Skip to Main Content

Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation: Journal Articles

Also known as the "McGill Guide"

Journal Articles: General Form

References for this section are taken from E-85 to E-88 of the  McGill Guide (10th ed.)

 

Author(s)

A) General 

Indicate the author’s name as it is presented on the title page of the article, followed by a comma. Include

  • all names and initials used (but no space between initials)
  • titles (e.g. Professor or Lord)
  • name suffixes (e.g. Jr or IV)
  • but not the author's degrees or other credentials.

B) Multiple Authors

  • If there are 2 authors, separate the authors’ names with an ampersand (&)
  • If there are 3 authors, separate the 1st 2 names with a comma and place an ampersand (&) before the last one
  • For more than 3 authors, include only the first author’s name followed by et al
  • For collaborations, follow the usage as per the title page.

Examples

  • Goh Yihan & Yip Man, "The Protection from Harassment Act 2014: Legislative Comment" (2014) 26 SAcLJ 700.
  • Rafael La Porta et al, “Law and Finance” (1998) 106:6 Journal of Political Economy 1113 at 1152.

Title of Article

General Rules

  • Place the title in quotation marks (" ")
  • Capitalise the title according to the conventions of the language of the title
  • Separate a title from a subtitle with a colon
  • Do not put a comma or full-stop after the title.

Example

Paul Myburgh, "Admiralty Sales Pendente Lite: Reserve Prices and Broker Appointments" (2018) 24:5 JIML 369.

Year of Publication, Volume and Issue

A) Year of Publication

  • If a journal is organised by volume number, place the year in parentheses "( )".
  • If a journal is organised by year (i.e. no volume number), place the year in square brackets "[ ]".

Examples

  • Hock Lai Ho, "The Criminal Trial, the Rule of Law and the Exclusion of Unlawfully Obtained Evidence" (2016) 10:1 Crim Law and Philos 109.
  • Lin Lin & Michael Ewing-Chow, "The Doing Business Index on Minority Investor Protection: The Case of Singapore" [2016] Sing JLS 46.

 

B) Volume and Issue

  • Place the volume number after the year of publication, followed by a colon and the issue number.
  • Provide the volume and issue number in Arabic numerals (e.g. 2, 4, 10) even if the journal uses Roman numerals (II, IV, X).

Example

Damian Chalmers & Sarah Trotter, "Fundamental Rights and Legal Wrongs: The Two Sides of the Same EU Coin" (2016) 22:1 Eur LJ 9.

Title of Journal

A) Abbreviate the title of the journal according to the list of abbreviations in Appendix D of the McGill Guide (10th ed.).

Where the journal does not appear in Appendix D, you may apply the abbreviation rules under Section 6.1.6 of the Guide.

Alternatively, more journal abbreviations are available through the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations.

Example

Tan Tee Jim & Ng-Loy Wee Loon, "Intellectual Property Law" (2013) 14 SAL Ann Rev 412.

B) Abbreviations for Singapore journals from Appendix D of the McGill Guide:

Name of Journal or Yearbook Abbreviation
Singapore Academy of Law Annual Review SAL Ann Rev
Singapore Academy of Law Journal Sing Ac LJ
Singapore Journal of International and Comparative Law Sing JICL
Singapore Journal of Legal Studies Sing JLS
Singapore Law Review Sing L Rev
Singapore Year Book of International Law SYBIL

Alternative abbreviations to the above journals and law reviews as well as additional Singapore periodical abbreviations are available through the Singapore Legal Abbreviations index.