About Footnotes

OSCOLA uses footnotes, not in-text citations as APA uses.    

Example:

This essay is an assessment of the new retirement unfair dismissal regime, introduced by the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006¹ in October 2006, to implement the UK’s obligations under the age strand of the EU Framework Equal Treatment Directive.² Already, variations of the contractual retiring age following a transfer of undertakings have been challenged in Power v Regent Security Services Ltd.³

• Footnotes should include the pinpoint reference to identify the exact page, paragraph number (for cases), section, regulation or article (for legislation) which contain the ideas you are quoting or paraphrasing.
• Paragraph numbers are enclosed in square brackets.
• If you are referring to a general argument, you may choose to refer to a journal article or book, rather than to a precise page, etc.   

¹ Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006, SI 2006/1031 reg 2.

² Council Directive (EC) 2000/78 establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation (EU Framework Equal Treatment Directive) [2000] OJ L303/16 art 3.

³ Power v Regent Security Services Ltd [2007] EWCA Civ 1188, [2008] 2 All ER 977, 987.

Multiple sources in a footnote

• When you cite more than one source in a footnote, put the sources in chronological order, with the oldest first.
• If one or more of the sources are more directly relevant than the others, cite these first, and then cite the less relevant ones in a new sentence, beginning 'See also'.
• If you are citing legislation and cases in a footnote, put the legislation before the cases, and if you are citing both primary and secondary sources in a footnote, put the primary sources before the secondary ones.
• Multiple citations in a footnote should be separated by a semi-colon.

Example:
³ Secretary of State for the Home Department v E [2007] UKHL 47, [2008] 1 All ER 699 (HL) 702; SJ Fredman, 'Equality: A New Generation?' [2001] ILJ 145, 158.

In a legal or academic piece of work you are expected to support your arguments with relevant authoritative sources. You should footnote both primary and secondary sources as appropriate wherever necessary. When using sources, either by direct quotation or by paraphrasing, they should be cited in a footnote.

A footnote is marked with a superscript number,¹ which should appear after any punctuation and is usually found at the end of a sentence.² If a footnote relates to an item in brackets (as here³) it should appear before the closing bracket. According to OSCOLA 'a quotation need not be footnoted separately from the name of the source from which it is derived if the two appear in the same sentence.'⁴

¹ If citing several items in a list you can cite each in a separate footnote after each comma or place a single footnote marker at the end of the sentence and include all the items in the footnote in order (chronological) separating them from each other by a semi-colon. If one is most relevant you can give it precedence and insert See also before listing the less relevant items.

² The full stop may be replaced by a a question mark or exclamation mark.

³ Square brackets in OSCOLA are reserved for specific uses.

⁴ Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, OSCOLA: Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (4th edn Oxford University 2010) 3.

Footnotes

Author names in footnotes are given with initials or first names, followed by the surname. For example:

TA Baker

1-3 authors
For up to three authors, separate the names with commas, and add the word and before the last author’s name. For example:

TA Baker, John Hart and AFK Davis

4 and more authors
For four or more authors, give the first author’s name followed by and others. For example:

TA Baker and others

No author

If no personal author is given, check to see if any corporate body has acted as publisher or claimed editorial responsibility, and use that as an author, e.g. Ministry of Justice, Department for Constitutional Affairs, etc. If you can find no person or body acting as author, and you are convinced your source is an authoritative one for your purposes, begin the footnote with the title.

Bibliography
 

In the bibliography, only initials should be used, no forenames/given names. The author's surname/family name should precede the initial(s), with no comma separating them, but a comma after the initial(s).

Footnote

⁸ Doreen J McBarnet, Conviction: Law, the State and the Construction of Justice (Oxford socio-legal studies, Macmillan 1981) 67.

Bibliography

McBarnet DJ, Conviction: Law, the State and the Construction of Justice (Oxford socio-legal studies, Macmillan 1981)

If you are citing several works by the same author in your bibliography, list the author's works in chronological order (starting with the oldest), and if from the same year alphabetise on the first major word of the title. After the citation of the first work, replace the author's name with two joined em dashes --. 

Think carefully if this is an authoritative source.  This may be deduced from its origins, e.g a government website, a recognised charity, research organization, or a reputable academic journal.

Where the author is not identified, and the source has clearly been written/published by a recognised authoritative body, cite the body that produced the document.
 

Footnote example

⁹ IDS, 'Violence at work: the legal implications' [2018] IDS Emp L Brief 12, 16.

If no such body can be identified and the item is clearly written by an anonymous individual/group and published in a trustworthy publication, insert two em dashes (like this: —— ) in place of the author's name. 

Information about creating a double em dash.

Date of publication:  What if there are several dates for the book?

Use the copyright date/date of publication that matches the edition of the book that you're using, e.g. 1st edition published 2001, 2nd edition published 2005... 6th edition published 2012, 7th edition published 2014. 

Ignore dates that are listed as reprints or impressions. Look on the  title page of the book.  

If you are in doubt as to the copyright date, search for the book on the library catalogue to check the copyright date.

All footnotes start with a capital letter, except when ibid is used. 

Titles of Bills, Acts, Statutory Instruments, books and articles are always shown with capital letters for every significant word.

Minor words such as the, for, and, or, etc. do not have capitals unless they appear at the start of the title or subtitle.

Do not use all capital letters unless the title contains an acronym, e.g. UN (for United Nations).

Punctuation in footnotes and the bibliography is used only to avoid confusion.

A full stop is used at the end of each footnote. A question mark or exclamation mark may also occasionally be used at the end of a footnote.

Do not use full stops in abbreviations (QB not Q.B. for Queen's Bench), after the author's initials (DB Smith not D.B. smith) or after the "v" between two parties in a case.

Single inverted commas are used to frame the title of a journal article or report.

A comma is used to separate items that might otherwise run together such as between the author and title, between the publisher and place of publication, between the neutral citation and next best case citation, and between page numbers.

A colon separates a title from the subtitle.

A semi-colon is used between several citations in a single footnote.

Footnote example:
Secretary of State for the Home Department v E [2007] UKHL 47, [2008] 1 All ER 699 (HL) 702; SJ Fredman, 'Equality: A New Generation?' [2001] ILJ 145, 158.

Bibliography example:
Secretary of State for the Home Department v E [2007] UKHL 47, [2008] 1 All ER 699 (HL) 702

Fredman SJ, 'Equality: A New Generation?' [2001] ILJ 145

Cases with numbered paragraphs

Square brackets are used to pinpoint in judgements with numbered paragraphs. 

If using multiple non-sequential numbered paragraphs, separate them with a comma. 

If using continuously numbered paragraphs a dash is used between the beginning and ending paragraph numbers.

Case and journal citations

Square brackets are used around years in case and journal article citations where the year is essential to finding the case in the printed volumes on the shelf, e.g. if the entire volume is only for 2019.  If 2019 covers several volumes, use round brackets and include the volume number in the citation. 

Include an issue number only if page numbers are not consecutively numbered for that volume, e.g. each issue in the volume starts at page 1. 

If using electronic law reports and journals, you may need to look at the index of journal volumes to see if the volume crosses multiple years in one volume. 

Footnote examples

³ Callery v Gray [2001] EWCA Civ 1117, [2001] 1 WLR 2112 [42], [45].

⁴ Julia J A Shaw, 'Justice and the Moral Society: Reconciling Law and Love' (2011) 10 CIL 273, 276-278.

⁵  Bunt v Tilley [2006] EWHC 407 (QB), [2006] 3 All ER 336 [1] - [37].

Wherever possible use any alternative internal indexing such as

These are often more precise and are frequently referred to as pinpoint references.

Academic best practice dictates you should always try to read any source in the original rather than someone else's interpretation.  Never cite the original if you did not use the original source.

However, if it is not possible to read the original, link the source you have not read to the source you have read by using "as cited in".  The pinpoint page at the end refers to the page you have read, not the pinpoint page in the original source.

Secondary Sources

Art. 14(1) and (2) Harvard Draft Convention on Piracy (as cited in A Petrig and R Geiss, Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea: The Legal Framework for Counter-Piracy Operations in Somalia and the Gulf of Aden (UP 2011) 140).

Quoted in WL Clay, The Prison Chaplain: A Memoir of the Reverend John Clay (London 1861) 554 (as cited in M Wiener, Reconstructing the Criminal Culture, Law and Policy in England 1830–1914 (CUP 1990) 79).

Cases

You should make every effort to locate and read primary sources.  If a case is citing another case, cite the first case followed by 'citing' and then cite the second case.
 

SG&R Valuation Service Co LLC v Boudrais et al [2008] EWHC 1340, [2008] IRLR 770 [22] citing Miles v Wakefield Metropolitan Borough Council [1987] AC 539.
 

Reference: Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, OSCOLA: Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (4th edn Oxford University 2010) 35.
 Suggestion re sources cited in a secondary source on this page are modelled on the FAQs section on the OSCOLA website (https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/oscola-faqs).  These have not yet been discussed and approved by the OSCOLA editorial board.

You should always try to read any source in the original rather than someone else's interpretation and you should never cite a footnote to it from another work. However, if reading the original is not practical, you should link the journal article or book (which you have read) to that which your source (which you have not read) cites by using the word "citing". For example the footnote will look something like this (the pinpoint page at the end refers to the page you have read, not the pinpoint page in the original source:

Art. 14(1) and (2) Harvard Draft Convention on Piracy (as cited in A Petrig and R Geiss, Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea: The Legal Framework for Counter-Piracy Operations in Somalia and the Gulf of Aden ()UP 2011) 140).

Quoted in WL Clay, The Prison Chaplain: A Memoir of the Reverend John Clay (London 1861) 554 (as cited in M Wiener, Reconstructing the Criminal Culture, Law and Policy in England 1830–1914 (CUP 1990) 79).

If it is a case citing another case cite the first case, followed by 'citing' and then cite the second case. For example:-

SG&R Valuation Service Co LLC v Boudrais et al [2008] EWHC 1340, [2008] IRLR 770 [22] citing Miles v Wakefield Metropolitan Borough Council [1987] AC 539.

In such cases you should make every effort to locate primary sources so they can be included in your bibliography but if the secondary citation is a secondary source you might simply list the item you have actually read.

• Reference: Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, OSCOLA: Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (4th edn Oxford University 2010) 35.
•  Suggestion re sources cited in a secondary source on this page are modelled on FAQs on the OSCOLA website (https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/oscola-faqs) but have not yet been discussed and approved by the OSCOLA editorial board.

Do not use Latin terms such as supra, infra, ante, id, op cit, loc cit, contra or the vague phrase 'see above'.

Use ‘ibid’, which means ‘in the same place’ to repeat a reference in the footnote immediately before it. 

Cross referencing a law report

¹² Bradlaugh v Gossett (1884) 12 QBD 271.

¹³ ibid 274.

This means ‘in the same work, but this time at page 274’. Alternatively, you can repeat a reference by using ‘n’ to refer to an earlier footnote. For example:

¹² Bradlaugh v Gossett (1884) 12 QBD 271.

¹³ Foakes v Beer (1884) 9 App Cas 605, 611.

¹⁴ Bradlaugh (n 12) 274.

For subsequent citations of cases in the same short document or chapter of a long document, a short form of the case name is sufficient to identify the source. Subsequent citations of legislation may use abbreviations or other short forms.

Cross referencing a book

¹² W Strunk and EB White, The Elements of Style (3rd edn, Macmillan 1979) 16.

¹³ Foakes v Beer (1884) 9 App Cas 605, 611.

¹⁴ Strunk (n 12) 18.

Subsequent citations of secondary sources require only the author's surname, unless several works by the same author are being cited, in which case the surname and title of the work (or a short form of the title) should be given.

The second method can be used to refer to any earlier reference, and so can be used more widely than ‘ibid’. Whichever method you choose, it is important to be consistent and not switch back and forth between methods.

Follow the above principles for cross citation for other types of sources.

Please note: It is advisable only to cross reference in this way within shorter pieces of work or within distinct chapters of a longer piece of work such as a dissertation.  If you are citing from a footnote in a different chapter, or if you are unsure, repeat your footnote in full.

Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, OSCOLA: Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (4th edn Oxford University 2010) s 1.2.1.

Remove all full stops in the abbreviated law report title: All ER not All E.R.

Use the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations to find the preferred abbreviation for law journals but omit punctuation.

For example: Environmental Law Brief is abbreviated to ELB.

The Cardiff Index database will also provide the full title for an abbreviated law journal.

For example: IRLR full title is Industrial Relations Law Reports.
 

OR

Use the abbreviation shown in the publication itself, omitting any punctuation.

Where no preferred abbreviation is given, abbreviate titles using the guidance in the Appendix to the full OSCOLA guide, section 4.2.1.