Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles
Who needs to cite laws? What citation style to choose for your paper?
Almost all professions require using the texts of laws and acts, as such regulations govern all the fields of human activities. Our website allows citing the laws in both common international citation styles (APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, ISO, etc.) and in line with special legal referencing standards such as OSCOLA (Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities). For example, Grafiati will produce the following bibliographic references for the same legal act in different citation styles:
APA (7th ed.): Data Protection Act 2018 (2018) (Great Britain). https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/contents/enacted
MLA (9th ed.): Great Britain, Parliament. Data Protection Act 2018. 25 Mar. 2018, www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/contents/enacted.
IEEE: Great Britain, Parliament. (2018, Mar. 25). Data Protection Act 2018. Accessed: Jan. 13, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/contents/enacted
ISO 690:2010: GREAT BRITAIN. Parliament. Data Protection Act 2018 [online]. 25 March 2018 [viewed 13 January 2021]. Available from: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/contents/enacted
Harvard: Great Britain. Parliament, (2018). Data Protection Act 2018 [online], 25 March 2018. [Viewed 13 January 2021]. Available from: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/contents/enacted
For some foreign countries, the references might become even more sophisticated, but we will still handle them automatically:
OSCOLA: O szczególnych rozwiązaniach związanych z zapobieganiem, przeciwdziałaniem i zwalczaniem COVID-19, innych chorób zakaźnych oraz wywołanych nimi sytuacji kryzysowych, Ustawa nr Dz.U. 2020 poz. 374, 2.03.2020 (Rzeczypospolita Polska) <https://isap.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=WDU20200000374> dostęp 13.01.2021
You can choose any of the above standards (and many other citation styles available on our website) depending on the requirements of your university or the editorial board of the scholarly journal.
How to reference the laws automatically online with the citation generator
To reference the acts of the United Kingdom, the United States, or other foreign legislation in a bibliography, go to our homepage (which is also the workspace for operating with your bibliography) and select ‘Law / Act’ from the list of available source types. Next, the form with the appropriate fields (law title and number, institution that adopted the law, date adopted, etc.) will be loaded, together with the field for searching the ready-to-use metadata in the catalogues of Grafiati. In the same way, you can cite any other regulations: ministerial orders, presidential decrees, regulations of the regional and local authorities, and so on.
At the top of this page, you will find the quick link for citing the source type you need.
The metadata of the laws/acts of many countries is already available on our website, and the list of such states is constantly growing. Therefore, you can search for an act by its title or number or paste the hyperlink to the law from the official legislation portal of the respective state. Thanks to this feature, you will not need to enter any additional data manually but still will be able to edit all of your references. Do you want to cite a law adopted in 2021? Most probably, it is already in our database that we are updating on a daily basis.