Tips for new postgraduate law students

© CollegeDegrees360. Licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Are you a new postgraduate law student at the University of Aberdeen?  Do you have assignments to submit?

Here are some practical advice before submission:

• Be careful when you cite others’ thoughts, ideas or work. To avoid plagiarism, you always have to acknowledge your sources. Follow the hyperlinks to read more about Plagiarism, Citing the law or the Code of Practice in Student Discipline.
• The School of Law expects every student to use OSCOLA (Oxford University Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities) citation style. If you want to cite international law sources, please see OSCOLA International guide (2006).
• Law Library Guides can also help you with citation or using legal databases:
  • OSCOLA (Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities) – quick guide
  • Common legal abbreviations
  • Westlaw UK – quick guide
  • Westlaw UK – cases
  • Westlaw Uk – legislation
  • Lexis®Library – key features
  • Lexis®Library – searching for case law
  • Lexis®Library – searching for articles in UK and international legal journals
• You will need a pink cover sheet for your printed essay. We have them in Taylor Library, check the Photocopy Area (opposite the Issue Desk).
• Finally, please remember that staff at our Help Desks are always available to help you.

Good luck with your assignments.

Taylor Library Team
lawlib@abdn.ac.uk

 

OSCOLA – Abbreviations commonly used in case names

When you are using OSCOLA referencing style, please remember that you can abbreviate common words and phrases in case names, i.e. use DPP for Director of Public Prosecutions or Co for Company.

The table below provides you with examples for abbreviations commonly used in case names. It is not a comprehensive list, so for abbreviations that are not in the list, please consult Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations database.

TIP! In OSCOLA, abbreviations do not have full stops.

Attorney General	A-G
Anonymous	Anon
Area Health Authority	AHA
British Broadcasting Corporation	BBC
Borough Council	BC
County Council	CC
Company	Co
Commissioner/Commissioners	Comr/Comrs
Co-operative	Co-op
Corporation	Corp
Crown Prosecution Service	CPS
District Council	DC
Department	Dept
Director of Public Prosecutions	DPP
European Communities	EC
Executor	Exor
Executrix	Exrx
Health Authority	HA
Her Majesty’s	HM
Incorporated	Inc
Inland Revenue Commissioners	IRC
London Borough Council	LBC
Limited	Ltd
public limited company	plc
The Queen (or King)	R
Rural District Council	RDC
Urban District Council	UDC
Vice-Chancellor	V-C

For more information, please read the following sections of  OSCOLA user guide (4th ed.): 1.6 Tables and lists of abbreviations, 1.6.1 Lists of abbreviations, 2.1.2. Case names and 4.2 Abbreviations.

Taylor Library Team
lawlib@abdn.ac.uk

 

 

OSCOLA – Citing journal articles: The dilemma of round and square brackets

Are you working on your first written assignment this academic year and getting confused with OSCOLA citation? This post helps you clarify which brackets – (round) or [square] – you should choose when you are citing a journal article.

The general rule is that you need to use square brackets around the year if the journal you are citing uses the year rather than a consecutive number to identify the volume. Here is a relevant example:

Meghan Campbell, ‘Reigniting the dialogue: the latest use of the notwithstanding clause in Canada’ [2018] Public Law 1

If there is a separate volume number available for the publication, please, use round brackets:

Emma Lees, ‘Title by Registration: Rectification, Indemnity and Mistake and the Land Registration Act 2002’ (2013) 76 Modern Law Review 62

To help you, we created a list of journals available in our collections, which use year identification, so you need to cite them with square brackets.
NOTE that this is not a comprehensive list!!!

• Acta Juridica
• British Tax Review
• Criminal Law Review
• International Family Law
• Journal of Business Law
• Journal of Personal Injury Litigation
• Journal of Planning and Environment Law
• Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
• Private Client Business
• Public Law

TIP! If you want to cite a forthcoming article, follow the exact same format you would with published journal articles but add ‘(forthcoming)’ following the citation. In case you do not have information about the volume or page numbers, simply omit that information.

If you want to learn more about journal citation, please read section 3.3.1 in the OSCOLA user guide for hard copy journals (page 37) and section 3.3.3 for forthcoming articles (page 38).

Don’t forget that you can also get help in Taylor Library, please visit our Help Desk from Monday to Friday between 09:00 -16.30.

Taylor Library Team
lawlib@abdn.ac.uk

 

OSCOLA – citing newspaper articles

In this post, we highlight those general rules of OSCOLA referencing style that you need to adhere to when you cite newspaper articles in your essay or dissertation.

The elements of the citation are as follows:

• Give the name of the author
• Then, the title of the article
• The name of the newspaper (in Italics)
• (the city of publication and the date) – in brackets
• The page number (if it is known) follows the brackets
• Web address (if the article published online only, and there is no page number available).

Examples

Jane Croft, ‘Daughter loses out to animal charities over mother’s will: Supreme Court ruling’ Financial Times (London, 16 March 2017) 3

Dan Sabbagh, ‘Cambridge Analytica predecessor had access to secret MoD information’ The Guardian (London, 29 March 2018) <https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/29/cambridge-analytica-predecessor-had-access-to-secret-mod-information> accessed 30 March 2018

Tip!

• Be careful, some newspapers have the definite article, ‘The’ in their title, others do not. Make sure that you use the correct name of the newspaper.
• If your reference is to an editorial, cite the author as ‘Editorial’.

For more information, please see Page 42 in the OSCOLA user guide or visit us in the Taylor Library & EDC.

Taylor Library Team
lawlib@abdn.ac.uk

OSCOLA – citing hard copy journal articles

 

If the article is available in print copy as well as online, cite the hard copy version. There is no need to cite an electronic source for such a publication.

The elements of citation are as follows:

• Cite the author’s name first (followed by a coma)
• Give the ‘title of the article’ (within single quotation marks)
• Year of publication [in square brackets if it identifies the volume] or (in round brackets if there is a separate volume number)
• The volume number if there is one
• The name of the journal (in full or abbreviated form – with no full stops)
• And the first page of the article.

Examples:

Carmen Draghici, ‘Immigration Tribunal fees as a barrier to access to justice and substantive human rights protection for children’ [2017] PL 1

John Gardner, ‘The Negligence Standard: Political not Methaphysical’ (2017) 80 MLR 1

Tip! Put a coma after the first page of the article if there is a pinpoint:

JAG Griffith, ‘The Common Law and the Political Constitution’ (2001) 117 LQR 42, 64.

For more information, please see page 37 in the OSCOLA user guide or visit us in the Taylor Library & EDC.

Taylor Library Team
lawlib@abdn.ac.uk

 

 

Tip of the Day: OSCOLA – Subsequent citation of a case

In the following example, we demonstrate the subsequent citation of a case. The short form of the case name must be sufficient to identify the source.

If the full name of the case is given in the text e.g. AWB Limited v Honourable Terence Rhoderic Hudson Cole, the citation is provided in footnotes as follows:

⁷⁴ [2006] FCA 571.
…
⁷⁶ AWB Limited (n. 74).

Interpreting the footnotes:

⁷⁴ As the name of the case is given in your text, it is not given in the footnote.
…
⁷⁶ For subsequent citation, a short form of the case is sufficient to identify the source along with a cross-citation to the full citation.

Note that it is also acceptable to give the full citation every time a source is cited, and the Law School may prefer this to the use of short forms. Always consult your supervisor or course coordinator if you are uncertain about referencing and citing using OSCOLA.

For more information, see Page 5 in the OSCOLA user guide. For more OSCOLA examples, please follow the link here.

Taylor Library Staff
lawlib@abdn.ac.uk

 

OSCOLA – Tables and lists

Tip! You should always consult your course coordinator regarding the requirement to include tables of primary legal materials in your work. However, the general rule is that shorter works, such as articles and essays, only require footnotes.

At the end of a longer work (e.g. book, dissertation or thesis) you have to include the followings in this order:

• List of abbreviations
• Tables:
  • table(s) of cases
  • table(s) of legislation
  • tables other primary legal resources

• Bibliography of secondary resources

As this post concentrates on the Tables only, you can find useful tips and a few examples here.

Table of cases

• Cases should be listed in alphabetical order of first significant word (except EU cases if they are divided by jurisdiction).
• Case names are not italicized.
• Unless there is a very small number of cases, divide the table into separate sections for different jurisdictions.

Example:
Assange v Sweden [2012] UKSC 22, [2012] 2 AC 471
Brightcrew Ltd. V City of Glasgow Licensing Board [2011] CSIH 46, 2012 SC 67
De Keyser’s Royal Hotel, Re [1920] AC 508
Hunter v Fox 1964 SC (HL) 95

Table of legislation

• List every statute cited in your work. Legislation should be listed in alphabetical order of first significant word of the title (not chronologically by date of enactment!)
• Statutory Instruments should be listed separately, at the end of the statues. But, if you have a large number of citations of statutory instruments, it may be helpful to have wholly separate tables of statues and statutory instruments.
• If legislation from more than one jurisdiction is cited, it may be helpful to have separate lists for each jurisdiction.

Example:
Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 (asp 12)
Defamation Act 2013
Fur Farming (Prohibition) Act 2000
High Hedges (Scotland) Act 2013 (asp 6)
Marriage (Scotland) Act 1977

Civil Legal Aid (Costs) Regulations 2013, SI 2013/611
Act of Sederunt (Lands Valuation Appeal Court) 2013, SSI 2013/161
Zoonoses (Monitoring) (Scotland) Regulations 2007, SSI 2007/420

Other tables

• Table of international treaties and conventions,
• Table of UN documents,
• Table of official papers,
• Table of policy documents.

For more information, please see pp. 10-12 in the OSCOLA user guide.

Taylor Library Team
lawlib@abdn.ac.uk

 

Tip of the Day: OSCOLA – Bibliographies

 A bibliography lists all the secondary sources you cited in your essay or dissertation. It should be provided at the end of your work – after the main body of text, any appendices, and tables of primary sources that you have referred to.
Works in a bibliography are arranged in alphabetical order by the surname of
the first author.

Please note that references in a bibliography should include:

• The author’s surname followed by his or her initial(s), with no comma
  separating them, but a comma after the final initial.
• Only initials should be used.
• Where there are more than 3 authors, give the first author followed by
  the phrase ‘and others’.
• Titles of unattributed works should be preceded by a double em-dash
  (— — title of work).

——————————————————————————————

Examples

Citation in a footnote:
¹⁵ Elisabeth Fisher, Risk Regulation and Administrative Constitutionalism
(Hart Publishing 2007) 15.

Citation in the bibliography:
Fisher E, Risk Regulation and Administrative Constitutionalism
(Hart Publishing 2007).

For more information, see pages 11-12 in the OSCOLA User Guide or consult the Library’s quick guide on citing legal authorities.

Taylor Library Team
lawlib@abdn.ac.uk