Referencing

The prescribed referencing style for Law is outlined in the New Zealand Law Style Guide, available both online and in print. The most recent online version can be accessed via the Law Student Homepage under Course Resources.

For a quick overview and examples, the Law Library's Quick guide to the NZ Law Style Guide has a table showing the most commonly cited legal resources (statutes, cases, etc.) along with a direct link to the corresponding part of the official Style Guide.

Style guide content

The guide contains chapters on:

• Correct grammar and footnoting techniques.
• Citation of New Zealand Legislation and Case Law.
• How to reference official and government publications.
• Secondary source citations such as books, journal articles, reports and encyclopedia.
• Citation of other sources including interviews, emails, internet sources, conference papers and newspapers.
• Jurisdiction by jurisdiction criteria for citing overseas legislation and case law.
• Information on the citation of international materials like UN documents, treaties, European Court of Human Rights decisions.
• Appendices on various other topics including Appendix 1 which lists the court identifiers for NZ courts and tribunals as well as the years from which they adopted neutral citation.
• Appendix 7 gives a sample bibliography.

Style guide overview

The Law library has produced a series of videos designed to introduce you to the style guide:

Te Piringa Faculty of Law assignment templates

The Assignment templates are accessible from the Law Student Homepage, under Course Resources, in the menu on the right. There are two templates, and you will need to download and save them as Word documents on your home share, home computer or USB.

• Law assignment template: prescribed margin and font settings are already set up. All you have to do is start typing.
• Law coversheet with plagiarism statement: set up as a form with fields requiring specific information.