases……………………………………………………………………….3
– Statutes………………………………………………………………….…3
– EU Legislation & Cases………………………………………………..….4
– European Court of Human Rights………………………………………4-5
– Secondary Sources:
– Books………………………………………………………………………6
– Encyclopedias…………………………………………………………..…6
– Journal Articles………………………………………………………….6-7
– Online Journals…………………………………………………………….7
– Command Papers & Law Commission Reports…………………………7-8
– Websites & Blogs……………………………………………………….…8
– Newspaper Articles………………………………………………………..8
– Hansard………………………………………………………………….8-9

HOW TO APPLY OSCOLA REFERENCING TO YOUR BIBLIOGRAPHY:
General Rules:
1. Bibliographies should be done on a clean page
2. Primary sources should be listed first
3. You must categorise and sub-categorise your sources. Ie. Primary sources will be divided into subsections for cases, statutes, etc. Same with secondary sources
4. Each subsection should have sources in alphabetical order
5. Pages, sections & subsections are not included in bibliographies

PRIMARY SOURCES:
Cases:
Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] UKHL 100 [1932] AC 562.
🠋
Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] UKHL 100 [1932] AC 562
– Party names no longer need to be italicised
– No full stops at the end of the citation

Statutes:
Sexual Offences Act 2003, s1(1)c.
🠋
Sexual Offences Act 2003
– Page numbers, sections and subsections of statutes are not included
– No full stops at the end of the citation

EU Legislation & Cases:
LEGISLATION: Treaty of Lisbon amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community [2007] OJ C 306/1.
🠋
Treaty of Lisbon amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community [2007] OJ C 306/1