AGLC Referencing in Google Docs: Complete 2026 Guide

The Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC) is footnote-heavy, rule-dense, and unforgiving about the small stuff — italics on case names, pinpoint format, the exact order of elements in a legislation citation. Getting the rules right on paper is one problem. Getting Google Docs to actually produce that formatting, footnote after footnote, page after page, is a different one.

This guide walks through AGLC (4th edition, the version currently in use across Australian law schools) in Google Docs specifically — footnote mechanics, the two citation types you'll use constantly, and the reference lists most units require at the end.

1. The Foundation: Font, Margins, and Spacing

AGLC doesn't mandate a single font the way some style guides do — it defers to your law school's formatting requirements. Most Australian faculties land on the same defaults, so start there unless your unit outline says otherwise.

1. Select all text (Ctrl+A / Cmd+A) and set the font to Times New Roman, 12 pt for the body.
2. Go to File > Page setup and set margins to 2.54 cm (1 inch) on all sides.
3. Go to Format > Line & paragraph spacing and set 1.5 lines for the body text.

Footnotes are the exception: Google Docs auto-formats them in a smaller size (typically 10 pt) with single spacing, which matches what AGLC expects. Leave the footnote formatting alone rather than manually resizing it — that's where most students accidentally break consistency.

2. Footnotes: The Core of AGLC

AGLC is a footnote system — there's no author-date shorthand in the body text. Every citation lives in a footnote, and the footnote marker goes at the end of the sentence or clause it supports, after the punctuation.

1. Place your cursor immediately after the punctuation mark, not before it.
2. Go to Insert > Footnote (or press Ctrl+Alt+F / Cmd+Option+F).
3. Type the full citation in the footnote, ending with a full stop.

Google Docs numbers footnotes automatically and renumbers everything if you insert or delete one earlier in the document — don't type footnote numbers by hand, and don't manually renumber if an edit shifts things around.

Subsequent references

AGLC uses a shortened form for a source you've already cited in full, rather than repeating the whole citation:

• Immediately following footnote, same source: Use Ibid, adding a pinpoint if the page or paragraph differs — Ibid 45.
• Same source, cited earlier but not immediately before: Use the author's surname (or a short case/legislation title) plus "(n [footnote number])" — Smith (n 4) 112.
• Never use op cit, loc cit, or supra — AGLC dropped these in favour of the "(n X)" format.

3. Citing Cases

Case citations follow a fixed order: case name (italicised), year, volume (if applicable), law report abbreviation, and starting page or medium-neutral citation number.

For unreported or recent decisions without a report citation, use the medium-neutral citation instead:

Two formatting details Google Docs won't handle for you: italicise the case name manually (Ctrl+I / Cmd+I) before and after typing it, and use square brackets for paragraph pinpoints in medium-neutral citations, round brackets for page pinpoints in reported citations.

4. Citing Legislation

Legislation citations italicise the short title, followed by the jurisdiction in parentheses (not italicised), then the pinpoint if you're citing a specific provision:

Common jurisdiction abbreviations: Cth (Commonwealth), NSW, Vic, Qld, WA, SA, Tas, ACT, NT. Only the act title is italicised — the jurisdiction abbreviation, section symbol, and pinpoint stay in regular text.

A quick way to avoid inconsistent italics: type the whole citation in regular text first, then go back and italicise just the title. Doing it in that order is faster than toggling italics on and off mid-sentence and forgetting to switch it back.

5. The Table of Cases and Table of Legislation

Longer essays, research papers, and case notes typically require a Table of Cases and a Table of Legislation before the Bibliography — alphabetised lists of every case and statute you cited, without pinpoints.

1. Insert a page break (Ctrl+Enter / Cmd+Enter) after the body text.
2. Center a heading reading Table of Cases, then list each case alphabetically by the first party's name, full citation, no pinpoint.
3. Insert another page break, center Table of Legislation, and list each act alphabetically, grouped by jurisdiction if your unit requires it.

Ignore "Re", "Ex parte", and similar procedural prefixes when alphabetizing case names — sort by the first substantive party name instead.

6. The Bibliography

The Bibliography comes last and splits into labelled categories — typically A Articles/Books/Reports, B Cases, C Legislation, and D Other. Each category is alphabetised on its own.

1. Start a new page and center Bibliography.
2. Add each category heading in bold, left-aligned.
3. Under Articles/Books/Reports, format author entries as Surname, First name — reversed from how they appear in footnotes.
4. Highlight each category's entries, go to Format > Align & indent > Indentation options, and apply a 0.5" hanging indent so wrapped lines are visually distinct from new entries.

This is the one place AGLC reverses the author name order used everywhere else in the document — it's an easy detail to miss if you're copying footnote text straight into the Bibliography instead of reformatting it.

7. Collaboration and Submission

Footnote-heavy documents are fragile in shared Docs. A collaborator accepting a suggested edit near a footnote marker can shift the marker's position, and pasting text copied from a PDF often drags in stray formatting that clashes with your footnote style.

• Paste with Ctrl+Shift+V / Cmd+Shift+V to strip incoming formatting before it reaches your document.
• After a group editing session, scroll through and confirm no footnote markers landed mid-sentence.
• Use File > Version history to roll back if footnote numbering looks scrambled after heavy edits.
• Export as PDF (File > Download > PDF Document) before submission and check that italics on case names and legislation titles survived the export.

Final submission checklist

• Times New Roman 12 pt body, 1.5 line spacing, 2.54 cm margins
• Footnote markers placed after punctuation throughout
• Case names and legislation titles consistently italicised
• Ibid and "(n X)" used correctly for repeat citations
• Table of Cases and Table of Legislation alphabetised, no pinpoints
• Bibliography split into labelled categories with hanging indents
• Author names reversed (Surname, First name) in the Bibliography only

One More Thing: Make the Writing Sound Like You

Perfect AGLC formatting won't offset writing that reads like it came out of a chatbot. Australian law schools increasingly run submissions through AI detection as part of academic integrity checks, and flagged case notes and essays get extra scrutiny regardless of how clean the citations are.

AuraWrite AI rewrites AI-drafted legal writing so it reads like your own analysis — preserving your argument, case references, and footnotes — while bringing the AI detection score back down to human range. Run your draft through the humanizer before you finalize the citations, then apply the AGLC formatting to the cleaned-up text.

Conclusion

AGLC in Google Docs comes down to trusting the automatic footnote tool, getting the italics right on case names and legislation titles, and remembering the one place the rules flip — author names reversed in the Bibliography. Lock in the foundation, keep footnote markers after punctuation, and build the Table of Cases, Table of Legislation, and Bibliography as separate, alphabetised sections.

Once the citations are solid, the only thing left between your draft and the mark is the quality of the analysis itself.

Last updated: August 7, 2026