Business Law uses two different citation styles; APA and AGLC.
It is important that you ask your lecturer or look in your unit guide to find out which style is required for your assignments. If you are required to use APA, check whether you need to use the 6th or 7th edition, as there are a number of differences between the two versions.
Find out more about referencing in AGLC style below.
The Australian Guide to Legal Citation
This online version of the Australian Guide to Legal Citation is available as a PDF from the Melbourne University Law Review website. This 4th edition was published in 2018 and provides a uniform system of legal citation.
It is also available through our library.
Case Law citations include the following elements:
| Element | Case Name | Year | Volume | Law Report Series* | Starting Page | Pinpoint |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rule | Parties' names in italics. | Where law reports are organised by volume number, the year the decision is handed down should appear in parentheses. | Where law reports are organised by year, the volume year should appear in square brackets. | An 'authorised' report series citation is preferred. | First page of the case. | Precede with a comma and space. Refer to 1.1.5 in the guide. |
| Example | Murphy v Overton Investments Pty Ltd | (2004) | 216 CLR | 388, | 402 [29] |
*For a list of abbreviations for Report Series, refer to the AGLC guide, page 50, Section 2.2.2.
Legislation citations include the following elements:
| Element | Title | Year | Jurisdiction | Pinpoint |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rule | Short title of the Act in italics. | The year in which the Act was originally passed, in italics. | An abbreviated form of the jurisdiction in which the Act was passed, in parentheses. | An abbreviation* followed by a number separated by a space. |
| Example | Ambulance Services Act | 1986 | (Vic) | s 3.1 |
*For a full list of abbreviations of a designation of a pinpoint, refer to the AGLC guide, page 69, Section 3.1.4 .
Legal Journal citations include the following elements:
| Element | Author | Title | Year | Volume and Issue | Journal | Page | Pinpoint |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rule | As appears in publication but without full stops. | As it appears on first page of article, in single quotation marks. | Year of publication in parentheses. | Volume, followed by issue number in parentheses. | Full title of journal in italics. | Number of the first page. | Precede with a comma. The pinpoint will generally be a page number or range. |
| Example | Barbara Mescher | 'The Law, Stakeholders and Ethics: Their Role in Corporate Governance' | (2011) | 8(3) | Macquarie Journal of Business Law | 37 | , 50 |
Note: Electronic articles should where possible be cited in the same manner as articles in printed journals. However, it will not always be possible to include a volume number, issue number or starting page. For articles appearing as a PDF, an article number can be used instead of the starting page number, followed by a page range showing the total number of pages (eg 1-15), followed by the pinpoint.
*See the AGLC guide, page 96, Section 5.10 for further details.
