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Internet, Media and Unpublished Materials

Websites, social media, news, interviews, press releases, speeches, letters and archives, under chapter 7.

Chapter 7 covers everything published outside the ordinary channels: the web, the press, the spoken word, private correspondence and the archives.

It opens by telling you not to use it. r 7.1.1 says always prefer a formally published version, and where the internet gives you enough to cite a paper source, cite the paper source and do not mention the internet at all.

URLs sit in angle brackets

A web address goes inside angle brackets (r 7.1). The brackets are part of the citation, not markup.

Where a page carries no date, the date bracket is left out entirely rather than left empty.

Author “Title” (date) Site name <url>.

9Dean Knight “Parliament and the Bill of Rights – a blasé attitude?” (6 April 2009) LAWS179 Elephants and the Law <www.laws179.co.nz>.

Social media

r 7.1.10 tells you to avoid citing Twitter unless it is necessary, and forbids a time stamp because the time shown differs between readers in different places.

Give the author, the handle, the text of the post and the address.

10Andrew Geddis (@electionlaw) “The Bill passed its third reading last night” <https://twitter.com/electionlaw/status/1>.

Newspapers and magazines

One form covers print and online. An online edition adds “online ed” at the front of the bracket.

Online newspapers go here, under r 7.2, not under the general internet rule.

Print
Rob Hosking “Messy Allowance Law Finally Gets Clarity” The National Business Review (New Zealand, 17 July 2009) at 2.
Online
Sam Sachdeva “Court reserves decision” Stuff (online ed, New Zealand, 4 June 2018).

Interviews

An interview opens with “Interview with”, then the person interviewed and their position, then the interviewer and where it was broadcast or published (r 7.3).

Where a transcript exists, say where it came from.

31Interview with William Birch, Finance Minister (Sean Plunket, Morning Report, National Radio, 5 July 1999).

Press releases and speeches

A speech names the speaker and their role, then the occasion, the venue, the place and the date.

Press release
Air New Zealand “Lock-out notice issued to EPMU” (press release, 21 April 2009).
Speech
Sian Elias, Chief Justice of New Zealand “First Peoples and Human Rights, a South Seas Perspective” (Ramo Lecture 2008, New Mexico School of Law, Albuquerque, 23 October 2008).

Letters and emails

Correspondence opens with the medium and the sender, then the recipient, then what it was about (r 7.6).

Both the sender and the recipient can carry a role in round brackets.

33Letter from CI Patterson (Chairman of the Securities Commission) to Geoffrey Palmer (Minister of Justice) regarding the Corporations (Investigation and Management) Bill 1988 (8 February 1989).

Edited and translated historical texts

A historical work republished in a modern edition names both the original author and whoever edited or translated it (r 7.7.1).

35Thomas Hobbes Leviathan (JCA Gaskin (ed), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998).

Archived material

r 7.7.2 sets a purpose rather than a template. Identify the document by whichever rule fits it, then locate it by the archiving institution’s own reference scheme.

Because the reference belongs to the archive rather than to the Style Guide, Pincite takes it as free text and reproduces it exactly.

36“Compilation of Summary Convictions at the Police Office Auckland” Archives New Zealand, IA1/41, 45/394.

Last reviewed 6 August 2026