OSCOLA Fifth Edition Simplified citations and the end of Latin shortcuts for law students.
The 5th edition finally kills off ibid, supra, op cit and the rest of the Latin shortcuts. They confused too many readers, and Word’s autocorrect kept ruining them. Now, if you need to cite something again, just give it a short name and point back to the original footnote.
§Cases: Bangladesh and UK
Courts assign neutral citations (like [2008] UKHL 13) so you don’t have to hunt down specific printed law reports. If a case has one, write it first, then add the best report. For older cases before the internet era, just put the court in brackets instead, like (AD). Italicise the case name. To point to an exact spot, use square brackets [ ] for a paragraph and a plain number for a page.
§Constitution and legislation
Name the Act and its year, then point to the exact part. Use art for an article and s for a section. OSCOLA hates full stops, so you should never put a dot inside these short words.
§Books and articles
Write the author as forename surname. A book’s title is in italics, but an article’s title is in ‘single quotes’. For journals, follow this sequence: author, ‘title’ (year) volume(issue) journal abbreviation first page. Use (Round brackets) if the journal has a separate volume number, or [Square brackets] if it does not. Always abbreviate the journal name with no full stops.
§Websites and digital sources
Give the author, the title in quotes, the website name in italics, the date in brackets, and the web address in angle brackets. For a normal link, end with accessed [date]. A permanent link (Perma.cc) or a DOI does not need an accessed date.
§Treaties and international law
Name: the treaty’s full title from its first page. Drop the countries if more than three signed. Dates: when it was agreed, then when it began to apply, or “not yet in force”. Where to find it: the treaty series. Prefer UNTS, or a national series if it isn’t in UNTS. Nickname: a short form in brackets, like ICCPR, so you don’t have to type the full title ever again.
§Punctuation: the three rules
Punctuation trips everyone up, but three rules cover almost everything: A footnote always ends with a full stop. Short abbreviations like art or s never take a dot inside them. And a bibliography entry never gets a full stop at the end.
The stop comes after the very last thing: a page, a link, or the accessed date.
Write art, not art. Write AD, not A.D. The only stop is the one that ends the footnote.
Entries in the bibliography and in tables of cases stop with no full stop.
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