Let us guess – you have been assigned a paper with an entirely unknown citation format and are feeling desperate. Don’t you worry, we’ve all been there!
Now, OSCOLA might indeed be a pain – which is no wonder with all its rules, shortenings, abbreviations, you name it. However, with our help, you will be able not only to find the head and tail of it but also to master this citation style quickly and with no complications. We offer you the easiest and friendliest support through this process – just download our examples and impress your professor!
We’ll start with a brief overview of OSCOLA and its general principles.
General Principles of Formatting
OSCOLA is something of everything: a bit of Harvard here, a bit of Chicago there, and some bits of AMA and Vancouver in between. At its core, however, it pursues the goal of letting the reader quickly locate the sources used by the author. Firstly, you mention your sources in footnotes throughout the paper. Secondly, you also list your secondary sources (that is, the ones apart from legal documents, e.g. books and journal articles) on the last page of the paper, after the main work. Footnotes and the reference list are very similar but with some slight distinctions. We will provide you with examples of both.
When writing a paper in OSCOLA, remember to format it this way:
- 12 pt. font Arial unless some other font is requested
- Double-spacing
- 1-inch margins (all sides)
- Superscript numbers indicating footnotes are usually placed at the end of a sentence BUT a footnote marker may be put after a significant word or phrase.
- A full-stop is put after a superscript number at the end of a sentence.
- OSCOLA headings:
- Level 1 Centered, Bold and Capitalized
- Level 2 Centered and Capitalized
- Level 3 Flushed Left, Bold and Capitalized
- Level 4 flushed left, not capitalized and sentence-formatted.
OSCOLA Footnotes and References
- When you cite the same source two times in a row, do not repeat the footnote – instead, briefly identify the source and provide a cross-citation in brackets to the footnote in which the full citation can be found
- If the subsequent citation in the footnote immediately follows the full citation, use ‘ibid’ instead
- Include only secondary sources in the reference list
- If multiple sources of the same author and year are used, add letters, e.g. 2024a, 2024b
- For references, use single spacing with a double space between entries
Footnotes Example:
References Example:
