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How do I cite speeches using OSCOLA?

You can find how to cite speeches using OSCOLA on the OSCOLA FAQs page . You may also want to check the law referencing page  for further support resources. If you have any particular questions relating to OSCOLA, you can email [email protected] or book a one-to-one appointment with an experienced member of the library staff. 

• Referencing
• Last Updated Nov 30, 2021
• Answered By Ai Gooch

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OSCOLA (Law) Referencing Guide

• Help and Support
• Pinpointing
• Subsequent citations and cross references: using ibid and n
• Order of Authors
• Bibliography
• Understanding Legal Citations
• European Court of Human Rights
• UK Legislation - Primary Legislation
• UK Legislation (Secondary Legislation)
• Books, eBooks, Pace Codes
• Edited Book
• Journal Articles
• Legal Encyclopaedias
• Official Publications (Government Publications)
• Webpages and Social Media
• OSCOLA FAQs

To cite a speeches use the following format:

Author, 'Title' (additional information, publisher year)

Include the url (web address) and date of access if it is helpful for finding the speech. 

Footnote examples:

Stavros Dimas, EU Environment Commissioner, 'Improving Environmental Quality through Carbon Trading' (Speech at the Carbon Expo Conference, Köln, 2 May 2007) <http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/07/265> accessed 29 May 2011.

Lord Bingham, ‘Keynote Address’ (Liberty conference, London, 6 June 2009) < www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/publications/3-articles-and-speeches/index.shtml> accessed 19 November 2009.

Bibliography:

The only differences are that the author is now listed surname first followed by their initials, page numbers are not included and there is no full stop at the end of the reference.

Dimas S, EU Environment Commissioner, 'Improving Environmental Quality through Carbon Trading' (Speech at the Carbon Expo Conference, Köln, 2 May 2007) <http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/07/265> accessed 29 May 2011

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• Last Updated: Oct 4, 2024 8:14 AM
• URL: https://libguides.solent.ac.uk/OSCOLA_guide

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• Referencing
• A Quick Guide to OSCOLA Referencing | Rules & Examples

A Quick Guide to OSCOLA Referencing | Rules & Examples

Published on 28 February 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on 5 May 2022.

The Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA) is a referencing style used by students and academics in law.

OSCOLA referencing places citations in footnotes, which are marked in the text with footnote numbers:

The judge referred to the precedent established by Caulfield v Baldwin . 1

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Table of contents

Citing sources with oscola footnotes, oscola referencing examples, oscola tables and bibliography.

A citation footnote appears whenever you quote from, paraphrase or otherwise refer to the content of a source in your text.

A footnote is marked in the text with a footnote number, which appears at the end of the relevant sentence or clause. The number is displayed in superscript (i.e. 1) and appears after any punctuation like a comma or full stop:

These footnotes contain full information on the source cited. The format in which you present this information varies according to the type of source; examples are presented in the following section. A footnote always ends with a full stop:

Standard abbreviations

To save space in OSCOLA citations, abbreviations are used for the names of various publications and legal bodies.

For example, ‘UKSC’ is the United Kingdom Supreme Court, and ‘Cr App R’ refers to the Criminal Appeal Reports.

A full, searchable index of these abbreviations can be found here .

Pinpointing

In OSCOLA referencing, referring to a specific page number within a source is called pinpointing. To pinpoint, simply include a page number at the end of your reference, in addition to any page numbers already included.

For example, in the following citation, the first number refers to the page on which the report begins , while the second number pinpoints the passage you’re referring to :

Where available, paragraph numbers should be used instead of page numbers. Only do this if paragraph numbers are explicitly used in the text. Paragraph numbers appear in square brackets and can be used for pinpointing in the same way as page numbers:

Note that if you’re pinpointing a judge’s comments within a case report, you include the name of the judge, and some special terms and abbreviations are used in the citation and in the text.

If the judge is a peer, refer to them as ‘Lord’, e.g. Lord Williams. If they are a Lord/Lady Justice, use ‘LJ’, e.g. Williams LJ. If neither of these is the case, use ‘J’ for judge, e.g. Williams J:

Cross-referencing repeated citations of the same source

OSCOLA uses a system of cross-referencing to save space when you repeatedly cite the same source. This means that for subsequent references of a source, you don’t have to repeat the full citation.

When you refer to the same source you have just referred to (i.e. when the previous footnote was also about that source), you can simply use ‘ibid’ (Latin for ‘in the same place’):

In this example, the second footnote also refers to Davis v Dignam, but to page 522 instead of page 519.

When the previous reference to the source was in an earlier footnote (i.e. when other citations appear in between), use the author’s last name or the title (shortened if it’s a longer title), followed by the number of the previous citation (in brackets and preceded by ‘n’), then the page number you’re pinpointing (if different than the first citation):

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OSCOLA provides formats for a variety of source types. The most common ones are covered below.

Case reports

When citing a case, you’ll usually begin with a neutral citation – a way of referring to the case that does not relate to a particular report – and then give the details of the report afterwards. If no neutral citation exists, as with cases before 2002, you can just begin with the report.

Additionally, note that the year (for the report) is displayed differently depending on whether it is essential to the citation. For reports where each year is also identified with a volume number, the year appears in normal brackets. For those where multiple volumes appear in one year, the year appears in square brackets.

• Case report with neutral citation
• Case report with no neutral citation

Acts of Parliament

Use a short version of the title if the full title is longer than three words. If necessary, refer to specific parts of an Act of Parliament using section, subsection and paragraph numbers.

Statutory instruments

Statutory instruments (SIs) are numbered consecutively throughout the year; it’s this number that appears at the end of the citation – the example below is the 149th SI of 2020.

House of Commons bills are cited slightly differently from House of Lords bills. You write ‘HC Bill’ or ‘HL Bill’ depending upon which house it is, and bill numbers for Commons bills appear in square brackets.

• House of Commons bill
• House of Lords bill

Hansard is the official transcript of parliamentary debates in the UK. As with bills, write ‘HC’ for the House of Commons and ‘HL’ for the House of Lords. ‘Deb’ is short for ‘debate’, ‘vol’ for volume, and ‘col’ for column.

Use the full name of the author(s) as written in the source. List the edition (abbreviated to ‘edn’) when it is stated on the title page. Note that OSCOLA recommends abbreviating ‘Oxford University Press’ to ‘OUP’; this is not the case with other publishers.

Certain older books are listed by OSCOLA as ‘works of authority’ and given special abbreviated citations. For example, the following is a citation of volume 3, page 75 of Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England :

OSCOLA provides a list of these abbreviations in their full guide , section 4.2.3.

Journal articles

As with case reports, square brackets are used for years in a journal citation if the year also identifies the volume; normal brackets are used when there are multiple volumes in a year.

Note that standard abbreviations are also used for journal names; here ‘MLR’ refers to Modern Law Review.

In a longer work, such as a thesis or dissertation , OSCOLA requires you to include tables listing any cases and legislation you cited, as well as a bibliography listing any secondary sources . For shorter essays, this is usually not necessary, but do check your institution’s guidelines.

The tables and bibliography appear at the end of your text. The table of cases comes first, followed by the table of legislation, and then the bibliography.

Sources are listed in alphabetical order within each table and in the bibliography.

Table of cases

Cases are written in a similar format here and in the main text; the only difference is the names of the parties involved are not italicised in the table of cases:

Table of legislation

The table of legislation includes all legal sources used other than cases – for example, bills, Acts of Parliament and SIs. Items in the table of legislation are listed in identical form to how they are cited in the text.

Bibliography

A bibliography lists all your secondary sources – that is, everything other than cases and legislation. For example, here you would list Hansard , any books and journal articles cited, and other sources such as blogs, social media and newspapers.

Bibliography entries differ from citations in terms of their presentation of the author’s name. Author names in the bibliography are inverted, and initials are used in place of the first name:

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

Caulfield, J. (2022, May 05). A Quick Guide to OSCOLA Referencing | Rules & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 11 November 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/referencing/oscola/

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OSCOLA referencing guide (Online)

How does oscola work, the oscola referencing style.

• Paraphrasing
• Repeating Citations
• Secondary Referencing
• Bibliography
• Referencing Tools
• Books with one author
• Books with Two or Three Authors
• Books with Four or more Authors
• Chapter in an Edited Book
• Editor or Translator
• Author & Editor or Translator
• Encyclopaedias
• Books of Authority
• Cases with Neutral Citation
• Cases without neutral citation
• Unreported Cases
• Cases before 1865
• Judges' Names
• Scot, NI & International
• Parts of Statutes
• Statutory Instruments
• Journal Articles
• Forthcoming Articles
• Working Papers
• Newspaper Articles
• Hansard & Select Committee reports
• Command Papers
• Law Commission Reports
• Official reports
• Official Publications
• Legislation
• ECJ & GC cases
• Decisions of the European Commission
• European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) cases
• Websites & Blogs
• Personal Communications
• Press Release
• Podcasts & Youtube videos
• Insight & LPC
• Copyright statement

The OSCOLA style is a footnote referencing system. This means it consists of three elements.

• Citation   - When you acknowledge a source in the text, you place a footnote marker 1 at the end of the relevant sentence. If you have several references in close together, the number can be placed at the end of the relevant phrase or word. 
• Footnote - This is the reference that appears at the bottom of the guide. These should be brief as they should identify the source, not provide additional information.
• Bibliography - A list of all the sources you have cited in your work. This should be provided at the end of the essay.

Whenever you paraphrase or quote a source or use the ideas of another person, you need to provide a reference in a footnote.  Your footnotes should be numbered continuously through your document, starting at 1 .

You don't always need a footnote for legislation if you have provided sufficient information about the legislation within the text.

Oxford University developed OSCOLA ( O xford U niversity S tandard f or C itation o f L egal A uthorities) in 2000 for use within Oxford University. OSCOLA is now the industry standard for referencing legal materials. It is used by many UK  and International law schools as well as by many legal journals and publishers. It is the style approved for use by the College of Law at Swansea University.  OSCOLA is designed to encourage consistency and to help the reader find the necessary information easily and quickly.

OSCOLA does not claim 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 but with a minimum of punctuation.

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• Last Updated: Aug 22, 2024 10:50 AM
• URL: https://libguides.swansea.ac.uk/Oscola

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Citing and referencing for Law

Oscola handbook.

• Citing and referencing guidance
• Citing examples
• Further help

The OSCOLA Handbook is available online and in a print format which can be found in the Library. 

The OSCOLA Handbook (PDF) .

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• Last Updated: Sep 25, 2024 12:36 PM
• URL: https://libguides.city.ac.uk/citingandreferencinglaw