Guide For Law Review Members  Tags: law legal_research legal_writing law_reviews  

The basic purpose of citation is to give attribution to the author(s) and provide sufficient information to the reader to find the referenced source. 

Uniform style guides were developed over time to standardize citation.  Legal citation is prescribed by The Blubook.

The Bluebook (KF245 .U553 2006) is the definitive style guide for legal citation.  When working on a law review, you will be asked to consult The Bluebook for proper legal citation.  The point is not to memorize all the rules within The Bluebook but to know how to use it and how to find the applicable rules.

The Bluebook online.

Try to save yourself some time by working in teams.  The same source could be cited many times within one article or even across several articles.  Make sure you communicate with your fellow students, so you are not all requesting the same exact source.

Start your work from a consolidated Table of Authorities.  You can quickly identify if an article cites to the same source more than once.

The world of online information is vast.  Many materials are available freely on the Internet, but cannot necessarily be cited to in a law review article.  There is a need for permanent, authenticated, and authoritative sources.  Print resources meet these criteria, which is why The Bluebook requires their citation. 

Rule 18

"This rule covers citation of information found in electronic media and other non-print resources. Sources in these media pose special problems because they often lack the permanence and authoritativeness of traditional printed material.  Therefore, The Bluebook requires the use and citation of traditional printed sources unless (1) the information cited is unavailable in a traditional printed source; or (2) a copy of the source cannot be located because it is so obscure that is is practically unavailable.  Only in these two cases should citation be made to the electronic source alone.

Even if a printed source can be found, a parallel citation to an electronic source as related authority may be provided if it will substantially improve access to the relevant information."  ***

It is important to cite permanent sources; online sources may suffer from the phenomenon of link rot.  "Link rot (or linkrot) is the process by which links on a website gradually become irrelevant or broken as time goes on, because websites that they link to disappear, change their content, or move to new locations." [Wikipedia]  To attempt to retrieve a broken link, please consult the Internet Archive under Electronic Sources in this guide.