This introductory material is common to both the online and printed formats of The Bluebook. A multimedia introduction specific to The Bluebook Online is available on this site's Tour page; additional material introducing the online format is available on this site's Help page. A description of The Bluebook's structure of Rules and Tables additional to the one below is also available at section 3.1 of the Help page.

On this page:

• Introduction to the Eighteenth Edition
• Preface to the Eighteenth Edition
• Acknowledgements for the Eighteenth Edition

Introduction

Welcome to The Bluebook, the definitive style guide for legal citation in the United States. For generations, law students, lawyers, scholars, judges, and other legal professionals have relied on The Bluebook’s unique system of citation in their writing. 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 which they rely in their work.

The Bluebook can often be intimidating for new users. This introduction is meant to assist you as you begin what will likely become a lifelong relationship with the Bluebook system of legal citation.

Structure of The Bluebook

The Bluebook contains three major parts. The first part is the Bluepages. New to the Eighteenth Edition, the Bluepages are a how-to guide for basic legal citation. Unlike the remainder of The Bluebook, which is designed in a style and at a level of complexity commensurate with the needs of the law journal publication process, the Bluepages provides easy-to-comprehend guidance for the everyday citation needs of first-year law students, summer associates, law clerks, practicing lawyers, and other legal professionals. The examples used throughout the Bluepages are printed using simple typeface conventions common in the legal profession.

The second part is the heart of the Bluebook system of citation: the rules of citation and style. This part is subdivided into two main sections. The first section, consisting of rules 1 through 9, establishes general standards of citation and style for use in all forms of legal writing. The second section, consisting of rules 10 through 21, presents rules for citation of specific kinds of authority such as cases, statutes, books, periodicals, and foreign and international materials. The examples used throughout this part are printed using typeface conventions standard in law journal footnotes.

The third part consists of a series of tables to be used in conjunction with the rules. The tables show, among other things, which authority to cite and how to abbreviate properly. Individual tables are referenced throughout the book. Finally, there is a comprehensive index.

General Principles of Citation

The central function of a legal citation is to allow the reader to efficiently locate the cited source. Thus, the citation forms in The Bluebook are designed to provide the information necessary to lead the reader directly to the specific items cited. Because of the ever-increasing range of authorities cited in legal writing, no system of citation can be complete. 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. Always be sure to provide sufficient information to allow the reader to find the cited material quickly and easily.

Getting Started

The best place to begin study of the Bluebook system of legal citation is the Bluepages. Indeed, first-year legal writing professors may wish to rely on the Bluepages as a teaching aid. The Bluepages provides only an abbreviated introduction to the Bluebook system, however, and will not contain answers to more difficult citation questions. For this reason, the Bluepages contains references to related rules and tables found in other parts of the book.

Preface to the Eighteenth Edition

The current edition of The Bluebook retains the same basic approach to legal citation established by its predecessors. The layout of The Bluebook has been updated to make the information easier to access. Some citation forms have been expanded, elaborated upon, or modified from previous editions to reflect the ever-expanding range of authorities used in legal writing and to respond to suggestions from the legal community. Here are some of the more noteworthy changes:

The Bluepages, new to the Eighteenth Edition, is a how-to guide providing easy-to-comprehend instruction for the everyday citation needs of first-year law students, summer associates, law clerks, practicing lawyers, and other legal professionals. The examples used throughout the Bluepages employ simple typeface conventions common in the legal profession. The Bluepages supplants the Practitioners’ Notes section of previous editions.

The former table T.8, listing suggested abbreviations for the titles of court documents, now immediately follows the Bluepages and has been renamed Bluepages table BT.1.

Many state and federal courts promulgate local citation rules, which take precedence over Bluebook rules in documents submitted to those courts. Bluepages table BT.2 references helpful local rules and a number of jurisdiction-specific manuals providing guidance of local citation practices. When preparing court documents, always check the most recent version of the court’s local citation rules.

In rule 1.4(d), the order of authorities for federal court cases has been expanded and altered. Rules 2.1(f) and 2.2(c) provide additional guidance on the italicization of punctuation marks in footnotes and textual material. Rule 2.2(b)(iii) now dictates that, in parenthetical phrases, case names should not be italicized when they are accompanied by full citation clauses. Rule 3.2(a) now allows for the use of a hyphen or an en-dash to indicate a span of pages or sections. Rule 3.2(b) provides additional guidance for citing multiple footnotes and pages in the same citation. Rule 4.1 now stipulates that sources listed as prior history be ignored for the purposes of using “id.” in a subsequent footnote. Rule 5.3 now uses spacing guides to explain the different formats for three-period ellipses. Rule 10.2.1(k) now provides guidelines for citing the common names of cases when those names do not appear in the reporter. Rules 10.6.2 and 10.6.3 expand on the use and ordering of parentheticals when citing cases. Rule 10.7.1(c) includes directions for citing cases that have been abrogated or superseded by statute. Rule 10.8.1(d) governs cases that have been depublished. Rule 10.9(b) provides new guidance in the use of “id.” in case short forms. Rules 12.3.1(a) and 12.4(a) now require the omission of the word “The” as the first word of a statute’s name. Rule 12.6 has been expanded to include a new section 12.6.1 covering statutes judicially invalidated or declared unconstitutional. Subsequent subrules within rule 12.6 have been renumbered accordingly. Rule 12.9(d) now indicates the proper use of the word “section” and the symbol “§”. Rule 13.2(a) now provides for a parenthetical indicating the date and stage of a bill. Rule 13.3 has been expanded to include examples of abbreviations for titles of individuals testifying in legislative hearings. Rule 13.5 has been modified to clarify that the daily edition of the Congressional Record should be used only for matters not appearing in the permanent edition. Rule 14.6 has been expanded to include more detailed information for the citation of SEC and stock exchange materials. More specific patent citation information has been included in rule 14.9. Rule 15.1 has been expanded to provide alternative citations for works by multiple authors and to make the use of “et al.” discretionary. Rule 16.3 now includes explanations and examples for citations to journals that employ separate pagination systems within their regular volumes or produce regular, separately paginated “special issues.” As per the amended rule 16.5, a newspaper piece published as a “Letter to the Editor,” or similar title, is now to be designated as such in its citation. Rule 16.6.4 has been created for nontraditional articles in journals, such as commentaries and other works uniquely designated by the publication. Rule 17.3 has changed the format used when citing working papers. Rule 18 has been almost completely rewritten to account for the increasing use of Internet citation. Major changes include the categorization into two kinds of Internet citations (direct and parallel), the expanded use of analogy in Internet citation, and the addition of citation formats for blogs. Rule 20 has been improved, and rule 21 has been completely rewritten to correspond to majority citation conventions in the foreign and international legal fields. Rules 20 and 21 were developed in conjunction with Nahal Kazemi and Edward Sherwin of the Harvard International Law Journal.

The tables have been updated and expanded. Table T.1 has been revised to reflect the most current titles for the various statutory compilations, session laws, and administrative compilations and registers. The citation formats for these sources have been updated to reflect as accurately as possible the unique breakdown of information within each. Table T.2 has almost doubled in size, and now provides detailed and current citation information for dozens of countries and other jurisdictions. The expansion of table T.2 was a response to increasing cross-border emphasis in both legal practice and research. The compilers are indebted to the following experts in foreign legal citation for their help in enhancing table T.2: Linda Aschkenasy, Francisco A. Avalos, Annette L. Demers, William B. McCloy, Yukino Nakashima, E. Dana Neacsu, and Pedro A. Padilla-Rosa. Table T.13 has been expanded to include many frequently cited journals that did not previously appear in the table, as well as to reflect journals whose names have changed.

The compilers wish to thank our Coordinating Editor Mary Miles Prince for working with us in revising, clarifying, updating, and improving The Bluebook. The compilers would also like to acknowledge outside commentators who contributed their expertise to the Eighteenth Edition of The Bluebook. The following provided invaluable assistance in planning and revising this edition: Christine Hurt, Lyonette Louis-Jacques, Tracy McGaugh, Walter Gary Sharp, Sr., and Andrew Weber. The compilers are grateful to the law journal editors, law librarians, and practitioners who responded to our call for suggestions with helpful advice and comments.

Finally, the compilers request that any errors or omissions be reported and that suggestions for revisions be sent to the Harvard Law Review, Gannett House, 1511 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138.

Acknowledgements

The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation is compiled by the editors of the Columbia Law Review, the Harvard Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and The Yale Law Journal. The Bluebook is published and distributed by the Harvard Law Review Association. The Coordinating Editor of The Bluebook is Mary Miles Prince, Associate Director, Vanderbilt University Law School Library, with special editorial assistance on the citations of foreign jurisdictions from the Directorate of Legal Research of the Law Library of Congress.