In this week’s blog, we will be looking at how to reference a fairly unusual source using the OSCOLA referencing system – personal communications. These are typically things such as letters and emails, but can also include a range of other items, which we will be looking at in more detail later on. This post will also be considering some other points to think about when using personal communications as a reference.
We will be evaluating how reliable personal communications are as a source and when you should and shouldn’t use them. In addition, we will look at some of the ethical implications of citing personal communications and think about when this means that we should not use them as a source. If you are already confident on the background of this topic, feel free to jump to the end for the section on referencing personal communications.
What are Personal Communications?
As we have mentioned above, the area of personal communications covers a wide range of different types of source. Essentially, they are what they sound like – communications between two or more people that are not made available to the general public. Public communication is, for example, speeches made to a group, or even a billboard that can be seen by everyone passing. As you can guess, personal communications are more likely than other sources to be private or confidential and so you should take particular care when citing them.
We have looked at two examples of personal communications above – letters and emails. These are normally just read by the chosen recipient(s), so they are called personal. However, a personal communication can also be a telephone conversation, a memo or an unarchived forum. In addition, personal interviews fall into this category, which you can read more about in my blog OSCOLA Referencing Summary for Interviews.
There are many other sources that can fall under the heading of personal communications, so be sure to think about what all of your sources are when citing them. Many sources can fall into more than one category, as seen above with interviews, so cite them in whichever style seems more suitable.
How Reliable are Personal Communications as a Source?
How reliable personal communications are will depend on what they are and what point you are using them to illustrate. They can be a very good primary source if there is a letter recounting certain events written by an eyewitness, for example. This is a strong source if you want to show some background to a discussion.
Alternatively, they may be a secondary source, for example, if you have a phone call with someone giving their opinions on a particular area of law. This can still be a good source, but it is important to remember that it is opinion rather than fact, so this would be better suited to the discussion area of your writing rather than to prove a particular point.
How reliable personal communications are as a source will also depend on their currency. Is the communication talking about events as they unfold or shortly after, or is it from 20 years after what they are referring to? In general, the longer there is between the event and the source, the less reliable it is. People may have forgotten details or added new ones based on what they have heard after the event from other people.
Another important point to consider with personal communications is the purpose of them – how reliable were they supposed to be? If it is part of an email conversation with a friend, there probably won’t be any particular formality to the writing and some parts may be inaccurate.
What are the Ethical Considerations for Personal Communications?
If you are going to be using a personal communication as a source, consider whether it is private or confidential before including it in your work. If possible, get permission from the author of the work before citing it or reproducing it in part or in full. Even if you are the author, check that you have not included any private information about the recipient and ask them for consent if necessary.
If you are citing a phone call, for example, make sure you are only using what was actually said. It is often best to record the call (asking the other person first) so that you can refer back to it as needed. This means that you can check that you are only referencing what was actually said.
How Do You Reference Personal Communications?
The basic format for referencing personal communications is:
Type of communication | from Name | to Name | (Date)
For example:
Letter from Gordon Brown to Lady Ashton (20 November 2009).
Names should be given in full as they appear on the communication. For example, if the communication is from a company, it might appear as:
Email from Amazon.co.uk to author (16 December 2008).
This example also illustrates what to do if you are the author or recipient of the communication. Rather than putting your own name, simply write “from author” or “to author” as appropriate.
The date should be written in the format DD Month YYYY, as seen in the examples above.
Wrapping Up
Hopefully, you are now more confident in referencing personal communications in the OSCOLA style. They can be a very useful source, with information that cannot be found elsewhere, but remember the ethical considerations given above. Come back in two weeks for another OSCOLA blog!
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