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Australian Guide to Legal Citation 4th Edition

Guidance on using the Australian Guide to Legal Citation referencing style

Internet materials

Internet materials

See AGLC Part III — Secondary Sources > rule 7.15


This is a rule of last resort. The Australian Guide to Legal Citation ('AGLC') states to only cite sources in internet material format where:

  • the item is not available in published form, and
  • no other AGLC rule applies.

Books, cases, legislation, journal articles, reports etc accessed online are cited in line with the relevant AGLC rules for those types of sources, not as internet materials.
 

Elements

Author, 'Document Title', Web Page Title (Document Type,  Full Date) Pinpoint <URL>
Stafford Shepherd, 'What is Inadvertent Disclosure?', Queensland Law Society (Web Page, 2 April 2015) <https://www.qls.com.au/Pages/Resources/Inadvertent-disclosure/What-is-inadvertent-disclosure>.
  • Author - only included if clearly indicated on the webpage. Omit if it's the same as the web page title
  • Document title — within single quotation marks
  • Web page title — italicise
  • Document type —  for example 'Blog Post, 'Forum Post'. If type is unclear, use 'Web Page'
  • Full date — use the date of last update (if identifiable) or otherwise the date of creation
    • if a full date is not provided, use as much of the date as appears, eg the year
    • if no date is given, omit this element altogether
    • date of retrieval is not required, unlike some other referencing styles
  • Pinpoint — [paragraph number] but web pages generally don't include pinpoints
  • URL — enclosed by point brackets. If the full URL is too long, use the website's general URL.
     

Examples

1 Eduardo Colón Semidey, 'Researching the Laws of Puerto Rico', GlobaLex (Web Page, January/February 2022) <https://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/Puerto_Rico.html>.

2 ‘The Duty Not to Counsel or Assist a Client to Destroy Documents on Social Media’, Queensland Law Society (Web Page, 2023) <https://www.qls.com.au/Practising-law-in-Qld/Ethics-Centre/Rules-Resources/The-duty-not-to-counsel-or-assist-a-client-to-dest>.

3 ‘Complaints Made to the Australian Human Rights Commission’, Australian Human Rights Commission (Web Page) <https://www.humanrights.gov.au/quick-guide/12000>.

4 Dylan Lino, ‘The Uluru Statement: Towards Federalism with First Nations’, Australian Public Law (Blog Post, 13 June 2017) <https://www.auspublaw.org/2017/06/towards-federalism-with-first-nations/>.

NB: These examples are current as at January 2025; subsequent webpage changes may impact on the referencing elements.

Social media posts

Social media posts

See AGLC Part III — Secondary Sources > rule 7.16

 

This rule also applies to YouTube videos that don't fit within AGLC rule 7.14.
 

Elements

Username, 'Title' (Social Media Platform,  Full Date, Time) <URL>
@WikiLeaks, 'Julian Assange is Free' (X, 25 June 2024, 9:58am AEST) <https://x.com/wikileaks/status/1805390138945528183>.
  • Use the username as it appears on the social media platform. Include @ in the X [Twitter] username. The author's name may be included within parentheses afterwards if important to identify
  • Omit the title if the post does not have a title
  • Include time and time zone if there are multiple posts on the same day
  • For YouTube videos, pinpoint references are to a point in time or time span in the format Hours: Minutes: Seconds
  • Include the URL in the initial citation in line with AGLC rules 4.4–4.5.
     

Examples

5 Consultative Council of Australasian Law Reporting, 'Why Authorised Reports Matter!' (YouTube, 2 June 2023) <https://youtu.be/-aza7NlEE2o?si=8std0_vexrgQ5GCF>.

6 TEDx Talks, 'True Tracks: Create a Culture of Innovation with Indigenous Knowledge' (YouTube, 21 December 2016) 0:00:00-0:01:00 <https://youtu.be/WfS11_DI6ew>.

7 @AusHumanRights (X, 6 June 2024, 8:59pm AEST) <https://x.com/AusHumanRights/status/1798671115923153347>.