UNSSW Busiiness Scchool

Taxa
ation and Busine
ess Law
w

Qu
uick Style
e Gu
uide
This quick style guide
g contain ns informatio
on about howw to present and
a referencce your
assiggnment in TA ABL1710 Business and th he Law. The e School of Taxation
T andd Business Laaw
usess the legal foootnote metho od of referen
ncing as set out
o in the Au ustralian Guidde to Legal
Citattion (3rd ed).. This is diffe
erent from th
he Harvard sttyle of referencing that yoou may be
familliar with from
m your other subjects.
s

1. Presentin
ng your as
ssignmentt

Your asssignment must

m be subbmitted elecctronically th
hrough Turn
nitin on Mooodle. Assig
gnments
should be typed in 12 point Times New R Roman or equivalent fo ont and havee adequate e
marginss. Use doub
ble or 1.5 sp
pacing betwween lines.

Your asssignment should

s include both foo otnotes and a bibliography. You sshould referrence
your asssignment using the rules in the Au ustralian Gu al Citation ((3rd ed), available
uide to Lega
at http:///www.law.u
unimelb.edu
u.au/mulr/ag glc. Sectionn 2 below co
ontains somme examples of
how to apply the AGLC
A to the
e different tyypes of sourrces you might use in yyour assignment.

The woord limit for the

t assignm ment is calcuulated by re
eference to all text in thhe assignme
ent.
This excludes citattions and reeferences inn the footnotes and the
e bibliographhy, but incluudes
discursive text withhin footnote
es.

Some sstyle tips to assist with your writing

g are set ou
ut on section
n 3.

2. Referenciing

Referen
ncing means acknowle t information and ideeas in your writing.
edging the ssources for the
Referen
ncing and citing source
es are a vitaal part of ac
cademic and
d legal writinng. Your
assignm
ment must fully
f and prooperly cite a
all the sourc
ces on which you havee drawn. Us sing the
words o
or ideas of another
a perrson withoutt acknowled dgement is plagiarism aand amoun nts to
academmic miscondduct.

In your assignment, you may need to refe fer to a rang

ge of materials includinng different Acts,
A
Regulattions, legislative instruments, Billss, cases (thaat is, decisions of courrts and tribu
unals),
governmment reportts and discu ussion pape ers, books, chapters
c in books, jourrnal articles
s,
newspa apers and periodicals,
p radio and teelevision broadcasts an nd websitess.

Here arre some exa amples of how

h to cite tthese types of sources. You can aalso refer to
o the
quick guide to the AGLC syste em of refereencing available at
http://la
aw.unimelb.e
edu.au/mulr/submissio ons/quick-agglc.

business.unsw
b w.edu.au

Last
L Updated 20 February 2017
2 CRICO
OS Code 0009
98G
 Legislation, legislative instruments, rules and codes
Australian Consumer Law s 29.

Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW)

Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) s 1043A.

Corporations Regulations 2001 (Cth) reg 7.10.01.

Corporations Amendment (Professional Standards of Financial Advisers) Bill 2015.

Australian Securities and Investments Commission, ASIC Corporations (Basic Deposit

and General Insurance Product Distribution) Instrument 2015/682, 22 July 2015.

Australian Bankers Association, Code of Banking Practice (at 1 February 2014).

Cases
Hoyts Pty Ltd v Spencer (1919) 27 CLR 133.

Woolworths Limited v BP plc (No 2) [2006] FCAFC 132.

Government reports
Financial System Inquiry, Treasury (Cth), Financial System Inquiry Final Report (28
November 2014).

Books and chapters in books

A Gibson and D Fraser, Business Law (Pearson, TABL1710 custom ed, 2016).

Olivia Dixon, Corporate Criminal Liability: The Influence of Corporate Culture in Justin
OBrien and George Gilligan (eds), Integrity, Risk and Accountability in Capital Markets
Regulating Culture (Hart Publishing, 2013) 251.

Looseleaf services
LexisNexis Butterworths, Australian Consumer Credit Law (at Release 83) [3.005].

Journal articles
Nicola J Howell, Revisiting the Australian Code of Banking Practice: Is Self-Regulation
Still Relevant for Improving Consumer Protection Standards? (2015) 38 UNSW Law
Journal 544.

Internet materials
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Cartels
https://www.accc.gov.au/business/anti-competitive-behaviour/cartels.

2
 Newspaper articles
Sarah Danckhert, ASIC nears end of probe into alleged bank-bill swaps rigging, The
Age (online), 11 February 2016 http://www.theage.com.au/business/banking-and-
finance/asic-nears-end-of-probe-into-alleged-bankbill-swaps-rigging-20160211-
gmr4qd.html.

Radio and television broadcasts

ABC Television, Banking Bad, Four Corners, 3 July 2014 (Adele Ferguson and Deb
Masters) http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2014/05/05/3995954.htm.

ABC Radio National, Dominos CEO says hes proud of franchisees as investigation
into worker exploitation continues The World Today, 15 February 2017 (David Taylor)
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2016/s4620271.htm.

3. Style tips

Following these style tips will help to improve your writing in Taxation and Business Law.
Above all, remember the aim is to share what you know through your writing in a way that is
interesting, engaging and easy to follow, and demonstrates your mastery of the material and
the method.

Headings: Capitalise the first word and proper nouns only; different level headings
should be consistently formatted. Do not use too many heading levels three at most.

Footnotes: These should not be used to make substantive points; they should be
explanatory only and kept to a minimum. All bibliographical details, case citations etc.
should be contained in the footnotes, not in text. Footnote signifiers (that is, the little
number) should appear after punctuation and quotations.

Abbreviations: Keep periods to a minimum for example, ACCC not A.C.C.C.; A

Gibson not A. Gibson.

Acronyms: When first used, put the full name or phrase followed by the acronym in
brackets - for example, Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
Subsequently you can just use the acronym. Acronyms are preceded by the only if they
are not usually pronounced as a word. For example, ASIC but the FSI. Acronyms are
not italicised.

Quotations: Quotations of less than 30 words should be placed within the text in single
inverted commas. A quotation within a quotation should have double inverted commas.
Quotations of more than 30 words should be indented, without quotation marks and in a
smaller font.

Dates: Use the forms 24 May 2015, nineteenth century, 1980s, 1992-97.

Initial citations: The full citation should always be used when a source is first mentioned
that is, the form of citation shown in section 2.

3
 Pinpoint citation: Each citation should, where relevant, also include the pinpoint
reference that is, the exact paragraph, section or page you are referring to. For
example, Woolworths Limited v BP plc (No 2) [2006] FCAFC 132 at [20].

Subsequent citations: Each subsequent time a source is cited you can use an
abbreviated form for example, Corporations Act s 1325; Woolworths at [34]; Gibson
and Fraser, above n 2, 45; Howell, above n 4, 550. The n number in the last two
examples is the number of the footnote that contains the full citation to the relevant
source. Ibid can be used to refer to a source in the immediately preceding footnote. If
the pinpoint reference is the same, use Ibid on its own; otherwise include the new
pinpoint reference as well for example, Ibid 45-6.

Language: Use plain English and gender neutral language. Pay attention to your tone
and voice, which should be measured, balanced and objective. Avoid colloquialisms,
grammatical contractions (for example, use do not instead of dont), slang, verbosity
and emotive language. Be careful to check your sentence structure, and use the
Macquarie Dictionary Australian spelling.

Grammar and punctuation: Check your grammar and punctuation against the guides
provided by the Macquarie Dictionary at
https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/resources/view/resource/20/ (for grammar) and
https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/resources/view/resource/6/ (for punctuation).