In this blog, we will be looking at referencing case notes in the OSCOLA referencing system. We will be asking what case notes are and how they can be a useful reference to have in your writing. In addition, we will consider when and why they are an appropriate and reliable source to use, as it is important to consider all of your sources in this way.
We will start by looking at what case notes are, then considering when and how to use them as a reference in your legal writing. If you already know the background to this topic, do feel free to skip ahead to the section on referencing.
What are Case Notes?
Case notes are a sort of journal article and are in fact referenced in a very similar way. The difference between standard journal articles and case notes is that journal articles can be about any topic and mention and discuss a lot of different cases, whereas case notes focus on one case in particular. They may briefly mention others if they form part of the judges’ reasoning, for example, but they are still about one main case.
Exactly what case notes consist of will depend on the author and the publication it is in, but most will include the basic details and background of the case. Some may simply be a summary of the case, with information such as the parties of the case, the court, history of the case, the date, and the judge(s). Case notes will likely also contain the final judgment and the ratio per judge
Other case notes will have a more detailed look at the case and will include discussion of the issues surrounding the case, including the history of the law in the relevant area, as taken from legislation and other cases. They may also contain a lot more information about questions of law, such as how the facts of the case fit with the legal definitions of the offence they are being tried with.
Some case notes may then go on to discuss the impact that the case will have on future cases by evaluating the judgment. They may argue that the judgment has left some areas of law vague or that the judges’ reasoning was flawed.
When Should You Reference Case Notes?
We will now be considering when case notes are an appropriate reference to use in your work. As with any source, you should evaluate case notes for reliability when you reference them. There are a number of points to consider when deciding whether a source is reliable or not.
One of the first points to bear in mind is what the purpose of the source is. Was it written to express an opinion and to persuade others of this point of view? If so, it is not necessarily an unreliable source, but you should bear this bias in mind before using it in your work.
However, as explained above, some case notes may be as simple as a brief description of the case in a purely informative way. This type of case note is more reliable, as it should just contain the facts of the case so that you know what happened and what the judgment was.
Another point to consider in terms of source reliability is when the source was written. Any sort of evaluation in case notes will be more relevant to your writing the more recently it was written, as new cases or legislation may exist since it was written if it is an older source. On the other hand, the facts of the case are usually considered more reliable if they were written soon after the case was decided, as there has been less time for them to become distorted or influenced by word of mouth.
Of course, if you have used the case note in your writing, you will have to reference it! If not, your own writing would not be reliable as you would not be acknowledging where you got all of your information from.
Once you have determined that a case note is reliable, how should you use it in your writing? This will depend on what type of case note it is and what you need it to illustrate. If it is the factual, informative sort, you will probably use it to establish the facts of the case. However, if it is more detailed and includes some of the issues surrounding the case and the impact of it, it may be more suited to the discussion area of your work.
How Do You Reference Case Notes?
There are a variety of different ways of referencing case notes, depending on the case note itself. If the case note has a title, you should reference it in the same way as you would any other journal article:
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
Depending on whether the year also identifies the volume or if there is a separate volume number.
Otherwise, you should use the name of the case in italics instead of the title, adding (note) at the end of the citation. Therefore, the basic format for referencing case notes like this is:
Author, | ‘Case name’ | [Year] | Journal name or abbreviation | First page of case note | (note)
OR
Author, | ‘Case name’ | (Year) | Volume | Journal name or abbreviation | First page of case note (note)
For example:
Andrew Ashworth, ‘R (Singh) v Chief Constable of the West Midlands Police’ [2006] Crim LR 441 (note).
However, if the case being discussed in the case note is directly mentioned in the text, there is no need to include the title in the citation, so the example above would be:
Andrew Ashworth [2006] Crim LR 441 (note).
Note that the comma after the name also goes. Even if you are referring to cases like this, you still need to refer to them in the table of cases in your bibliography, citing the best report if necessary.
Wrapping Up
I hope that you are now more comfortable with citing case notes in your work, as they are often an excellent source, especially when there is not much other information available. Next time we will be looking at how to reference online journals in OSCOLA, so come back in two weeks for that!
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