Is FreeCitation actually free?

Yes, completely free. FreeCitation supports APA 7th edition, MLA 9th edition, Chicago 17th edition, Harvard, IEEE, Vancouver, AMA 11th edition, Turabian, Oxford, and OSCOLA with no daily limits, no paywalls, and no account required. It is funded by ads, not subscriptions.

Do I need to sign up to use FreeCitation?

No. There is no signup, no email address required, no credit card, and no account of any kind. FreeCitation has no login system by design. You open freecitation.org and start generating citations immediately.

What citation styles does FreeCitation support?

FreeCitation supports APA 7th edition, MLA 9th edition, Chicago 17th edition (notes-bibliography), Harvard referencing, IEEE, Vancouver, AMA 11th edition, Turabian, Oxford, and OSCOLA. All styles are free with no limits.

How accurate are FreeCitation citations?

For DOIs, FreeCitation pulls directly from Crossref, the authoritative academic metadata registry used by publishers like Springer, Elsevier, and Wiley. For ISBNs it queries Open Library. For URLs it reads Open Graph metadata from the source page. DOI and ISBN citations are highly accurate. URL citations depend on how well the source page embeds metadata. Always verify citations before submitting academic work.

What source types can FreeCitation cite?

FreeCitation can cite websites (paste the URL), journal articles (paste the DOI), books (paste the ISBN), YouTube videos, news articles, academic papers, and more. For any source, paste what you have and the tool detects the type automatically.

Why is FreeCitation free when EasyBib and CitationMachine charge money?

EasyBib removed its free tier in 2021 and moved citations behind a Chegg subscription. CitationMachine has heavy upsell popups. FreeCitation was built as a clean alternative funded by non-intrusive ads instead of subscriptions. The tool does one thing: turn a URL, DOI, or ISBN into a properly formatted citation in seconds.

Can I save and export my bibliography?

Yes. Every citation you generate is saved automatically in your browser's local storage. You can view your saved bibliography, copy individual citations, and export the full list as plain text or Word format when you are done.

What is OSCOLA citation style?

OSCOLA stands for Oxford University Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities. It is the citation system used in UK law schools and legal academic publishing. Unlike APA or Harvard which use author-date in-text citations, OSCOLA uses footnotes. The first time you cite a source, the full reference goes in the footnote. Subsequent references use a short form. OSCOLA has specific rules for citing legal materials like court cases and legislation that do not exist in other citation styles.

How do I cite a court case in OSCOLA?

Cases in OSCOLA are cited by party names, year in square brackets, volume number (if any), law report abbreviation, and first page number. Example: R v Brown [1994] 1 AC 212. In text, you italicize the party names: R v Brown. In a footnote, you write the full citation without italics. If you are referring to a specific page within the case, add a comma and the page number after the first page: R v Brown [1994] 1 AC 212, 231.

What is a pinpoint citation in OSCOLA?

A pinpoint citation in OSCOLA refers to a specific page, paragraph, or section within a source — the equivalent of a page number in other citation styles. For cases, pinpoints are written as the first page of the case followed by a comma and the specific page: R v Brown [1994] 1 AC 212, 231. For books, the pinpoint is just the page number after the general reference. For journal articles, it is the specific page within the article.

Does OSCOLA use a bibliography?

OSCOLA does use a bibliography, but it is structured differently from Harvard or APA. In OSCOLA, the bibliography is divided into sections: primary sources (cases and legislation listed separately) and secondary sources (books, articles, websites). Cases are listed by party name, statutes are listed by title. The bibliography in OSCOLA is in addition to footnotes, not a replacement for them.

How is OSCOLA different from Harvard referencing?

The main difference is how citations appear in the text. Harvard uses author-date parenthetical citations like (Smith, 2020, p. 45) in the text, with a reference list at the end. OSCOLA uses numbered footnotes, where the full or short-form reference appears at the bottom of the page. OSCOLA also has specific citation formats for legal materials like court cases, legislation, and law reports that Harvard does not cover. OSCOLA is specific to legal academic writing; Harvard is a general academic style.

What is OSCOLA Citation? A Plain English Guide for Law Students

You have just started your law degree and your first essay feedback says "please use OSCOLA." You Google it. The official OSCOLA guide is 96 pages long. This guide is not that. This guide tells you what you actually need to know for a typical law school essay.

What OSCOLA actually is

OSCOLA stands for Oxford University Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities. It was created by Oxford Law Faculty and has become the dominant citation system across UK law schools, legal journals, and academic legal publishing. It is also used in some Commonwealth law schools.

The fundamental difference from every other citation style you may have learned is this: OSCOLA uses footnotes, not in-text author-date citations. When you reference a source in OSCOLA, a superscript number appears in your text, and the full reference goes at the bottom of the page in the corresponding footnote.

Example of OSCOLA in action

The House of Lords held that consent could not be a defence to assault in sadomasochistic activities.¹

FOOTNOTE 1:

R v Brown [1994] 1 AC 212.

Why law uses a different citation system

Law has a different relationship with its sources than other academic disciplines. In history or sociology, you cite journal articles and books. In law, many of your primary sources are court cases (which have their own reporting system), Acts of Parliament (which are cited by title and section, not by author), and EU regulations (which have their own numbering system).

APA and Harvard were simply not built for this. Try to cite the Human Rights Act 1998 in APA format and you immediately run into problems: there is no author, no journal, no volume number. OSCOLA was built from the ground up for legal materials.

Citing court cases in OSCOLA

Case citations in OSCOLA follow this format:

Party Name v Party Name [Year] Volume Law Report Abbreviation First Page

UK SUPREME COURT / HOUSE OF LORDS

R v Brown [1994] 1 AC 212

COURT OF APPEAL

Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562

HIGH COURT

Chester v Afshar [2004] UKHL 41

EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Handyside v United Kingdom (1976) 1 EHRR 737

Important details about case citations:

In your running text, party names are italicized: Donoghue v Stevenson held that manufacturers owe a duty of care...
In footnotes and the bibliography, party names are not italicized.
The year in square brackets means the year is essential to find the report. Round brackets mean the volume number is sufficient.
AC = Appeal Cases, UKHL = UK House of Lords, EWCA Civ = England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil).

Citing statutes and legislation

UK statutes are cited by their short title and year, followed by the section reference. No author, no publisher, no URL needed for well-known Acts.

Act Title Year, s [section number]

Human Rights Act 1998, s 6

Section 6 of the HRA

Equality Act 2010, ss 9-12

Sections 9 to 12

Theft Act 1968, s 1(1)

Subsection 1(1)

Companies Act 2006, Sch 1, para 4

Schedule and paragraph reference

In the body of your essay, Acts are written in italics: The Human Rights Act 1998 imposes obligations on public authorities... In footnotes, they are not italicized.

Citing journal articles in OSCOLA

Academic journal articles in OSCOLA follow this format in footnotes:

Author Name, 'Article Title' (Year) Volume(Issue) Journal Abbreviation First Page

REAL EXAMPLE: JOURNAL ARTICLE

Andrew Burrows, 'We Do This at Common Law but That in Equity' (2002) 22(1) OJLS 1

A few things to note:

Author names in OSCOLA are written First Name Last Name (not Last, First as in APA).
Article titles are in single quotation marks, not italics.
The journal name is abbreviated (OJLS = Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, LQR = Law Quarterly Review, MLR = Modern Law Review).
There is no comma between the journal abbreviation and the first page number.

Citing books in OSCOLA

Author Name, Book Title (Edition, Publisher Year)

REAL EXAMPLES: BOOKS

Andrew Ashworth, Principles of Criminal Law (7th edn, Oxford University Press 2013)

William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (first published 1765, Oxford University Press 2016)

Citing websites in OSCOLA

Author Name, 'Title of Page' (Site Name, Date) <URL> accessed Day Month Year

REAL EXAMPLE: WEBSITE

Ministry of Justice, 'Criminal Justice Statistics Quarterly' (gov.uk, March 2024) <https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics> accessed 10 April 2025

OSCOLA uses angled brackets around URLs, which is different from every other style guide. The access date is also mandatory for websites (unlike APA 7th where it is often optional).

The pinpoint citation

A pinpoint in OSCOLA means you are pointing to a specific page, paragraph, or section within a source. You add it after the first page number, separated by a comma.

CASE PINPOINT

R v Brown [1994] 1 AC 212, 231 (referring to page 231 of the case)

BOOK PINPOINT

Andrew Ashworth, Principles of Criminal Law (7th edn, OUP 2013) 156

ARTICLE PINPOINT

Andrew Burrows, 'We Do This at Common Law' (2002) 22(1) OJLS 1, 15

PARAGRAPH PINPOINT

R v Brown [1994] 1 AC 212, [23] (paragraph 23)

Subsequent references: ibid and short forms

Once you have cited a source fully in a footnote, you use a short form for all subsequent references. OSCOLA has two options:

ibid (same source, immediately following)

If footnote 5 cites R v Brown [1994] 1 AC 212 and footnote 6 cites the same case, footnote 6 just says: ibid. If it is the same source but a different page, say: ibid 225.

Short form (same source, not immediately following)

For cases: Brown (n 3) 225 — referencing footnote 3 and page 225. For books: Ashworth (n 7) 156. The (n 3) tells the reader where the full citation was first given.

How the OSCOLA bibliography works

OSCOLA bibliographies are divided into sections. A typical bibliography for a law essay looks like this:

Table of Contents / Bibliography structure

Table of Cases

R v Brown [1994] 1 AC 212

Table of Legislation

Human Rights Act 1998

Secondary Sources

Ashworth A, Principles of Criminal Law (7th edn, OUP 2013)

Burrows A, 'We Do This at Common Law' (2002) 22(1) OJLS 1

Note that in the bibliography (unlike footnotes), author names are written Last Name, First Initial for secondary sources. Cases and legislation keep their standard form.

OSCOLA vs Harvard vs APA at a glance

Feature	OSCOLA	Harvard	APA 7th
In-text citation	Footnote numbers	Author (year, p. x)	Author, year
Author name format	First Last (footnote)	Last, F.	Last, F. I.
Case citations	Built-in format	Not designed for this	Not designed for this
Statute citations	Built-in format	Not standard	Not standard
URL brackets	Angled < >	Varies	No brackets
Access date	Always required	Usually required	Often optional
Used by	UK law schools	Social sciences, UK universities	Psychology, social sciences

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to italicize case names in footnotes?

No. In OSCOLA, party names are italicized in the body text of your essay (because you are naming them as part of a sentence) but they are not italicized in footnotes or the bibliography. This trips up a lot of students who do it the same way throughout. Book titles, by contrast, are always italicized regardless of where they appear.

What does 'n.d.' or 'nd' mean in an OSCOLA citation?

If a website or document has no identifiable date, you write 'nd' in place of the date in your OSCOLA citation. Example: Ministry of Justice, 'Criminal Courts Statistics' (gov.uk, nd) <URL> accessed 10 April 2025. The access date becomes especially important when there is no publication date.

Is OSCOLA used outside of the UK?

OSCOLA is primarily a UK system. Some Commonwealth law schools (in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Canada) use it or a version of it. Most US law schools use the Bluebook citation system, which is a completely different system with its own rules for citing cases and statutes. If you are studying law outside the UK, check what your institution requires.

Looking for other citation styles? See our guides on how to write a bibliography, DOIs and ISBNs, and citing websites in APA.