AGLC4 Rule 4.2: General Rules for Citing Secondary Sources: Title

Titles are copied from the source, adjusted to the Guide's punctuation and capitalisation rules. A colon always separates title and subtitle, only the first subtitle is kept unless a second is merely a span of dates, and for older works only the short title before a comma is used. Words the Guide would otherwise italicise are italic only if the source italicises them, and a title that is wholly italic has no roman words.

AGLC4 page 88

Formatting

  • Punctuation follows rule 1.6 and capitalisation follows rule 1.7, rather than the source.
  • A colon and a space separate title from subtitle, whatever punctuation the title page uses.
  • Only the first subtitle is kept, except that a second subtitle consisting only of a span of dates is also kept.
  • For older works where a short title is followed by a comma and a long full title, only the short title is used.
  • Words such as case names within a title are italic only if the source italicises them.
  • Where the whole title is italic, as for a book, every word stays italic and none is set in roman.
  • Quotation marks inside a title that is itself in single quotation marks become double quotation marks.

Examples

Quoted from the Guide, page 88
  1. 23
    CB Cato, ‘The Mareva Injunction and Its Application in New Zealand’ [1980] (12) New Zealand Law Journal 270. [Not: … ‘The Mareva …]
  2. 24
    FA Trindade and HP Lee (eds), The Constitution of Malaysia: Further Perspectives and Developments (Oxford University Press, 1986). [Not: … The Constitution of Malaysia: Further Perspectives and Developments: Essays in Honour of Tun Mohamed Suffian …]
  3. 25
    Adam Webster, ‘Sharing Water from Transboundary Rivers in Australia: An Interstate Common Law?’ (2015) 39(1) Melbourne University Law Review 263. [Original title: Sharing Water from Transboundary Rivers in Australia — An Interstate Common Law?]
  4. 26
    Loretta De Plevitz, ‘The Briginshaw “Standard of Proof” in Anti-Discrimination Law: “Pointing with a Wavering Finger”’ (2003) 27(2) Melbourne University Law Review 308. [Original title: The Briginshaw ‘Standard of Proof’ in Anti-Discrimination Law: ‘Pointing with a Wavering Finger’]

Not

Quoted from the Guide, page 88
  • [Not: … ‘The Mareva …]
    the case name was not italic in the source title, so it stays roman
  • [Not: … The Constitution of Malaysia: Further Perspectives and Developments: Essays in Honour of Tun Mohamed Suffian …]
    only the first subtitle is included

Forms in the rule

Quoted from the Guide, page 88
  • [Original title: Sharing Water from Transboundary Rivers in Australia — An Interstate Common Law?]
  • [Original title: The Briginshaw ‘Standard of Proof’ in Anti-Discrimination Law: ‘Pointing with a Wavering Finger’]

See also

Check your footnotes against these rules

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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.