OSCOLA Referencing

A brief introduction to OSCOLA referencing.
The Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA) is the preferred referencing style used by many institutions that offer courses in Law.
When you are asked to use OSCOLA referencing in your work you must reference your sources of information In footnotes and a bibliography.

Footnotes

• When citing another work in your Essay or Coursework, insert a small superscript number (eg 1) to signify a footnote.
• Insert the reference in the footnote at the bottom of the same page.
• In your footnote reference, refer to a specific page, or range of pages (eg 9-11) if appropriate (this is called 'pinpointing').
• If you do not insert appropriate pages in your footnotes you will lose marks.

It is worthwhile noting that Microsoft Word has an inbuilt facility for automatically inserting footnotes which can save time and effort.


Bibliography

• At the end of your essay or coursework include all your references in a bibliography.
• A bibliography should comprise a list of every source of information you have used in writing your  essay or coursework. This should also include sources you have used for background reading even if they have not been referred to directly in your essay or coursework.
• In your bibliography reference the information source as a whole, not specific pages. The footnotes at the end of each page will reference the precise page or range of pages.

The form of a Bibliography.

• Table of Cases
• Table of Legislation
• Bibliography (ie, all other secondary sources, such as books, journal and newspaper articles, official publications (eg Law Reports), online information (eg lectures by academics or judges), etc.)

Always ask your tutor which format you should follow in case they require a different version with Cases and Legislation being set out at the beginning of your essay or coursework.