The bluebook style is exclusively used for legal papers, and so it can be somewhat complicated due to its focus on easy citations of various court documents. A full citation works well in a textual sentence as well as a citation sentence. The bluebook is the most commonly used system for legal citations in the united states, especially for legal scholarship, but also with modifications by local rules in judicial opinions and party briefs. The bluebook has dominated citation because, since it was introduced in 1926, it has enjoyed a virtual monopoly as a national system of citation. A book, report, treatise, or other nonperiodic material may be cited in shortform after it has been in full. Do not end a citation clause with a period, unless it is the last clause in the sentence. Citations in textual sentences or citation sentences. This is a proposed citation style to adapt the bluebook to the unique needs of wikipedia.
Footnotes may also appear on their own page after the references page in your document. Bluebook rule 10 covers how cases should be cited in legal documents. Chicago style allows either footnotes or text citations also called intext citations or authordate citations. The following information regarding the bluebook citation format is an adapted.
In a diverse and rapidly changing legal profession, the bluebook continues to provide a systematic method by which members of the profession communicate important information to one another about the sources and legal authorities upon. Books, reports, treatises bluebook legal citation tarlton. A bluebook alwd case citation consists of the parties names, which are underlined and separated by v. In documents submitted to kentucky courts, cite to ky. Second, there is so much information in the bluebook, it is hard find some of the details a lawyer needs to know for legal writing. It provides a system of rules for legal citations so that readers can locate the sources cited. Any information about state and court that is clear from the reporter name should be deleted from the parenthetica l. Latin terms and abbreviations what this handout is about this handout will explain latin terms and abbreviations you may see in academic writing, will demonstrate how to use the most common ones correctly in your own writing, and will present latin abbreviations used as shortcuts in citations. Generations of law students, lawyers, scholars, judges, and other legal professionals have relied on the bluebook s unique system of citation in their writing. The manual supplements the uniform citation system for florida legal documents contained in florida rule of appellate procedure 9. It also updates the superior court guide to the delaware rules of legal citation adopted in july 1997. One commences with the particular state s abbreviation, e. Put a space between the footnote number and the footnote itself.
Aug 01, 2019 citations are to the 20th edition of the bluebook, a uniform system of citation. Look up the abbreviation for the state in table 10. This proposal covers citations to united states legal materialsu. Inclusive page numbers for the chapter should be provided after the title of the book see owens and sprudzs examples below. Citation format examples for footnotes general rules times new roman, size 10, 1 line spacing, justified.
Blue pages this guide covers the bluebook s white pages, which provide citation rules for academic papers. For california state cases, csm requires you to cite the official reporters cal. Scan your paper for grammar mistakes and catch unintentional plagiarism. Sep 06, 2019 dont throw away your bluebook just yet, however csm sometimes refers you to the bluebook for additional rules.
Abbreviated reporter names can be found in table t1 of the blue book. In academic writing, the case name is in normal type in footnotes and italicized in text. Center and bold the word footnotes at the top of the page. The first time you cite a scripture passage, place it in parentheses with a translation abbreviation.
School of government legal citation and style guide. The bluebook style guide is used in the american legal profession for citation of all relevant sources. First, appellate courts in missouri dont follow the forms suggested in the bluebook for citing to missouri cases and statutes. Unlike previous versions, the writing manual states its directives in rule format. The form is a blend between intext and footnotebased formats, as its citations are located in the text but appear more similar to footnotebased ones. A uniform system of citation and the association of legal writing directors alwd citation manual supreme court ky. Set off with commas, unless it ends a sentence, then end with a period. Numbered volumes are cited in arabic numerals 1,2,3, not roman numerals i,ii,iii, even if that is how they appear in the original. Bluebook is a style of referencing which is the most used legal citation system in the united states, used at the majority of us law schools. The following information regarding the bluebook citation format is an adapted version of the style and formatting guidelines found in the bluebook, 20th ed.
Page numbers are typically cited following the name of a work and before a date parenthetical. The florida style manual is designed to aid practitioners and scholars to identify the proper citation form for legal documents and scholarly articles. They suggest that footnotes are meant only for nonacademic legal documents, but footnotes may be preferable for most profs. B1 structure of legal citations citations appear in the body of the text. Thus far, this guide has described how to cite cases in long form, i. Jurisdictional abbreviations are found in bluebook table 1. For most courts, the reporter the bluebook tells you to cite is part of wests national reporter system, an unofficial set of reporters that covers all federal and state courts. If the emphasis of your sentence is the case itself, make it the object noun of your sentence place the citation in the textual sentence. Only abbreviate words in table 10 and table 16 when citation is used in a footnote. For example, several cases following a see signal must be placed in order according to court, chronology, and sometimes alphabetically. Additionally, there are a few rules that may take a little getting used to. The 2012 supreme court of ohio writing manual, updated in 20 with this second edition, supersedes the 1985 manual, the interim edition, and the 2002 revisions. Heres what the bluebook says about that, right on page 1. Jul 19, 2018 for many years, the california style manual was the official citation guide for materials filed in the california state courts.
Follow it with a footnote explaining the translations formal name. However, courts and professors often tell you to cite to the official reporter instead. Attribution to identify the source of ideas expressed in the text, and. Because you will often cite a case and other legal materials multiple times in a document, the bluebook has established a short form for use in subsequent citations. The bluebook also has citation rules for legal memoranda and other practiceoriented materials the blue pages, which students in lrwa2 use for their memo assignments. Pages, paragraphs, and pincites bluebook legal citation. Depending on the source or style, you may or may not need to know the city, state, or country. Oct, 2017 the case name occurs at the beginning of the citation. Citation clauses are set off from the text by commas and immediately follow the proposition to which they relate.
The central function of a legal citation is to allow the reader to efficiently locate the cited source. While there is a general format for a bluebook short form case citations, there are other formats that can be used, as well, depending on preference and circumstance. Bluebook case guide bluebook citation generator legalease. If a constitution is referred to in a textual sentence, the citation must be written out fully, or the provision referred to by name. Therefore when citing material of a type not explicitly discussed in this book, try to locate an analogous type of authority that is discussed and use that citation form as a model. If you use particular rules or tables frequently, tab them.
Chicago manual of style 16th edition full note american psychological association 6th edition. California case citation, the bluebook a uniform system of citation student name. The case name that appears at the beginning of published opinions typically contains too much information for most citations. Because of the everincreasing range of authorities cited in legal writing, no system of citation can be complete. To cite a state, use either the word state, commonwealth, or people, depending on which appears on the title page, if citing to a case decided by that state s state court. The citation format for state statutory codes is similar to federal statutes, but it varies by state. In all footnotes that contain more than one source following a single signal, you must check the citations according to the order of authorities chart in the bluebook rule 1. Show me citations attempts to solve two problems with using the bluebook.
Table 1 provides a list of statutory codes for each state and indicates which is the officialpreferred code to cite as well as the abbreviations for each. Citing cases bluebook guide guides at georgetown law library. Pages, paragraphs, and pincites bluebook legal citation tarlton. Individual person only use the last name, omitting any job title or descriptive terms. State abbreviations bb alwd ib state abbreviations 1. The bluebook requires citation only to the official report supreme court opinions are also published in. This is a proposed citation style to adapt the bluebook to the unique needs of. Never use the two character postal abbreviations for states. The bluebook is the most commonly used system for legal citations in the united states, especially for legal scholarship, but also with modifications by local rules in judicial opinions and party briefs this proposal covers citations to united states legal materialsu. One of the keys to citing statutes properly is knowing where to find the proper legal citation abbreviations. Citation clause like a citation sentence, but set off my commas rather than periods.
There is a special listing of abbreviations contained in the bluebook which exhaustively sets forth all words that should be abbreviated in case names and other legal documents. Bt2 jurisdictionspecific citation rules and style guides. Case names in textual sentences and citations are different in typeface and abbreviation. A list of any available codes for each state is included in table t1.
Bluebook citation style is designed for both students and researchers to be used in academic writing the whitepages and practitioners clerks, lawyers, and other legal professionals to be used in nonacademic legal documents the bluepages. Table 1 provides the citation format for a particular states statutory code. Unlike the bluebook, the alwd manual has just one set of citation rules, the rules are easy to understand, and the examples are readily usable. Bluebook citation for llm students bluebook citation for. For party name abbreviation rules, it is the same as a citation sentence.
The bluebook states that all case citations should be to the reporters required by. A denial of rehearing by any court including the supreme court should not be reflected in the citation unless it is accompanied by an opinion, or unless the denial is relevant to. Use a citation clause when differing parts of one sentence require a citation. Realize that the bluebook tries to cover every contingency. There are a different kinds of party names, and the type of name will determine format. In court documents, the case name is underlined or italicized. Also included is the officialpreferred code for that state, as well as the proper abbreviations for each code. For non north carolina cases especially, its a good idea to verify that an author has used the correct abbreviation. Oct, 2017 constitution abbreviations only abbreviate words in table 10 and table 16 when citation is used in a footnote.
Personally, i loathe text citations, as they break up the text and make it very confusing to read. These are some rules for citing only what is necessary. The fastest way to collect all of the citation information for a case is to highlight the specific text you would like to cite and use the databases copy with citation feature. Lettersabbreviations at the end of a name that tells us more about an individual. In virginia, for example, a citation to a statute in the code of virginia 1950 annotated has the following three elements. The supreme court of the united states is the only federal court to officially report its cases. State statutes bluebook guide guides at georgetown law. Such diversity of rules and citation forms has made the bluebook quite difficult to apply. The main rule that describes the short form for cases is rule 10. Jul 19, 2019 like federal statutes, state statutes may be published in both an official code and an unofficial code, and the bluebook requires you to cite to the official code, if possible rule 12. A citation to multiple footnotes uses the abbreviation nn. Setting forth all such terms here is beyond the scope of this article, but any term not listed therein should not be abbreviated. In the 4 short form citation examples below, notice how each successive citation gets shorter but still contains enough information to clearly indicate to the reader which case is. The bluebook also has citation rules for legal memoranda and other practiceoriented materials the blue pages, which students in.
The citation below assumes you are creating a citation sentence for use in a footnote. Bluebook citation for legal materials purdue writing lab. Indent one tab or five spaces on the first line of each footnote. It is a composite of those contained in the bluebook and the alwd guide to legal citation. With that in mind, here is a list of some of the more obscure bluebook rules. In the beginning, youll probably be tabbing rules 6, 10 and 12 and table 1 and the beginning of the abbreviations section, tables 6 through 12. In that case, you can determine the proper abbreviation for the journals title by finding. Do not begin a citation clause with a capital letter unless the citation clause begins with a source that would otherwise be capitalized. The following citation rules are primarily adapted from the bluebook.
A list of 1 reporters and reporter abbreviations, 2 courts and court abbreviations, and 3 preferred sources to cite for federal courts and each state s courts table 6. Additionally, the chicago manual of style recommends its use for all citation of legal material. Case name abbreviations table 6 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z. Nowadays, it is not concise anymore and contains 511 pages instead of 26 published in 1926. While courts have their own rules of citation that are followed by attorneys within each jurisdiction, many courts including oregons appellate courts defer to the bluebook for matters not. The style manual used by the new york state law reporting. Company, individual, or entity that helped get a work published or distributed. Citation sentence a sentence consisting wholly of authorities which support the previous sentence or clause.
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