This blog will carry on with my series about OSCOLA referencing by moving on to the correct way to reference a journal article. The previous post covered books and can be found here. Journal articles can be fiddly to reference correctly, but they are a strong reference to have if they are relevant as it shows wider reading in the area.
The basic layout for a journal article is:
Author, | ‘Title of article’ | [Year] | Journal name or abbreviation | First page of article
OR
Author, | ‘Title of article’ | (Year) | Volume | Journal name or abbreviation | First page of article
Giving the reference:
Giorgi Monti, ‘The future of Reservation of Title Clauses in the European Community’ (1997) 46 ICLQ 866.
We’ll now look at each of these elements in turn.
Author
The author should have their first name(s) followed by their last name in a footnote, but their last name followed by their initial(s) in a bibliography entry, like so:
Monti G, ‘The future of Reservation of Title Clauses in the European Community’ (1997) 46 ICLQ 866
There should not be any commas between the name and initial(s) or between the initials if there is more than one. Any post-nominals such as QC should be omitted, except any work by a judge should have their name listed exactly as it is in the work.
Two or more authors should be listed in the order they are in the work, separated by the word ‘and’ and a comma if there are three.
Charles Brasted and Ted Gaston, ‘Where do we stand?’ (2013) 163 NLJ 18.
If there are more than three authors, give the name of the first author listed, followed by ‘and others’.
Title of article
The title of the article should be given exactly as it is in the journal, with any capitals and regional spelling kept, for example, American spelling of color even if you are using British English. If the title is fully or partially in italics, keep this also. The title should be placed inside single quotation marks.
Year and Volume
If the year also identifies the volume of the journal, put just the year into square brackets, [ and ]. If the journal has a separate volume and year, put the year in round brackets, ( and ), and the volume number after a space, as in both examples above. If there are multiple issues of the volume, it is only necessary to include the issue number if the page numbers restart from 1 in each issue. If issue numbers are needed, they should be written immediately after the volume number with no space between, as 31(2), for example.
Journal Name or Abbreviation
This may also be given exactly as it is, but there are a lot of abbreviations that can be used. For example, in the Giorgi Monti reference above, the journal name is given as ICLQ, which is the OSCOLA abbreviation for International & Comparative Law Quarterly. Likewise, NLJ in the Charles Brasted and Ted Gaston reference is an abbreviation of New Law Journal.
There is a list of abbreviations for journal names on pages 46 and 47 of the OSCOLA 4th edn guide, which can be found here. These abbreviations are standard and so do not need to be defined in your work. You can create your own abbreviation using the suggested abbreviations on page 45 of the OSCOLA guide, for example, abbreviating European to Eur, International to Intl and Journal to J. Remember that abbreviations in OSCOLA do not take full stops! If you are in any doubt about the clarity of your abbreviation, write the journal name out in full, as this is always acceptable.
First page of article
This should simply be given as the number, there is no need for page or p. to precede it and only the first page number is needed, not the final one.
Pinpointing Part of a Journal
If you need to pinpoint the page that you have quoted from, for example, the format is:
Author, | ‘Title of article’ | [Year] OR (year) | Volume | Journal name or abbreviation | First page of article, | Relevant page
Giorgi Monti, ‘The future of Reservation of Title Clauses in the European Community’ (1997) 46 ICLQ 866, 867.
Page pinpoints do not need to be included in the bibliography, so the bibliography entry would remain the same.
Online journals
An online journal which is only available electronically should be referenced as:
Author, | ‘Title of article’ | [Year] OR (year) | Volume | Journal name or abbreviation | <web address> | Date accessed
For example:
James Boyle, ‘A Manifesto on WIPO and the Future of Intellectual Property’ 2004 Duke L & Tech Rev 0009 <www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2004dltr0009.html> accessed 2 December 2017.
Note the angled brackets, <>, around the web address. Many online journals do not give page numbers, but if they do and you want to pinpoint something, this should come after the journal name and before the web address.
If a journal you have viewed electronically (for example, on Westlaw or LexisNexis) is also available in print, it should simply be referenced as the print version.
Extra Notes
If an article is not yet published, cite it in the same way as a published article, followed by the note ‘(forthcoming)’, without the quotes. Leave out any information you do not know yet, such as page numbers.
If the article is a working paper, it can be cited in a way similar to an online journal:
John M Finnis, ‘On Public Reason’ (2006) Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper 1/2007, 8 <http://ssrn.com/abstract=955815> accessed 2 December 2017.
Make sure the date accessed is correct, as working papers often change. If the working paper is later published in a journal, cite the journal version.
Finally
Journal articles are fairly simple to correctly reference once you know what the basic format is. Again, they can really strengthen your work, although not if you are using them excessively or in a way that is irrelevant to what you are writing! Aim to use journal articles (or other sources) specifically to state a point, add to the discussion or back up what you are saying.
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