OSCOLA citation generator
Free, accurate OSCOLA citations in seconds. Trusted by over 1 million students.
How to cite in OSCOLA
OSCOLA, the Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities, is the main citation style for law in the UK. Citations go in footnotes, and sources are listed in a bibliography. Our generator follows the 4th edition and uses minimal punctuation, as OSCOLA requires.
Journal article
LeCun Y, Bengio Y and Hinton G, ‘Deep Learning’ (2015) 521 Nature 436 <https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14539>
Book
Cormen TH and others, Introduction to Algorithms (3rd edn, MIT Press 2009)
Website
Coltrera F, ‘5 Timeless Habits for Better Health’ (Harvard Health, 24 September 2025) <https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/5-timeless-habits-for-better-health-202509243106> accessed 23 September 2026
Footnotes
OSCOLA uses footnotes. Put the footnote marker at the end of the sentence or clause, after any punctuation. Give full details the first time you cite a source and a short form after that.
First footnote: Yann LeCun, Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, ‘Deep Learning’ (2015) 521 Nature 436, 437 <https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14539>.
Frequently asked questions
Can I cite cases and legislation here?
Right now the generator finds books, journal articles and websites. Cases and legislation are coming soon. Until then, format them by hand following the OSCOLA guide.
Why does OSCOLA use so little punctuation?
OSCOLA leaves out full stops in abbreviations and initials, for example Cormen TH, to keep footnotes clean. Footnotes still end with a full stop.
Does OSCOLA need a bibliography?
Longer work such as dissertations usually needs one, often split into cases, legislation and secondary sources. Many essays only need footnotes, so check your module guide.
How do I cite a website in OSCOLA?
Give the author, the title in single quotation marks, the site name and date in brackets, the URL in angle brackets and the date you accessed it.