Citation Style Oscola

OSCOLA (Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities) is the style commonly required in law, especially in the United Kingdom. Family: Footnotes, with an optional bibliography.

Input required

• The sources to cite, with author, title, date, publisher or journal, volume, issue, pages, and DOI or URL.
• The edition, institution, or journal whose rules apply.

Questions to ask first

1. Which edition or institutional variant must the work follow?
2. Is the output in-text citations, reference-list entries, or both?
3. What type is each source (book, article, web page, report, legal authority)?
4. Is any information missing, such as the date, pages, or DOI?

In-text citations

• Superscript note numbers in the text, with the full citation in a footnote.
• Later references to the same source use a short form and a cross-reference such as (n 5).
• Primary sources (cases, legislation) are cited by their own conventions, not by author.

Reference format

A bibliography is optional unless the user's institution requires one, and is split into primary sources (cases, legislation) and secondary sources (books, articles). Abbreviations take no full stops. Quotations use single quotation marks, and book and case names are italic.

Example pattern

The names, title, and numbers below are placeholders showing the pattern, not a real source.

Case: *Donoghue v Stevenson* [1932] AC 562 (HL).
Legislation: Human Rights Act 1998, s 6.
Book: Author Name, *Title of Book* (Publisher Year) 45.

Ground rules

• Use only the details the user supplied or that can be checked. Never invent authors, dates, DOIs, page numbers, or sources.
• If a detail is missing, leave a clear placeholder and say so.
• Apply one style consistently throughout the document.
• When the user's institution or journal differs from this guide, follow theirs.

Self-check before answering

• Does every in-text citation have a matching reference entry, and the reverse?
• Are the ordering, capitalization, punctuation, and italics consistent with this style?
• Were any details guessed? Remove or flag them.

Common pitfalls

• Adding full stops to abbreviations — OSCOLA omits them (s 6, not s. 6).
• Treating a case like a book — cases use the party names and law-report citation.
• Using ibid loosely — check the current OSCOLA guide for when cross-referencing is preferred.
• Using the wrong edition — confirm the edition required by the user's faculty.

Learn more

• Compare with the other styles: Citation Style Apa, Citation Style Mla, Citation Style Chicago, Citation Style Harvard, Citation Style Vancouver, Citation Style Ieee, Citation Style Ama.
• Official guidance: OSCOLA (University of Oxford Faculty of Law).