NOTES FOR CONTRIBUTORS

Author self-archiving/public access policy

For information about this journal's policy, please visit our Author Self-Archiving policy page.

Submissions

Articles (which should not normally be in excess of 10,000 words), shorter articles and comments should be submitted as an e-mail attachment in MS Word to the General Editor, Professor Ewan McKendrick, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford OX2 6QA; email. Books for review, reviews and review articles to Ms G. de Burca, Villa Schifanoia, Via Boccaccio 121, I-50133, Firenze, Italy or Dr Julie Dickson, Somerville College, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6HD.

Presentation

Copy should be double-spaced and on one side of the page only. The first paragraph after a head or new sub-division should be flush to the margin. Subsequent paragraphs should be indented. Footnotes should be collected at the end of the article, but will be published at the foot of each page. The footnote number follows any closing punctuation:

...possible to resist.¹

Articles should be accompanied by an abstract of not more than 150-200 words.

References

Cases

For reference style, please follow OSCOLA click here

Examples are given below.

Pepper v Hart [1964] AC 40 (HL)

Or, if specific pages are referred to:

Pepper v Hart [1964] AC 40 (HL) at 78-9.

American case citations may follow the American practice:

Michael v Johnson 426 US 346, 23 S Ct 118 (1976).

Note the punctuation, and that there are no full points between letters: thus the references are:

A11 ER WLR QB and so on.

European case references should follow the practice of the relevant jurisdiction.

Articles

These should take the form, using standard abbreviations for commonly known journals:

D. Beatty, 'The Canadian Charter of Rights: Lessons and Laments' (1997) 60 MLR 481.

American references may follow American practice:

F. Schauer 'Precedent', 39 Stanford L Rev 571 at 576-7 (1987).

The OJLS should be referred to as OJLS.

Books

Citations should adopt the following form:

JH Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History (4th edn Butterworths, London 2002) 419–21

An initial or initials may be supplied for an author instead of a first name.

Contributions to books

These should be referred to thus:

Ashworth, 'Belief, Intent and Criminal Liability' in J. Eekelaar and J. Bell (eds), Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence (Third Series, 1987) 1 at 6.

Statutes

Modern statutes are to be cited in simple form:

Children Act 1948, s 17(2).

Older statutes, without a short title, will require the appropriate regnal year and chapter numbers.

Official Publications

These should be cited as follows:

Report of the Royal Commission on Civil Liability and Personal Injury (Chair: Lord Pearson) Cmnd 7054 (1978) vol. 1, para 562.

It is sometimes useful to add: hereafter referred to as the Pearson Report

in which case no further cross-reference is required.

Law Commission, Family Law: The Ground for Divorce, Law Com No 192 (1990), para 7.41.

Parl Debs (3rd series) vol. 122, col. 1328 (5 June 1852)
HC Debs vol. 574, col. 64 (13 July 1957).

Cross-references

These should normally take the following form both for books, articles and contributions to books:

See Dewar, above n 32 at 23.

If Dewar is referred to in the text after it has been cited for a first time, the cross-reference will be:

Above n 32 at 23.

It is normally unnecessary to use op cit or loc cit.
If the cross-reference is to the immediately preceding note, the reference will be:

Ibid at 23.

Sub-divisions

The main headings should be centred and numbered 1, 2 and so on; first letters of main words should be in upper case.

The next level headings should be aligned on the left and be lettered A, B, C and so on; first letters of main words should be in upper case.

The next level should be aligned on the left and be numbered (i), (ii), (iii) and so on. Only the first letter of the heading should be in upper case.

Spelling

A characteristic feature of OUP house-style is the use of -ize where this is an alternative to -ise. Note the spelling of analyse.

Quotations

Quotations within the text are enclosed within single quotation marks, and quotations within quotations are given double quotation marks. If quotations are three lines or more, they should be separated from the rest of the text, and should not be enclosed within any quotations marks. However, quotations within such separated quotations should be given single quotations marks.

Language Editing

Particularly if English is not your first language, before submitting your manuscript you may wish to have it edited for language. This is not a mandatory step, but may help to ensure that the academic content of your paper is fully understood by journal editors and reviewers. Language editing does not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted for publication. If you would like information about one such service please click here. There are other specialist language editing companies that offer similar services and you can also use any of these. Authors are liable for all costs associated with such services.

GUIDE FOR AUTHORS PREPARING ELECTRONIC DOCUMENTS

DO

Enter text in the style and order of the journal.

Insert figure captions and tables at the end of the file.

Save any tables, diagrams, figures, graphs or illustrations electronically generated as separate files and not embedded into the text file.

Type references in the correct order and style of the journal.

Type unjustified, without hyphenation, except for compound words.

Type headings in the style of the journal.

Use the TAB key once for paragraph indents.

Where possible use Times for the text font and Symbol for the Greek and special characters.

Use the word processing formatting features to indicate Italic, Greek, Maths, ^Superscript and _Subscript characters.

Indicate clearly any special characters that you have drawn by hand.

Check the final copy of your paper carefully, as any spelling mistakes and errors will be faithfully translated into the typeset version.

Supply three hard copy printouts of the paper.

DO NOT

Enter carriage returns to obtain spacing between lines, paragraphs, references etc. The space required is generated automatically by the typesetters.

Use double spaces after each sentence within a paragraph.

Use the automatic page numbering, running titles and footnote features of your word processing programme. Number the hard copies by hand at the bottom of the page.

COPYRIGHT AND OFFPRINTS

Copyright
Please note that before we can publish your manuscript, we must receive a completed licence to publish form from you. Please download the form here.

Offprints
The Author can claim 25 offprints free of charge if a completed offprint order form is sent to the Production Editor. An order form and scale of charges for additional offprints will be sent to authors along with proofs.