Legal research

What is referencing?

Referencing acknowledges the ideas and information sources you have used in assignments. You must reference direct quotations, facts and figures, and any ideas and theories that you use from both primary materials (such as legislation and case reports) and secondary materials (such as journal articles, books, legal encylopaedias and commentaries). Your reader will then be able to find the original sources. If you do not reference correctly, you may be accused of plagiarism.

Please check your unit outline for the referencing style you must use. This page provides information about the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC). If you are studying non-law units, you may be required to use another style. Curtin Library has referencing guides for Chicago, APA and Vancouver styles.

Find the Chicago, APA and Vancouver Curtin referencing guides here.

What is AGLC?

The Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC) is produced by the Melbourne University Law Review Association in collaboration with the Melbourne Journal of International Law. Currently the 4th edition is the most recent.

You can access this manual either online or in hard copy:

It is a good idea to familiarise yourself with ‘Part 1: General Rules’ as it outlines the essence of the referencing style and will give you a good foundation.

Referencing guide to AGLC4

The guide below to AGLC4 has been prepared by Curtin University Library.

Zotero for Law

Zotero is a free reference management software designed to store and manage your references. It works particularly well with AGLC referencing. The Library has prepared the following workbooks to guide you in the use of Zotero.

Using AGLC with EndNote

EndNote is referencing software which enables you to create your own database of references and display them in a preferred referencing style. To learn more about EndNote see our Getting started with EndNote guide.

To help you get started the Library has put together a step by step guide to using EndNote with AGLC. Please note this guide refers to AGLC3.

Legal citations abbreviate case law series and legal journals. Here are some sources you can use to find the full series title (or vice versa):