AGLC4 Rule 1.4.4: Short Titles

A short title is an abbreviated title for a source, introduced in round brackets and single quotation marks after the first citation in a footnote or after the first mention in the text. In a footnote it goes at the very end of the first citation and is not repeated later. In the body, give the full title first and then the short title; a short title first used in a footnote must be introduced in the text the first time the text uses it, although a very long title may be replaced by a short title from a footnote.

AGLC4 page 12

Format

Quoted from the Guide, page 12
(‘Short Title’)

A boxed element is filled in with the source's details; everything outside a box is written exactly as shown.

Formatting

  • Form: an opening round bracket, a left single curly quotation mark, the short title, a right single curly quotation mark, a closing round bracket.
  • The brackets and quotation marks are always roman.
  • The words of the short title are italic only where the Guide italicises that kind of title (cases, legislation, books, reports); they are roman for journal articles and similar titles.
  • In a footnote the short title is the last element of the first citation, after the pinpoint, after any judges and after any parenthetical clauses under rule 1.5.7; the footnote's full stop follows the closing bracket.
  • One space precedes the opening bracket.
  • Where the text already names the case, the footnote begins with the year and still ends with the short title: (2009) 238 CLR 1 (‘Pape’).
  • The first citation in the footnotes is always a full citation, even when the short title was introduced in the text.
  • Later footnotes use the short title with a cross reference under rule 1.4.1 and keep the judges after the new pinpoint.
  • For cases, a short title is usually the popular name, the first party (dropping corporate status where suitable), the second party where the first is the Crown, or the ship in an admiralty case.

Examples

Quoted from the Guide, page 12
  1. 81
    (2009) 238 CLR 1 (‘Pape’).
  2. 82
    (2014) 252 CLR 416 (‘Williams [No 2]’).
  3. 83
    Pape (n 81) 125–6 [365] (Hayne and Kiefel JJ).
  4. 84
    Williams [No 2] (n 82) 476 [110] (Crennan J).
  5. 85
    Australian Law Reform Commission, Traditional Rights and Freedoms: Encroachments by Commonwealth Laws (Report No 129, December 2015) 209 [7.111] (‘Traditional Rights and Freedoms’).
  6. 87
    Traditional Rights and Freedoms (n 85) 209 [7.111].
  7. 88
    Kim Rubenstein, ‘Meanings of Membership: Mary Gaudron’s Contributions to Australian Citizenship’ (2004) 15(4) Public Law Review 305, 310 (‘Meanings of Membership’).
  8. 89
    Kim Rubenstein, Australian Citizenship Law in Context (Lawbook, 2002).
  9. 90
    Rubenstein, ‘Meanings of Membership’ (n 88) 305–11.

In the text

These decisions were Pape v Federal Commissioner of Taxation (‘Pape’)81 and Williams v Commonwealth [No 2] (‘Williams [No 2]’).82

Quoted from the Guide, page 12

Forms in the rule

Quoted from the Guide, page 12
  • ‘Tasmanian Dam Case’

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.