Skip to Main Content

Legal Citation with the 9th edition of the McGill Guide

This guide provides an introduction to legal citation in Canada.

Citing Books

This is the citation pattern for books:

author(s), title, edition (if needed), place of publication, publisher, year of publication, pinpoint (if needed).

Example:

Jamie Chai Yun Liew & Donald Galloway, Immigration Law, 2nd ed (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2015). 

Citation Breakdown:

A. Author's Name

  • initial(s) or first name (as it appears in the book), then last name
  • use an ampersand (&) to connect two authors

B. Book Title

  • the title should be in italics

C. Edition Number

  • include if this is not the first edition (do not superscript st, nd, rd or th following the number)

D. Place of Publication

  • the city name is followed by a colon and contained in parentheses along with the publisher name and year of publication 

E. Publisher

  • write the name of the publisher as it appears on the title page

F. Year of Publication

  • indicate the year of the current edition

G. Pinpoint

  • Pinpoint to a page or section. See the following examples:

    Jamie Chai Yun Liew & Donald Galloway, Immigration Law, 2nd ed (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2015) at 73.

    RJ Delisle, Evidence: Principles and Problems (Toronto: Carswell, 1984) at 129.