Education · Legal Writing Academy
Write like a lawyer — cite like a scholar
Module-by-module guides to the four citation styles you'll meet at UNISA and in practice, plus AI-assisted tools to generate clean citations and footnotes from your own drafts.
Citation styles
OSCOLA
Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA)
OSCOLA is a footnote-based citation style developed at Oxford for legal scholarship. Every authority is cited in a numbered footnote; the bibliography lists primary and secondary sources separately.
Best for: LLB students, postgraduate law students, common-law researchers.
Harvard
Harvard Author-Date Referencing
Harvard places a short (Author Year) parenthetical in the body and a full alphabetical reference list at the end. Page numbers are added for direct quotes.
Best for: Socio-legal, criminology and interdisciplinary writing where an in-text author-date style is preferred.
APA 7
APA 7th Edition
APA 7 uses (Author, Year) in text and a 'References' list at the end, alphabetised by surname with hanging indents. Legal sources follow a Bluebook-aligned format.
Best for: Psychology, criminology, forensic-science and interdisciplinary law work.
SA Legal Citation
South African Legal Citation
The conventional South African citation style used in practice and most local law journals (SALJ, THRHR, De Jure). Combines a footnote model with established local conventions for cases, legislation and government publications.
Best for: Practitioners and courts; widely accepted in South African moots and journals.
What you'll learn
- Footnotes vs in-text: when to use a footnote (OSCOLA, SA) and when to use a parenthetical (Harvard, APA 7).
- South African case citation: party names, volume, law report series, court abbreviations, pinpoint paragraphs.
- Statutes & Government Gazettes: Acts, Regulations, GN/GG references, currency of legislation.
- Bibliography discipline: alphabetical ordering, hanging indents, categorised reference lists.
Outputs from the AI citation and footnote tools are educational only. Always verify every authority against the primary source (gov.za, the official law report or the publisher's record) before submitting work or relying on it in practice.