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Referencing

Style notes | AGLC3

Bibliography | Style notes

See AGLC rule 1.16. in the Australian Guide to Legal Citation 3rd edition.

  • A bibliography appears at the end of a piece of written work and lists all the material used or relied upon in producing that work, whether cited in the footnotes or not.
  • Note that a shorter form of bibliography lists only the materials actually cited in the footnotes. This short form of bibliography is sometimes called a 'list of references'.
  • If a bibliography is used, group items in alphabetical order, under the following headings (where applicable):
  1. Articles/Books/Reports
  2. Cases
  3. Legislation
  4. Treaties
  5. Other
  • Consult the relevant subject learning guide and, if still in doubt, the relevant subject coordinator as to whether a bibliography is required for a particular piece of assessment in a subject.
  • Honours theses require a bibliography.
  • For articles and books, include the information that is included in footnotes (see below), except that:
  1. the author's surname should appear first, followed by a comma and then the author's first name or initial, and
  2. pinpoint references should not appear.

Sources

Atiyah, P S, The Damages Lottery (Hart Publishing, 1997)

Dworkin, Ronald, Law's Empire (Fontana, 1986)

Johnson, David R and David G Post, 'Law and Borders - The Rise of Law in Cyberspace' (1996) 48 Stanford Law Review 1367

Citing quoted material | Style notes

See AGLC rule 1.3. in the Australian Guide to Legal Citation 3rd edition.

  • Sometimes the material you want to cite is itself quoted in a book or article that you actually have in front of you.
  • For example, you may be reading Smith and see that she quotes a passage from Palam, and it is the quote from Palam that you want to cite in your own work.
  • In the above situation, you should normally try to get hold of the original text (here Palam) so that you will be able to cite it directly.
  • However, sometimes it is not reasonably feasible to locate the original text, and so you will need to make do with the original text as it has been quoted in the secondary text (here Smith).
  • Where this is the case, you should give as full a reference (following AGLC style) to the original text as you can glean from the secondary text, then use the words 'quoted in', and then give the normal reference to the secondary text.
  • Providing this information allows your reader to know what the original text is that you are citing and to try to obtain it themselves, rather than rely on your second-hand quotation.
  • It is misleading and potentially deceptive to cite only the original source (Palam) as if you have consulted it directly when you have only consulted the secondary source (Smith).
  • This also applies to a case referred to in a book or journal article e.g.

Commercial Bank of Australia v Amadio (1983) 151 CLR 447 quoted in Elizabeth Ellis, Principles and Practice of Australian Law (Thomson Reuters, 2nd ed, 2009) 205-206.

  • To do so is inadequate and risks charges of plagiarism because you are not revealing your actual source.
  • It also may not be adequate simply to say 'Palam, as cited in Smith' where you give proper details of Smith but no further available information about Palam. This practice would be acceptable only if Smith him or herself had failed to provide the appropriate information about the source of the Palam quotation.
  • You can use 'ibid' in the usual way to refer back to previously cited material from which the currently cited material was taken.

Sources

F A Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960) 153, quoted in Jeremy Waldron, The Law (Routledge, 1990 ) 51.

Ngaire Naffine, Law's Meaning of Life: Philosophy, Religion, Darwin and the Legal Person (Hart Publishing, 2009).

Steven Wise, Rattling the Cage: Towards Legal Rights for Animals (Perseus Books, 2000), quoted in ibid 131.

Footnotes | Style notes

See AGLC rules 1.1 - 1.4. in the Australian Guide to Legal Citation 3rd edition.

  • Use footnotes for citations.
  • Do not use endnotes.
  • Do not insert citation details in the text in parentheses. (See AGLC rule 1.1. in the Australian Guide to Legal Citation 3rd edition).
  • Within the footnotes, use 'Ibid' (meaning 'the same') if the source and pinpoint reference in the immediately preceding footnote is the same source and pinpoint being cited in the current footnote. (The 'pinpoint' is the particular page, paragraph, chapter, etc to which you refer.)
    If the source is the same but the pinpoint reference differs, put 'Ibid' and then the relevant new pinpoint reference. (See AGLC rule 1.4.1. in the Australian Guide to Legal Citation 3rd edition).
  • Do not use 'id', 'op cit', etc.
  • If the source being cited has been cited in an earlier footnote but not in the immediately preceding footnote, then use the author's surname and 'above' to refer to that previous citation, e.g. 'Smith, above n 6'. (See AGLC rule 1.4.2.)
  • Where multiple sources have been cited in a footnote, and in the immediately succeeding footnote you want to cite only one of those sources, then use the 'above n' approach. Do not use 'ibid' plus the author's name. (See AGLC rule 1.4.2. in the Australian Guide to Legal Citation 3rd edition).
  • When referring to a subsequent passage or footnote, use 'below'.
  • Do not use 'supra' and 'infra'.
  • Put a full stop at the end of each footnote.

Sources

S Atiyah, The Damages Lottery (Hart Publishing, 1997) 27.

Ronald Dworkin, Law's Empire (Fontana, 1986) ch 6.

W R Cornish, The Jury (Penguin Books, 1971) 112; Simon Lee, Judging Judges (Faber and Faber, 1989) 3.

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