AGLC4 Rule 1.1.4: Closing Punctuation in Footnotes

Each footnote must finish with closing punctuation. This is normally a full stop, but a footnote that asks a question may end with a question mark or another suitable mark instead.

AGLC4 page 3

Formatting

  • A plain citation footnote ends with a full stop.
  • A footnote that ends in a question ends with the question mark and takes no extra full stop.
  • When ibid is followed by a further source in the same footnote, a semicolon separates them and a single full stop closes the footnote.
  • Ibid carries no full stop of its own; the only full stop is the one that ends the footnote.

Examples

Quoted from the Guide, page 3
  1. 23
    R v Gomez [1993] AC 442.
  2. 24
    Ibid; R v Macleod (2001) 52 NSWLR 389.
  3. 25
    But what of the second proposition, namely, that Mr Ford was benefited by the receipt of the means of obtaining goods and services that he genuinely and subjectively desired?

See also

Check your footnotes against these rules

Paste your paper into the free AGLC4 checker and each footnote is graded against the Guide, with the rule it breaks. To write a citation from scratch, use the AGLC4 citation generator.

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Formats, examples, passages, tables and the forms marked Not are quoted from the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (4th ed, Melbourne University Law Review Association, 2018), with the page of the Guide they appear on. Titles, summaries and explanations are our own.