Quotations (section 1.5 in OSCOLA Guide):
- Within the text of your work, use single quotation marks (‘…’) for quotations up to three lines of text.
- Usually a comma is used to introduce a quotation (e.g. The law says, 'laws should be followed'.⁴)
- Quotations within quotations require double quotation marks ("...").
- Punctuation follows the closing quotation mark ('...'.), unless it's an essential part of the quotation ('...?') or the whole sentence is a quotation.
- The footnote marker comes after all the punctuation, i.e. after the closing quotation mark and punctuation ('...'.⁴)
- Capitalise the first letter of the quotation if the quotation is a full sentence (even if it begins in the middle of a sentence of your essay text) or if a quotation begins at the start of a sentence in your text.
- If a quotation begins at the start of a sentence in your text but the first letter is not capitalised in the original source, place it in square brackets (e.g. '[T]he House of Lords concluded this'.⁴)
- If you add emphasis such as italicisation to a quotation, put '(emphasis added)' after the footnote citation, not within your text (e.g. Elizabeth Fisher, Risk Regulation and Administrative Constitutionalism (Hart Publishing 2007) (emphasis added).)
- If text is missing from the quotation, use an ellipsis (...). Leave a space between an ellipsis and text, except quotation marks (e.g. 'law ...'.⁴)
- If a quotation is longer than three lines of text, you must indent it as a paragraph, without quotation marks. Generally a colon is used to introduce the quotation. Example:
Lord Smith said:
Citing and referencing is very important. Citing and referencing is very important. Citing and referencing is very important. Citing and referencing is very important. Citing and referencing is very important. Citing and referencing is very important.
This was the key takeaway of Lord Smith’s statement.
