This blog will be looking at how to reference working papers in OSCOLA, as well as some background information about working papers in general. We have already briefly looked at how to reference working papers in a previous blog of mine, OSCOLA Referencing Summary for Journal Articles, but this provides a more in-depth look at them.
We will first consider what working papers are and how they can strengthen your work, as well as why you might not want to use them. In addition, we will look at how reliable they are as a source and, of course, the correct format for referencing them in OSCOLA! If you already know the background information, just skip ahead to the section on referencing.
What Are Working Papers?
Working papers are pre-publication versions of academic articles, for example, those that might later appear in journals. They should not be considered ready for publication or relied on for accuracy, although you can, of course, double-check facts for yourself. They may also be updated regularly as they are improved and finalised, so make sure you keep checking back!
Working papers are usually only released to a selected group of readers, as they are not yet ready for publication. They are circulated to a few people to gather comments on them and work out what needs improving. The feedback received will then be used to update the working paper to get it ready for inclusion in a journal, book or other official publication.
Early working papers will also have a lot less content. They may just contain an area of law which is being researched, details of the methods that will be used to do this and a hypothesis. Comments and feedback on this may then lead to the methods chosen being changed or adapted accordingly, for example. You can see why you need to use caution when referencing a working paper – they are very much a work-in-progress and subject to change!
A working paper may also be used to present new ideas to the selected readership, which will then allow discussion among this group about their thoughts on it. These ideas can then be looked into further if the reception is positive and developed into a more formal journal article or research paper.
How Reliable Are Working Papers?
Working papers can be a very good source to reference in your work, but remember that, being a working paper, they have not yet had any peer review or been checked. Therefore, you will have to evaluate each working paper yourself for reliability, using the normal method for checking sources. We will now consider some of the factors to bear in mind when you are considering whether to reference a working paper.
One of the things to bear in mind is the authority of the piece – who wrote it? If the author already has multiple articles published in journals, this may mean that they are a fairly good authority, although take care to check what else they have written and how reliable this seems.
Also, if they have other articles published, who published them? Is it a well-known and reliable journal or a publisher that is virtually unknown? If the publisher is well-known, this generally makes it more likely that the author will be more reliable, although the working paper in question may still not be! Check any facts stated wherever you can.
This leads to another point – the accuracy of the working paper. This one is fairly straightforward to assess by looking at the references section. Working papers will keep adding to this as more sources are used, but you should be able to check whether they seem to be referencing each source as they use it in their writing.
Looking at the reference list itself, does it seem to be complete? Does it give both any legislation referred to and opinions and thoughts taken from other articles, for example? Of the references there are, are they done clearly in such a way that you could easily find the source to check it yourself? What kind of sources are referenced? If these are ones that you already know to be reliable or unreliable, this should tell you something about the quality of the working paper.
Finally, what is the purpose of the working paper? Does the author seem to be giving an unbiased, informative look at the law or is it more of an opinion piece? If they seem to be writing to persuade, remember that they may have just picked sources that support their views, rather than looking at a wide range of them objectively.
How Do You Reference Working Papers?
The basic format for referencing a working paper in OSCOLA is:
Author, | ‘Title of working paper’ | (Year) | Publication, | First page of working paper | <Web address> | Date accessed
For example:
John M Finnis, ‘On Public Reason’ (2006) Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper 1/2007, 8 <http://ssrn.com/abstract=955815> accessed 18 November 2009.
There are a few things to bear in mind here. Firstly, be sure that the access date that you have given is right, as working papers are still subject to change and are regularly updated. Secondly, if the working paper is later published as a journal article, cite the journal version in preference to the working paper.
Wrapping Up
I hope that this helps you with your referencing and that you now know more of the background information. Next time, we will be looking at how to reference edited and translated works, so come back in two weeks if you want to know more about that!
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