OSCOLA Citation Generator

Create OSCOLA citations for free. Paste a DOI, ISBN or link, or fill in the form, and get the bibliography entry and the footnote formatted to 4th edition. No sign-up, nothing to install.

Style: OSCOLA

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    Paste and cite

    DOI, ISBN, PubMed, arXiv, YouTube or any web page. The details come from Crossref, Open Library, NCBI and the page itself.

    Nothing missing

    Every field your style needs is checked, and gaps are flagged in amber before they cost you marks.

    10,863 styles

    The official Citation Style Language files, the same ones Zotero and Mendeley use, plus a dedicated AGLC4 engine.

    OSCOLA rules students get wrong

    OSCOLA, 4th edition. Used in: Law in the United Kingdom.

    • Citations go in footnotes; the footnote ends with a full stop.
    • Case names are italicised; there is no full stop in abbreviations such as v or eds.
    • Use a pinpoint for the paragraph or page you rely on.

    OSCOLA examples for every source

    Each example below was formatted by this generator, so it is exactly what you will get.

    Journal article

    Bibliography entry

    LeCun Y, Bengio Y and Hinton G, ‘Deep Learning’ (2015) 521 Nature 436 <https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14539>

    Footnote

    Yann LeCun, Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, ‘Deep Learning’ (2015) 521 Nature 436, 437 <https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14539>.

    Later footnotes

    LeCun, Bengio and Hinton (n 1) 437.

    Book

    Bibliography entry

    Kahneman D, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2011)

    Footnote

    Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2011) 20.

    Later footnotes

    Kahneman (n 1) 20.

    Chapter in an edited book

    Bibliography entry

    Tversky A and Kahneman D, ‘Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases’ in Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic and Amos Tversky (eds), Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases (Cambridge University Press 1982)

    Footnote

    Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, ‘Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases’ in Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic and Amos Tversky (eds), Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases (Cambridge University Press 1982) 4.

    Later footnotes

    Tversky and Kahneman (n 1) 4.

    Web page

    Bibliography entry

    World Health Organization, ‘Depression’ (World Health Organization, 31 March 2023) <https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/depression> accessed 28 September 2026

    Footnote

    World Health Organization, ‘Depression’ (World Health Organization, 31 March 2023) <https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/depression> accessed 28 September 2026.

    Later footnotes

    World Health Organization (n 1).

    YouTube video

    Bibliography entry

    3Blue1Brown, But What Is a Neural Network? | Deep Learning Chapter 1 (YouTube 2017) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aircAruvnKk> accessed 28 September 2026

    Footnote

    3Blue1Brown, But What Is a Neural Network? | Deep Learning Chapter 1 (YouTube 2017) 4:15 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aircAruvnKk> accessed 28 September 2026.

    Later footnotes

    3Blue1Brown (n 1) 4:15.

    Podcast episode

    Bibliography entry

    WBEZ Chicago, ‘Amusement Park’, This American Life (12 August 2011) <https://www.thisamericanlife.org/443/amusement-park>

    Footnote

    WBEZ Chicago, ‘Amusement Park’, This American Life (12 August 2011) 12:30 <https://www.thisamericanlife.org/443/amusement-park>.

    Later footnotes

    WBEZ Chicago (n 1) 12:30.

    Lecture or speech

    Bibliography entry

    Pausch R, ‘Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams’ (Journeys Lecture Series, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 18 September 2007) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo>

    Footnote

    Randy Pausch, ‘Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams’ (Journeys Lecture Series, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 18 September 2007) 10:05 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo>.

    Later footnotes

    Pausch (n 1) 10:05.

    Newspaper article

    Bibliography entry

    Roose K, ‘A Conversation with Bing’s Chatbot Left Me Deeply Unsettled’ The New York Times (16 February 2023) <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-microsoft-chatgpt.html>

    Footnote

    Kevin Roose, ‘A Conversation with Bing’s Chatbot Left Me Deeply Unsettled’ The New York Times (16 February 2023) <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-microsoft-chatgpt.html>.

    Later footnotes

    Roose (n 1).

    Magazine article

    Bibliography entry

    Carr N, ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid?’ (2008) 302 The Atlantic 56

    Footnote

    Nicholas Carr, ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid?’ (2008) 302 The Atlantic 56, 57.

    Later footnotes

    Carr (n 1) 57.

    Report

    Bibliography entry

    World Health Organization, ‘World Mental Health Report: Transforming Mental Health for All’ (World Health Organization 2022) <https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240049338>

    Footnote

    World Health Organization, ‘World Mental Health Report: Transforming Mental Health for All’ (World Health Organization 2022) <https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240049338>.

    Later footnotes

    World Health Organization (n 1).

    Thesis or dissertation

    Bibliography entry

    Nash JF, ‘Non-Cooperative Games’ (PhD thesis, Princeton University 1950)

    Footnote

    John Forbes Nash, ‘Non-Cooperative Games’ (PhD thesis, Princeton University 1950).

    Later footnotes

    Nash (n 1).

    Conference paper

    Bibliography entry

    Vaswani A and others, ‘Attention Is All You Need’ Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (Curran Associates 2017)

    Footnote

    Ashish Vaswani and others, ‘Attention Is All You Need’ Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (Curran Associates 2017).

    Later footnotes

    Vaswani and others (n 1).

    Dataset

    Bibliography entry

    Fisher RA, ‘Iris’ <https://doi.org/10.24432/C56C76>

    Footnote

    RA Fisher, ‘Iris’ <https://doi.org/10.24432/C56C76>.

    Later footnotes

    Fisher (n 1).

    Film

    Bibliography entry

    Inception (Directed by Christopher Nolan, Warner Bros Pictures 2010)

    Footnote

    Inception (Directed by Christopher Nolan, Warner Bros Pictures 2010) 1:12:05.

    Later footnotes

    Inception (n 1) 1:12:05.

    Software or app

    Bibliography entry

    R Core Team, ‘R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing’ <https://www.R-project.org/>

    Footnote

    R Core Team, ‘R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing’ <https://www.R-project.org/>.

    Later footnotes

    R Core Team (n 1).

    ChatGPT or other AI

    Bibliography entry

    OpenAI, ‘ChatGPT’ <https://chat.openai.com/chat>

    Footnote

    OpenAI, ‘ChatGPT’ <https://chat.openai.com/chat>.

    Later footnotes

    OpenAI (n 1).

    Dictionary or encyclopedia entry

    Bibliography entry

    Merriam-Webster, ‘Culture’ <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture> accessed 28 September 2026

    Footnote

    Merriam-Webster, ‘Culture’ <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture> accessed 28 September 2026.

    Later footnotes

    Merriam-Webster (n 1).

    Preprint (arXiv, SSRN, bioRxiv)

    Bibliography entry

    Devlin J and others, ‘BERT: Pre-Training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding’ (arXiv, 11 October 2018) <https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1810.04805>

    Footnote

    Jacob Devlin and others, ‘BERT: Pre-Training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding’ (arXiv, 11 October 2018) <https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1810.04805>.

    Later footnotes

    Devlin and others (n 1).

    Blog post

    Bibliography entry

    Karpathy A, ‘The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Recurrent Neural Networks’ (Andrej Karpathy blog, 21 May 2015) <https://karpathy.github.io/2015/05/21/rnn-effectiveness/>

    Footnote

    Andrej Karpathy, ‘The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Recurrent Neural Networks’ (Andrej Karpathy blog, 21 May 2015) <https://karpathy.github.io/2015/05/21/rnn-effectiveness/>.

    Later footnotes

    Karpathy (n 1).

    Court case

    Bibliography entry

    Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992) 175 CLR 1

    Footnote

    Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992) 175 CLR 1 42.

    Later footnotes

    Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (n 1) 42.

    Legislation

    Bibliography entry

    Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)

    Footnote

    Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) s 6.

    Later footnotes

    Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) s 6.

    Other citation styles

    How to cite every kind of source

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    Quoting a video, lecture or podcast?

    Most styles want the exact words and the timestamp. Get the full transcript with timestamps, search it for the line you need, then cite it here.

    Free YouTube transcript generator

    Questions

    Citations are formatted by citeproc-js by Frank Bennett (CPAL-1.0, or AGPL-1.0), the engine behind Zotero and Mendeley, running the official Citation Style Language styles (10,863 styles, commit 2e93558) and locales (commit a89adec), used under CC BY-SA 3.0. AGLC4 citations use the LexIntellect AGLC4 engine, checked against the Guide's worked examples. Always check a citation against the manual or your institution's guide before you submit.

    Which edition of OSCOLA does this follow?

    OSCOLA: 4th edition, formatted from the oscola style in the Citation Style Language repository. It is not yet checked against the examples in OSCOLA, so check the final list against the manual. The 5th edition (2026) has since been published; this generator still follows the 4th edition, so check the newer edition's changes.

    Who uses OSCOLA?

    Law in the United Kingdom.

    Is the OSCOLA generator free?

    Yes. No account, no limit, and every export (Word, BibTeX, RIS, CSL-JSON) is included. Your list stays in your browser.

    Where do the details come from when I paste a DOI or link?

    DOIs come from Crossref and DataCite, ISBNs from Open Library and Google Books, PubMed IDs from NCBI, arXiv IDs from arXiv, YouTube links from YouTube, and web pages from the citation metadata the publisher embeds in the page (the same tags Google Scholar reads). Pages that carry no metadata are filled in as far as possible and the gaps are flagged for you.

    Can I export to Word, Zotero, EndNote or LaTeX?

    Yes. Copy the list with its italics into Word or Google Docs, download a formatted .docx, or export BibTeX for LaTeX, RIS for EndNote, Zotero and Mendeley, or CSL-JSON.

    How do I cite a quote from a video or lecture?

    Add the timestamp in the pinpoint box and paste the quote: the generator formats both for your style. To find the exact wording and the time it was said, get the full transcript of the video with timestamps first.