Starting university can be daunting, with lots of new things to get to grips with…including citing and referencing! Citing and referencing is how you acknowledge the articles, books, cases, legislation and other resources that you used when creating your academic work. Accurate citing and referencing is good academic practice, it enhances the presentation of your work and can improve your marks.
Law students at City need to use OSCOLA (Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities) in their academic writing. This is a referencing system specially designed for legal resources such as cases and legislation.
At first glance, the OSCOLA rules can look quite confusing. However we have lots of resources available to help you. Here’s what you need to know:
We have a dedicated library guide entitled Citing and referencing for law. This guide contains support including:
- A three-part interactive tutorial on OSCOLA, including: how to cite and reference, how to avoid plagiarism and how to reference primary and secondary sources
- A guidance page containing specific examples of OSCOLA
- Further help: a listing of official OSCOLA documents and some useful resources created by other university libraries.
If you have looked at our online materials and are still stuck, you can make an appointment with one of our Law Librarians through our Law appointment form to discuss your particular OSCOLA query.