Example Essay with OSCOLA Referencing

Introduction

This short essay will explain the way in which the Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities, or OSCOLA, referencing method is used for the citation of legal references in the academic discipline of law.  Proficiency with the OSCOLA method is an essential element of the academic study of law.  This guide will be helpful for anyone studying, or intending to study law, or for those who may have a need to consult legal texts in any other context.

The OSCOLA Method

Law is somewhat unique as an academic discipline as the range of sources which might be required to be cited and examined are not restricted to secondary sources such as journal articles or texts alone (although these play vitally important roles in almost all forms of legal scholarship and study).  In addition, the law student, legal academic, or professional lawyer must, out of necessity, also consult specialist legal sources, typically in the form of case law (law reports) and legislation. 

The OSCOLA method was developed by the scholar, Peter Birks, in the year 2000 in a consultation project with academics and law students at the University of Oxford, which aimed at establishing an in-house University model for citation of legal sources specifically.¹  With adoption of the method by the Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal, the OSCOLA method designed by Birks obtained wider attention over time, and has subsequently become the standard form of referencing method for legal study in universities across the UK and around the commonwealth and other common law states.²   The popularity of the OSCOLA referencing model is largely due to the fact that it was designed expressly with the citation of legal source materials.³

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This is aided by the fact that there is guidance provided for over a wide range of various types of source materials such as Command Papers, Research Briefings and so on which might be sought to be relied upon in a given study or piece of research.⁴   For a law student or other legal academic this is incredibly helpful because it is possible to refer to the OSCOLA Referencing Guide, which provides for a list of different type of sources which might be encountered, before providing an exemplar for the work’s citation in both the footnotes of the text itself, and in the bibliography.  Over the years, Birks, and subsequently a team of other academics such as Timothy Endacott and Sandra Meredith have continued to update the OSCOLA guide, so that new forms of media and sources such as online sources, websites, blogs and so on all have guidance provided for ensuring that consistency is retained even as technology and methods of legal study change.⁵   In addition to this, the OSCOLA method is a memorable, easy to use, and easy to learn method of legal citation which is intuitively designed given the way in which law students learn to read legal sources such as case-law in the course of their studies in any event.

Secondary Sources

The OSCOLA method, as noted above, is a system built on the use of in-text footnote citations followed by a bibliography.  As is provided for by Para 1.1. of the fourth edition of OSCOLA, published in 2012, the author using this method is expected to provide evidence of their claims by citing sources used in the footnotes.⁶   Citations for secondary sources are provided whenever work is either cited directly, or paraphrased.  This is the same irrespective of the type of source (whether primary or secondary) cited.⁷   No in-text citation is used; this is typically popular for law students working within a strict word count, particularly when text included in the footnotes is not counted, as it allows for greater discussion of topics of importance as well as simplifying the counting itself.  Footnotes are placed at the end of the sentence which the reference appears in, unless, for the sake of clarity, it is necessary to place the footnote at the end of the word or phrase which is cited; this is typically the case if two references or more are required to be used within a single sentence.  In the footnotes themselves, it is sometimes necessary to cite more than one source for a single citation, and where this is done, a semicolon is used to separate the two or more sources.  Where a specific word or sentence in a secondary source is used, then OSCOLA requires the use of ‘pinpointing’; this is where the precise sentence, word, or phrase used by an author is either replicated or paraphrased.  In such a case, the pinpoint in the footnote would specify the page of the text on which the reference was set out.  In a hypothetical example, the researcher might write something like “Dixon argues that the law of landlord and tenant is something of a misnomer”.  For a journal article such a pinpoint would appear as follows:

Dixon M, ‘Landlord and Tenant Law in Context’ (2023) 4 Conv 307, 307.⁸

Here, the author’s surname is set out first, followed by his or her first initial, and the title of the article then included, within a single quotation mark.  The year of the article is given, the volume and title of the journal (or its abbreviation, such as Conv. for the Conveyancer and Property Lawyer) and the starting page of the journal article in question is given.  The second number (307) is the pinpoint in this case of the page on which the sentence referred to is to be found.

Primary Sources: Case Law and Legislation

Under the OSCOLA method, case law is simply cited by a footnote following the sentence setting out the title of an Act of Parliament or other piece of legislation.  For example, the Human Rights Act 1998 is cited in the footnote as ‘Human Rights Act 1998’ and any reference to a specific section or clause of legislation is set out before this.⁹   Section 2 of the Human Rights Act 1998, for example, would be cited in the footnotes as ‘s2 Human Rights Act 1998’.¹⁰

When citing case law, OSCOLA requires the following.  The first time a case is referenced, the full name of the case (typically the parties names) is set out in text, in italics.  The reference, in the form of a footnote is then provided, typically at the end of the sentence, but, as above, after the final word in the reference if needed for clarity purposes such as if two or more references are also cited in the same sentence.  After the first citation of a case, subsequent references to that case are indicated by use in text of only the first name in the case, in italics, followed by a footnote.  As an example, a student might cite a case as follows;

“Ever since the case of Donoghue v Stevenson it has been established that a person owes a duty of care to their neighbour at law”.¹¹

Following the first citation of the case, such as set out above, the writer can then simply refer to the case by writing something like: “The Donoghue case continues to be influential”.  As is the case with secondary sources, whenever a specific quotation from a judgment in a particular case is used, then OSCOLA requires this to be ‘pinpointed’ in the footnote.  This is particularly useful for directing the reader to the ratio decidendi of a given judgment, or to highlight comments made obiter dicta by a judge, such as in a dissenting judgment in an appellate court’s judgment.  Where this happens, the footnote will include the case name, the law report in which the judgment in question is set out, followed by the surname of the judge cited, and their judicial title at the time of the judgment.  The page number of the law report which the sentence, paragraph, or word cited or referred to is located on is then cited.  This is unless the writer is using the ‘neutral reference’ of the case in which case the specific paragraph number ought to be used in square brackets as below:

“In the case of R v Woolin, Lord Steyn held that the direction given to the jury in Nedrick was wrong, as it “blurred the line between intention and recklessness”’.¹²

The footnote for the above reference would require the following: firstly, the name of the case would be set out in italics.  Following this, the law report which the judgment was recorded in and which was being used would be cited.  Finally, the name of the judge, followed by an abbreviation of his judicial title, and the page on which the statement was set out in that report would be included.  In the above example, the statement referred to is that of Lord Steyn (at the time a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, or Law-Lord in common parlance sitting in the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords) contained on page 95 of the 1st volume of the Appeal Cases from the year 1989 (the case was heard by the court in 1998, but only reported in the Appeal Cases the following year).  The footnote would appear as follows;

“R v Woolin [1989] 1 AC 82 (Steyn L) 95”.

Conclusion

As can be seen above, the OSCOLA method provides a clear set of rules for the citation of legal and other sources.  As a method designed specifically for the citation of legal sources such as case law and statute, this referencing system is the most suitable format for use in the study and writing of law, or in any type of work in which legal sources might need to be cited.

¹ Donal Nolan, Sandra Meredith, OSCOLA: The Oxford University Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities (4th edn OUP 2012).
² Sandra Meredith, ‘Oscola, a UK Standard for Legal Citation’ (2011) 11 Legal Information Management 111, 111.
³ Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities: Fourth Edition’ (2012), available at; accessed 18 December 2023.
⁴ ibid.
⁵ Sandra Meredith, ‘Oscola, a UK Standard for Legal Citation’ (2011) 11 Legal Information Management 111, 111.
⁶ Para 1.1. ‘Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities: OSCOLA, Fourth Edition’ (2012) available at; accessed December 18 2023.
⁷ ibid.
⁸ Martin Dixon, ‘Landlord and Tenant Law in Context’ (2023) 4 Conv. 307, 307.
⁹ Human Rights Act 1998.
¹⁰ ibid s2.
¹¹ Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 (HL).
¹² R v Woolin [1989] 1 AC 82 (Steyn L) 95.

Bibliography

Table of Cases

Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 (HL).

R v Woolin [1989] 1 AC 82.

Legislation

Human Rights Act 1998.

Secondary Sources

Dixon M, ‘Landlord and Tenant Law in Context’ (2023) 4 Conv. 307.

Meredith S, ‘Oscola, a UK Standard for Legal Citation’ (2011) 11 Legal Information Management 111.

Nolan D, Meredith S, OSCOLA: The Oxford University Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities (4th edn OUP 2012).

Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities: OSCOLA, Fourth Edition’ (2012) available at; accessed December 18 2023.