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Legal Citation

Tips and tricks for starting out with the Bluebook, ALWD, or other legal citation guide.

The Bluebook

NOTE: This guide is based on the 21st Edition of The Bluebook. The 22nd edition was published in 2025.  When the Law Library receives the 22nd edition, this guide will be updated.

The Bluebook contains three major parts:

  1. Bluepages
    How-to guide for basic legal citation
  2. Rules (white pages)
    • Rules 1-9
      General standards
    • Rules 10-21
      Specific authorities, e.g. cases
  3. Tables (blue stripe)
    Authorities, abbreviations, etc.

This guide contains select examples of Bluebook formatting. Other examples can be found in the official Bluebook® Quick Start Guide.

Rule / Table Pages Description
B2 6-7 Typeface conventions for court documents and legal memoranda
R1.2-1.4 62-65 Introductory signals, order of signals, and order of authorities within signals
R4 79-82 Short citation forms (i.e., citing materials previously cited)
R5 83-86 Formatting quotations
R10 95-116 Citing cases
R11 119-120 Citing constitutions
R12 120-134 Citing statutes
R14 142-146 Citing regulations and administrative materials
R18 174-186 Citing electronic sources and Internet sources
T1 227-298 Preferred U.S. federal and state sources and abbreviations
T6 304-307 Abbreviations for case names