In this blog post, we will be looking at how to reference looseleaf services in the OSCOLA referencing system. In addition, we will consider what these looseleaf services are and how they can help in your legal writing, as well as how reliable these are as a source. Looseleaf services can be an excellent source to cite and are often used by legal professionals in their work, as they will usually have great detail about legal principles and contain in-depth information about the law and cases.
We will start by reviewing this source – what looseleaf services are and how to evaluate them for reliability. We will then move on to look at how to correctly reference these looseleaf services using the OSCOLA system. As always, do feel free to skip ahead to the section on referencing if you already know this sort of background information.
What are Looseleaf Services?
Looseleaf services are sometimes also referred to as commentary sources, which may give you a clue what they are! Essentially, they give legal facts, with commentary from the author. These facts might be cases or legislation and should be up-to-date.
Looseleaf services are unusual as they are a mixture of a primary and a secondary source, as cases and legislation are both primary sources, whereas the commentary is a secondary source because it gives views and opinions on the primary sources. It is this commentary that brings a high level of detail to looseleaf services, which is what makes them so useful in your work.
Why are looseleaf services called looseleaf? The reason for this is one of the things that make looseleaf services such a strong source. Physical looseleaf services are where the name comes from, as the pages (or leaves) are quite literally loose in a ring binder rather than being traditionally bound like a book. The pages being collected like this means that they can easily be taken out and replaced whenever there is a change in the law. The publisher will send out the new pages regularly, often as much as once a week, although this can vary.
Of course, looseleaf services are now also available online! This works in a very similar way to the physical version described above, but everything is in digital format. You might pay a subscription to access them (or this may be included as part of your university course or similar), then you can browse through these in much the same way as physical looseleaf services.
Like the physical copies, these are also frequently updated, although you don’t have to manually take out certain pages and replace them with the new versions! Instead, these will be automatically updated as soon as new versions are made available. This constant updating means that it is very important to ensure that you have used the most recent version for your research and correctly cited this in your writing.
How Reliable are Looseleaf Services as a Source?
As stated above, looseleaf services are a very strong source to use in your work. Part of the reason for this is how reliable they are in terms of currency. As they are updated so frequently, they should always be up to date with any changes in the legislation and new cases. This makes your work more reliable, as you are writing about the current law rather than what the law was a year or more ago, which may have little relevance to the present day. Quite a lot can change in a short time, even if it has already been around as a Bill for a while, for example.
Another thing that makes looseleaf services reliable is that they are nearly always properly reviewed (if you are using one of the well-known services). Therefore, even though they are partly a secondary source, this should be properly fact-checked and have limited pieces that are more opinion-focused. You can also expect that the authors of the pieces will be fairly reliable and should be writing in an informative manner.
Of course, looseleaf services are not entirely reliable and it is important to remember that, as a secondary source, you should try to fact check any parts you can before including them in your writing. In addition, it is best to stick to using the well-known, established services to ensure they are more reliable and respected as a source.
How Do You Reference Looseleaf Services?
Looseleaf services are actually very simple to reference. You simply need to give the title of the work in italics, not the author or editor or any publication details. For example:
Ryde on Rating and the Council Tax.
If possible, avoid using pinpoints in looseleaf references. However, if you do need to, place the volume number first if applicable, then the paragraph numbers (not pages). Make sure you include the release number and/or date of issue at the end of the reference in brackets. This should be in the form used by the publisher but without any full stops. For example:
Parker’s Law and Conduct of Elections, vol 1, para 9–24 (issue 29).
Wrapping Up
I hope that this helps you with your work and you are now confident with using looseleaf services. This brings my OSCOLA series to an end, as we have covered everything in the referencing guide! If you do ever need more detail, you can read the full OSCOLA guide here. Next time, we will be looking more generally at how to evaluate source reliability in your work, so come back in two weeks for that!
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