Skip to Main Content

AGLC4 referencing and writing guide

Introductory Guide to ALCG4 referencing

What is the AGLC?

Australian Guide to Legal Citation

 

The Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC) is a style for legal citations. The AGLC is used by academics, legal practitioners, law students and the judiciary and is a valuable tool for legal writing and research.

The fourth edition of the AGLC was released in 2018. 

To obtain a copy of AGLC4 you can:

Note: the view only PDF version does not include the Appendices setting out law report abbreviations and medium neutral identifiers.  See Cases for more information.

Acknowledging the ideas and words of others is an important part of academic writing. It shows that you have read relevant literature and provides authority for your arguments. Importantly, failure to refer to your sources constitutes academic dishonesty (plagiarism). 

Footnotes and Bibliographies

 

The AGLC Referencing Style has two main features, in-text reference numbers with accompanying footnotes which appear within the text of your assignment and are used to acknowledge each source you use and the bibliography which appears at the end of your assignment and is a complete list of everything you have cited. 

 

In-text References

 
A footnote is an additional piece of information printed at the bottom of a page.
 
Chapter 1 of the AGLC Rules details when to use a footnote and how to add footnotes.
 
 
Note: We have created a dedicated page to footnotes in this Guide, see here.     
 

 

The Bibliography

 

Your bibliography is a list of all the sources that you have referred to or used in your assignment, usually located at the end of the assignment. 


Sources in the bibliography should be categorised under headings as per AGLC, Rule 1.13.


Note: There are no full-stops at the end of each source in the bibliography.