OSCOLA

Oxford Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA)

There are two golden rules for the citation of legal authorities. One is consistency. The other is consideration for the reader. Legal writing is more persuasive when the author refers to legal materials in a clear, consistent and familiar way.

The Oxford Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA) is designed to help the author to achieve consistency and to make life easier for the reader.

OSCOLA does not purport to be comprehensive, but gives rules and examples for the main UK legal primary sources, and for many types of secondary sources. As far as possible, the guidelines in OSCOLA are based on common practice in UK legal citation.

OSCOLA is a guide to legal citation, not a style guide. For advice on punctuation, grammar and writing style, use the most recent editions of Fowler’s Modern English Usage, The Oxford English Dictionary, and Hart’s Rules. Hart’s Rules is particularly useful for information about typographical conventions.

Rules:

Subsequent citations of legislation may use abbreviations or other short forms.

Punctuation: OSCOLA uses as little punctuation as possible. Abbreviations and initials in author’s names do not take full stops.For example, Appeal Cases is cited as ‘AC’ and the Director of Public Prosecutions is abbreviated to ‘DPP’.

Foreign words: Commonly used abbreviations, such as ie and eg, are not italicized and have no full stops.

Citing foreign materials: When referring to foreign materials, cite primary sources as in their home jurisdiction, with the exception that full stops in abbreviations should be dropped.

Lists of abbreviations. In an article or essay, define unfamiliar abbreviations in a footnote or in the text. In a book or thesis, define unfamiliar abbreviations in a list of abbreviations in the preliminary pages. Do not define abbreviations that are part of everyday legal usage, such as ‘DPP’.

lists of abbreviations: A longer legal work, such as a book or a thesis, generally has a list of abbreviations of all the cases, legislation and other primary legal sources cited in the work in the preliminary pages. Shorter works, such as articles and essays, generally only require footnotes. In an article or essay, define unfamiliar abbreviations in a footnote or in the text. In a book or thesis, define unfamiliar abbreviations in a list of abbreviations in the preliminary pages.

The list of abbreviations should come before the tables, and the order of the tables should generally be: table of cases; table of legislation; other tables.

Cases from England and Wales. General principles. There are no full stops in the abbreviations: hence ‘UKHL’ rather than ‘U.K.H.L.’ and ‘AC’ rather than ‘A.C.’

Subsequent history of a case: The subsequent history of a case may be indicated after the primary citation by abbreviating ‘affirmed’ to ‘affd’ and ‘reversed’ to ‘revd’. These abbreviations refer to the decision in the primary citation.

Parts of statutes: The relevant abbreviations are:
part/parts: pt/pts
section/sections: s/ss
subsection/subsections: sub-s/sub-ss
paragraph/paragraphs: para/paras
subparagraph/subparagraphs: subpara/subparas
schedule/schedules: sch/schs

Parts of statutory instruments: The rules for referring to parts of statutory instruments mirror those for referring to parts of statutes. In addition to those given above for parts of statutes, use the following abbreviations:
regulation/regulations: reg/regs
rule/rules: r/rr
article/articles: art/arts
In the case of the Civil Procedure Rules, omit the abbreviations ‘r’ and ‘rr’.

EU legislation: in a footnote use using ‘Reg’ and ‘Dir’ as abbreviations.

Cases from other jurisdictions: Cite cases from other jurisdictions as they are cited in their own jurisdiction, but without any full stops in abbreviations.

Legislation from other jursidictions: Cite legislation from other jurisdictions as it is cited in its own jurisdiction, but without any full stops in abbreviations.

Journal abbreviations: Abbreviations do vary, so choose an abbreviation and stick with it throughout your work.

Abbreviations of the names of law reports and journals: Define abbreviations in a list at the beginning of a book or thesis (with the exceptions provided in OCLA).