The referencing style used by the ANU College of Law is the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC4). Collaboratively produced by the Melbourne University Law Review and the Melbourne Journal of International Law; AGLC4 is used by legal practitioners, academics and students across Australia for legal writing. This guide will help you apply the AGLC4 rules by providing examples and a basic statement of the rules. You should refer to the full version of AGLC if anything is unclear.

Australian Guide to Legal Citation (Melbourne University Law Review Association, 4th ed, 2018)

Copies of this guide are also available in the Law Library in the general collection, 2 hour Reserve and Reference collections.

• Australian Guide to Legal Citation (Melbourne University Law Review Association, 4th ed, 2018) [K114.A97 2018]

Check the Twitter feed in the left hand column of this guide for guidance on using AGLC4.

Sources not included in the AGLC

"If you wish to cite a source for which provision is not made in the AGLC, you should first reflect on the cardinal principles: clarity and consistency."

"As long as you are clear and consistent, you cannot go wrong."

Melbourne University Law Review Association Inc, Australian Guide to Legal Citation (Melbourne University Law Review Association Inc, 4th ed, 2018) xi.

Where there is no rule for a particular source in the AGLC you should  adapt the closest fitting rule. The citation should be guided by common sense and the following principles:

• clarity and accuracy - sufficient information to unambiguously identify the source. Include any pinpoint references;
• consistency with AGLC style and other rules;
• aesthetic appeal - convoluted citations should be avoided where possible.

Authors - Give authors as they appear in the source.  Do not include full stops after initials

R A Hughes

Christine Gray

Book titles - are written in italics.  Capitalise the first letter of all significant words.

International Law and the Use of Force

Titles - of chapters, articles, submissions or segments are entered in single quotation marks and are not italized..

'Claimed Property Rght Does not Hold Water'

Journal titles - are written in full, in italics.  Capitalise the first letter of all significant words.

Australian Law Journal

Publishers - are written in the briefest form to identify the publisher.  If the author and publisher are the same then the publisher is omitted.

Kluwer Academic not Kluwer Academic Press

Thomson Reuters not Thomson Reuters (Professional) Australia Ltd

Dates - are written in the form Day Month Year.

23 September 2013

Pinpoints - are the specific sections of the source that you are quoting.  These can be pages, paragraphs, sections, etc.  Pages are written as the page numbers e.g. 42–3, 88–94. Paragraphs and sections are entered in square brackets e.g. [3] [21]–[24].