Upgrade StorageAGLC 4 is on the way
The 4th edition of the Australian Guide to Legal Citation is on the way in the next month or so. I've seen part of the 4th edition in draft form, but not 100% sure of all changes yet. I thought this might be a good opportunity to talk about what types of documents aren't currently easy to cite, what kind of workarounds you've been employing and whether we can tackle any of these with the new style.
I'm keen to help improve the style but I'm at 101 stage for style editing. There's also no point proceeding without talking to other users. How are you using it and where are your points of pain? Big ones for me are looseleafs, Hansard, international materials, gazettes and a few others. If this is something people want to talk about I'm happy to share an editable document to track it.
I'm keen to help improve the style but I'm at 101 stage for style editing. There's also no point proceeding without talking to other users. How are you using it and where are your points of pain? Big ones for me are looseleafs, Hansard, international materials, gazettes and a few others. If this is something people want to talk about I'm happy to share an editable document to track it.
Is this the type of thing users generally work on together? How has the community handled it before?
Adamsmith and I worked on the original AGLC3 - happy to do so again if you are keen.
Edit: the former is assuming that the changes are fairly significant. If it's just a couple of tweaks I can obviously just make them.
I will review the changes and see what they are slated to be and update shortly.
David
Cheers
Dc
Keen to have a chat about this and to put together a list of high priority changes we should look at embedding into the AGLC4. I have a confidential copy of the new version which we can work from to develop this. Would you mind emailing me at all - you can find my address at my UTS Law Faculty profile (just don't want to write it up here from spammers).
David Carter
https://www.uts.edu.au/staff/david.carter
Although I've tested this quite thoroughly, his may still have some rough edges, so error reports welcome -- please do make sure you've checked the sample library for data entry, though, and refer to specific pages/sections in the AGLC4 guide when reporting.
And thanks once again for David Carter for organizing support for this.
A couple of things that don't seem right:
1. Short titles of cases are not displayed in subsequent references. This worked in AGLC3, but its not working in AGLC4.
2. Pinpoint (page) references are appearing in the parentheses with 'n 1'
So, for example I'm seeing the following for a subsequent reference:
"Victoria Park Racing and Recreation Grounds Company Ltd v Taylor (n 1 495, 497–498)."
But it should be:
"Victoria Park Racing (n 1) 495, 497–498."
Please let me know if there's a more appropriate place to report such issues.
Cheers,
Pete
@adamsmith and @StinaW will keep this in their list.
Cheers,
David
Thanks for that.
I've got another request. Could the pinpoint reference formatting be changed so that when I select "Paragraph" from the pinpoint dropdown menu, the reference appears in square brackets as per AGLC? The alternative solution I've been using has been to type the pinpoint into the suffix field with a preceding comma and space (eg ", [24]")
Cheers,
Pete
I've just realised that short titles are being displayed as well as the full title in subsequent references. As per my previous example:
So, for example I'm seeing the following for a subsequent reference:
"Victoria Park Racing and Recreation Grounds Company Ltd v Taylor, Victoria Park Racing (n 1 495, 497–498)."
But it should be:
"Victoria Park Racing (n 1) 495, 497–498."
This can be remedied by clicking "suppress author", however I think it would be better if it was automatic.
Cheers,
Pete
I see also that subsequent references to legislative material (statute) are being rendered with an error:
For example, first reference in footnote is correct: Public Health Act 2010(NSW).
Second subsequent reference (not immediately following it and so not ibid) is: Public Health Act (n 81)
...this subsequent reference is using the 'Name of Act' Zotero Field in the manner of a short title for subsequent references when there is no Short Title entered into the record in Zotero.
A short title (in the sense that we use that term in Zotero) should be used in relation to Statues only when there is a short title entered into the Short Title field, otherwise, use the full title of the legislation for the subsequent reference, i.e.: Public Health Act 2010(NSW). This would also mean that no cross-reference is required '(n 81)' unless a short title is used, but tbh I don't think that is the most important consideration, a cross reference being there in a subsequent reference that uses the legislation by its name and not short title is by the by in my reading of the AGLC4.
You can see the difficulty when each state and territory has a 'Public Health Act' (for example) and the year and jurisdiction is taken away in subsequent references - it is unclear which jurisdiction's materials are being referred to.
@StinaW
@davidjamecarter -- is that covered somewhere in the manual or is that just a convention?
It is in the manual: https://www.usc.edu.au/media/19143539/aglc4.pdf
Rule 1.4.1 is the general rule on short titles (for all reference types). For legislation and cases it says that ' a short title (see rule 1.4.4) may be used followed by a cross-reference [the (n x) system] in parentheses.'
Rule 1.4.1 means that short titles are optional for legislation and cases....and so should be driven by the inputting of a short title into the Zotero Short Title Field.
The use of short titles for legislation is governed by two rules: Rule 3.5 and Rule 3.1.7. Rule 3.5 is the more important, but 3.1.7 i'm putting in here for completeness.
Rule 3.5 says 'A shortened title for an Act, piece of delegated legislation or Bill may be provided and used in subsequent references in accordance with rule 1.4.1.'
Again this means that a short title is optional for legislative materials and should be driven by inputting of a short title in the Zotero Short Title Field.
Rule 3.1.7...that says 'A short title may be given to a portion of an Act, piece of delegated legislation or Bill'.
This means that, commonly, the 'Criminal Code' (which is Schedule 1 to the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth)) may be given a short title, as it is a portion of an act. So the reference would be (I'm not including italics here):
1. Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth) sch 1 (‘Criminal Code’).
...
31. Criminal Code (n 66) s 80.2(5).
In practice, it is far more common to use short titles for the 'portion of an act' than for shortening of an Act's title due to the problem of ambiguity (below) when citing multiple Acts with the same name but from multiple jurisdictions or the same Act from the same jurisdiction with the same name but in multiple versions (versioned by the year enacted).
...
Summary: short titles may be used, but given they are optional it is important that they aren't automatic. This is due to the fact that each Australian jurisdiction has legislative materials that are named in the same or similar ways (e.g. Crimes Act or Public Health Act etc) so that without the full repeated citation as a default you can't tell which piece of legislation is being referred to in subsequent references as the jurisdiction (NSW) and year (1901) is taken away.
Thanks. Yes, that was my mistake. The parentheses are in the right place.
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/79104/aglc4-citation-style-incorrect-for-subsequent-legislation-and-case-references
Sponsor, \textit{Title}, Code, Session, Bill Number (Date).