AGLC4 Rule 4.4: Uniform Resource Locator (‘URL’)

A URL may be added to help a reader find the source. It goes in angle brackets at the end of the citation, after any pinpoint but before any short title. A general website address may replace an unwieldy document address if the document is easy to find from it, and no retrieval date is given.

AGLC4 page 90

Formatting

  • The URL is enclosed in angle brackets.
  • It follows any pinpoint after a single space, with no comma.
  • A short title, if one is used, comes after the URL.
  • The full stop ending the citation comes after the closing angle bracket or the short title.
  • No date of access or retrieval follows the URL.
  • Where the document's own address is cumbersome and the document is easy to locate from a general site, the general site's address may be given instead.

Examples

Quoted from the Guide, page 90
  1. 32
    ‘Flooding in the Philippines Highlights Urgency of Climate Leadership’, Oxfam International (Web Page, 28 September 2009) <http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2009-09-28/flooding-philippines-urgency-climate-leadership>.
  2. 33
    Family Court of Australia, Annual Report 16:17 (Report, 19 October 2017) 77 <http://www.familycourt.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/fcoaweb/reports-and-publications/annual-reports/2016-17/2016-17-annual-report-toc> (‘FCA 2016–17 Annual Report’). [Not: … <http://www.familycourt.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/7456589e-fc98-409b-8d1c-7b909bd30dcf/2743-Family_Court_of_Australia_2016_17_WEB.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=> …]

Not

Quoted from the Guide, page 90
  • [Not: … <http://www.familycourt.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/7456589e-fc98-409b-8d1c-7b909bd30dcf/2743-Family_Court_of_Australia_2016_17_WEB.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=> …]
    an unwieldy file address is replaced by a cleaner page from which the document can be reached

Forms in the rule

Quoted from the Guide, page 90
  • ‘< >’

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.

AGLC4 citation checker AGLC4 citation generator

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.