Examples: Bluebook Basics for Summer Jobs
These are selected examples of the application of Bluebook rules. The word "Sentence" has been used to replace a textual sentence. No guide can cover all possible iterations of the rules. When in doubt, ASK your supervising attorney.
Examples: Id.
Cases
Sentence. Tasini v. New York Times Co., 972 F. Supp. 804, 809 (S.D.N.Y. 1999). Sentence. Id. at 810-12.
- Note that Id. is followed by the word “at” with no comma, and simply the page numbers.
Statutes
Sentence. 17 U.S.C. §§ 101 et seq. Sentence. Id. § 102.
- In this instance, the section symbol is used without “at”, which would be redundant.
Secondary Sources
Sentence. Jeremy Waldron, Liberal Rights 5 (1993). Sentence. See id. at 4-5.
- Id. may be combined with a signal.
Proper or improper use of Id.?
[FN25]. …A non-exclusive license is not a "transfer of copyright ownership," see 17 U.S.C. § 101, and therefore, it does not have to be in writing. See Pinkham v. Sara Lee Corp., 983 F.2d 824, 831 (8th Cir. 1992).
[FN26]. Id. § 101(2)
- The use of Id. is not appropriate here because there is more than one authority cited in the preceding footnote.
- The correct form for footnote 26 would be: 17 U.S.C. § 101(2)
[FN37]. Tasini v. New York Times Co., 972 F. Supp. 804, 809 (S.D.N.Y.), rev'd, 206 F.3d 161 (2d Cir. 1999), cert. granted sub nom., New York Times Co. v. Tasini, 121 S. Ct. 425 (2000).
[FN38]. Id. at 810-12.
- Id. is properly used here!
- The additional citations in footnote 37 all refer to the same authority so no confusion would occur.
Examples: Supra
Ginsburg, supra at 1485 (citing Gershwin Publ'g Corp. v. Columbia Artists Mgmt., 443 F.2d 1159, 1162 (2d Cir. 1971)).
[FN110]. See supra text accompanying note 64.
- You may combine supra with a signal and other text.
- The signal would be italicized but the text explaining where to look is in ordinary type.
Examples: Infra
Nevertheless, the cases holding that the server's behavior constitutes "distribution" seem justifiable. See infra note 76 and accompanying text.
- Infra usually follows a signal.
- The signal and infra are italicized, but the rest of the text is not.
There had, of course, been rules of war for many centuries. See discussion infra Part III.
- Infra may also follow text after a signal, as appropriate.
- Anything other than infra or the signal would appear in ordinary type.
Examples: hereinafter
Venezuelan Money and the Presidential Election: Hearing Before the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 105th Cong. 17 (1998) [hereinafter Venezuelan Hearing]
- Notice that the authority needs to be identifiable in the shortened form. Thus, Venezuelan Hearing instead of Hearing.
- This source would be cumbersome to cite in its entirety every time.
Examples: Typefaces
Cases
In Tasini, the court it handled a challenge brought by a group of freelance writers against publishers and database proprietors. Tasini v. New York Times Co., 206 F.3d 161 (2nd Cir. 2000), amending Tasini v. New York Times Co., 192 F.3d 356 (1999), cert. granted sub nom., New York Times Co. v. Tasini, 121 S. Ct. 425 (Mem) (2000)
Books and Book Chapters
Henry M. Hart & Herbert Wechsler, The Federal Courts and the Federal System (N.Y. Found. Press 1953).
Frances Miller, Rights and Resources: Two Sides of an Irregular Coin, in Rights and Resources - The International Library of Medicine, Ethics and Law (F. Miller, ed., 2003).
Periodicals
See, e.g., Jessica Litman, The Exclusive Right to Read, 13 Cardozo Arts & Ent. L.J. 29, 40 (1994).
Statutes and Regulations
12 U.S.C §1703 (2000)
69 Fed. Reg. 12345 (2003)
Examples: Abbreviations in Case Names
Minnesota Association of Independent Contractors Incorporated versus Percy William Henry, et al.
- Case name in textual sentence: The court in Minnesota Ass'n of Independent Contractors v. Henry found that there was no liability when...
- Case name in citation: Minnesota Ass'n of Indep. Contractors v. Henry
- A state name may be abbreviated when it is not serving as the name of a jurisdiction.
- One abbreviation is sufficient to show the corporate status of an entity in a case name. Thus, include Ass'n. but not Inc. in this example.
- Note that the word Contractors is not abbreviated because it is not in the Bluebook's lists of abbreviations, and there is no clear abbreviation that would save significant space.
Charles David Jones versus Minnesota
- Case name in citation: Jones v. Minnesota
- Here the state name represents the jurisdiction as a party, thus it is not abbreviated.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts versus Henry J. Smith
- Abbreviate as Commonwealth v. Smith in documents submitted to Massachusetts courts
- Otherwise, abbreviate as Massachusetts v. Smith
Red Sox Incorporated versus Roger Clemens
- Abbreviate as: Red Sox Inc. v. Clemens
- Here the Inc. remains in the case name as an indicator of corporate status.
Examples: Capitalization
Nation Under God, A Religious-Patriotic Anthology
- Prepositions are only capitalized in headings and titles if they consist of five or more letters. Thus Under is capitalized here.
Religion and Personal Law in Secular India: A Call to Judgment
- Conjunctions and prepositions of four or fewer letters are not capitalized.
- Although articles are normally not capitalized, the rule states that the word immediately following a colon is always capitalized.
Mr. Smith testified that the federal deficit had surpassed the figures estimated by the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
- Note that certain words may be capitalized depending on usage.
- Thus federal is only capitalized when the word it modifies is capitalized.
Examples: Page Numbers
Tasini v. New York Times Co., 972 F. Supp. 804, 809 (S.D.N.Y. 1999).
- Do not use the word "at" prior to the page number in cases.
Supra pp. 15-16.
- Use pp. only to precede page numbers in an internal cross-reference.
See H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 123 (1976).
- Use "at" preceded by a comma if the page number may be confused with another part of the citation.
Examples: Pinpoint cites
Cynthia L. Estlund, The Ossification of American Labor Law, 102 Colum. L. Rev. 1527, 1527 (2002).
- In addition to the first page of the source cited, include the page(s) where specific material appears, preceded by a comma, even if it is the first page.
See H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 123-26 (1976).
- Generally, use a dash or hyphen to indicate a span of pages.
- Note that you may eliminate all but the last two digits in the second number of a span of pages, as long as confusion would not result.
Mary Ann Neary, Handbook of Legal Research in Massachusetts 4-25 to 4-27 (2002).
- Use the word "to", instead of a dash or hyphen, if the dash or hyphen would create ambiguity due to the source's numbering system.
Examples: Signals
Interview with Jose Luis Sert in Cambridge, Mass. (Mar. 15, 1977). See K. Bastland, Jose Luis Sert: Architecture, City Planning, Urban Design 67 (1967); cf. Harvard University, Building Records for Office and Health Center Building (1958) (architectural drawings with design intention stating that building was to blend with the urban environment); accord J. Freixa, Jose L. Sert 189 (1995).
- Group signals of the same basic type (supportive, comparative, or contradictory) into a citation sentence.
- Separate signals of the same basic type with semi-colons.
- Capitalize only the first signal in a string of signals of the same type.
Boston University law students are the most motivated students in the country. See, e.g., Ronald Cass, BU Rules, 83 B.U. L. Rev 1009, 1010 (2003). Contra Joan Wexler, Brooklyn Law Students Most Motivated in Country, 69 Brook. L. Rev. 345 (2003); cf. Law Students Ass’n v. Ass’n Of American Law Schools, 800 F.3d 1 (1st. Cir. 2002) (court found that all law students are lacking in motivation because their tuition is too high).
- Signal abbreviation can be tricky: e.g. but cf.
- Always use a comma after e.g. Also, use a comma preceding e.g. when combining e.g. with another signal.
- Separate different types of signals into different citation sentences.
- Do not use but before a negative signal when it follows another negative.
Examples: Internet Sources
Money Servs. Bus. Act § 102 (Tentative Draft Feb. 1999), http://www.law.upenn.edu/library/ulc/moneyserv/ msbcomp1.pdf
- Begin with the rule for the type of authority.
- Rule 12.8.5 explains how to cite Model Acts.
- Use the date of the source whenever possible.
- Although normally you would not place the date of the source before the URL, the rule for model acts requires a parenthetical immediately after the name of the model act. This trumps the Internet date rule.
- This source was only available on the Internet at the time, therefore avaialble at is not used.
Antitrust Guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property, available at
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/guidelines/ipguide.pdf (Apr. 6, 1995)
- The author here is providing the Internet address for this source to increase accessibility, therefore he used available at to indicate that the print source was used.
- The date on the publication is given again, but here it is after the URL as indicated in Rule 18.
Ralph Oliva, Business-to-Business Marketing Overview, American Marketing Association, at http://www.marketingpower.com/ (Sept. 12, 2003).
National Flood Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2003, Pub. L. 108-3, 117 Stat. 7 (Jan. 13, 2003), available at
http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/d108/d108laws.html
- The URL only needs to be long enough for the reader to locate the source. The full URL for this source is extremely long and confusing.
- This URL brings the reader to the page where one can find this public law by number.
Raquel Ortiz, Copyright Law, http://www.bu.edu/lawlibrary/research/ip/copyrt.htm (April 2008).
- Here we give the title of this contribution in italics.
- Note that the provider is not necessary, since it is clear that it was provided by BU Law Library.
- Since this is only on the Internet, available at is not necessary.
- The date used is provided by the source.
Clark v. Bissonnette, No. 03-10707 (D. Mass. Aug. 5, 2003), at http://pacer.mad.uscourts.gov/dc/opinions/
young/pdf/clark.pdf
- At the time of the writing, this case was available on the Internet but not in a traditional source.
- This citation follows typeface and other conventions from rule 10.8.1 for pending cases.
- Rule 18 indicates that the date parenthetical goes BEFORE the URL for cases.
Dotcom Disclosures, at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/dotcom/ (last visited Sept. 13, 2003)
- The document itself did not have a date when it was consulted. Therefore the author here appropriately used a “last visited” date.
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created by: Raquel Ortiz
Last updated: June 2008