Skip to Main Content

Doing legal research

Journal articles

References for books will always follow the same formula (note the punctuation, cases and font):

Author, 'Title of article' [year] volume number Journal Name or Abbreviation first page number of the article

e.g. N Stolowy, 'Company-related offences in French legislation' (2007) Journal of Business Law 1

Names of well-known journals are often abbreviated to their recognised acronym. For more information, see the Legal Abbreviations tab.

If you are unsure which journal an abbreviation refers to then look at the Cardiff Index of Legal Abbreviations.

Abbreviations are not italicised.

e.g. R Nolan, 'When principles collide' [2009] 125 LQR 374

NOTE: If the year of publication also identifies the volume put the year in (round brackets). If there is a separate volume number use [square brackets].

References to specific pages

For referencing to a specific page, simply add the page number at the end of the reference, preceded by a comma.

N Stolowy, 'Company-related offences in French legislation' (2007) Journal of Business Law 1, 4

Online journal articles

Journals which are only published online follow the same formula, but you will then need to enter the web address and the most recent date on which you accesed the article.

L Dubery, 'Restoring real property' [2008] 2 Web JCLI <http://webjcli.ncl.ac.uk/2008/issue2/dubery2.html> accessed 2 September 2009