Legal Writing Citation Rules
The citation may be followed by more information in parentheses, such as a brief explanation of the relevance of the case or a citation from the case. This can be followed by a subsequent history of the case, such as subsequent confirmations of the decision if desired. In the abbreviated form of a case, you are free to shorten the name of the case to the first part or even to an abbreviated form of that party`s title. However, if the first party is a State entity, geographical entity or other such creation, this quotation may not be useful. (Since there are so many cases where the first party is the U.S. government, for example, listing a case name like “United States” doesn`t limit it enough to be helpful.) In these cases, quote with the name of the second part instead. This quote is very similar to the quote from the opinion of the Court of Justice. The two main differences are the citation of the pin, page 527 here, and the addition of the names of the dissenting judges in parentheses after the date of the case. Most legal citations consist of the name of the document (case law, law, law review article), an abbreviation for the legal series, and the date. In abbreviated quotations, it is sufficient to quote by document number, but to avoid confusion, the state must be specified, unless it is a federal law. Add the full citation to the case immediately after the corresponding text. If you want to address this case later, give the reader a short form in parentheses.
This makes subsequent references much more concise. A number of U.S. states have adopted individual standards for public domain citations. [10] Legal citation is the practice of naming and referencing authoritative documents and sources. The most frequently cited sources of authority are judicial decisions (cases), laws, regulations, government documents, contracts, and academic writings. During court proceedings, “legal citation analysis,” the use of citation analysis techniques to analyze legal documents, facilitates a better understanding of interrelated legal compliance documents by examining citations that link provisions to other provisions in the same document or between different documents. Legal citation analysis involves the use of a citation table extracted from a regulatory document that could complement e-evidence – a process that takes advantage of technological innovations in big data analysis. [1] [2] [3] [4] Main path analysis, a method that plots the chains of meaningful quotes in a citation graph, can be used to track changes in opinion over the years for a target legal area.
[5] Note: The Blue Book does not mention a method for writing short citations for hearings. The abbreviation of the legal series usually appears as a number, followed by the short name of the series and ends with another number. For example: Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393 (2007) is a citation from a Supreme Court case found in volume 551 of the United States Reports (U.S.) beginning at page 393. Abbreviated citations for statutes should include the section number as well as the minimum information required to determine which of your previously cited authorities the citation refers to. For example, an appropriate short form for the Guano Islands Act could be: As with the above constitutional citations, if the law has been repealed or amended, indicate this fact and the year in which it occurred in parentheses at the end of the quotation. You can also add additional information in the same way.
Typically, a correct legal citation informs the reader of a source`s authority, how strongly the source supports the author`s statement, its age, and other relevant information. Here is an example of a quote about a U.S. Supreme Court case: This quote gives the reader useful information about the cited authority. The Bluebook Style Guide is used in the American legal profession to cite all relevant sources. In addition, the Chicago Manual of Style recommends its use for all citations of legal documents. The following is a summary of the basics. It`s worth noting that the Bluebook system is considerably complex in most of these points, but here`s the level of detail it recommends for a student`s basic needs, for example. There is no abbreviated form for constitutional citations. Of course, legal citation in general and citation of specific cases can become much more complicated. Concurring and dissenting opinions shall also be published at the same time as the opinion of the Court. For example, to quote the opinion that Justices Stewart and Black disagree with, the quote would look like this: If the entire Constitution is no longer in force, add to the citation the date the Constitution was originally adopted, as follows: Some countries have a de facto citation standard that has been adopted by most institutions in the country. Short forms can also use id.
to indicate that this quote comes from the same authority as the previous one. In general, you should shorten as much as possible without losing the necessary information. For example, the Blue Book recommends shortening procedural sentences to abbreviations such as “In re” or “Ex parte” and using all commonly understood abbreviations to shorten the names of the parties, such as “Univ.” instead of “University.” In addition, the names of the source and the court are usually abbreviated; In the following example citation, Federal Rules Decisions is abbreviated to “F.R.D.” and the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania to “W.D. Pa”. Sources and courts tend to have official abbreviations for this purpose, usually provided visibly to anyone who needs to quote them. The page number in a case citation is the page where that case begins in the source. If you want to refer to both a specific page and the overall case, separate that page reference with a comma. For example, if your reference is a case that starts on page 100 of your source, but you specifically want to refer to a six-page statement, the page number in your citation would be “100, 106.” Once you have quoted a particular authority in its entirety, you can then use a short quote. The specific content of a short quote is flexible, but varies depending on the type of authority cited. Acceptable short forms for a particular citation are covered in each entry.
If you cite a source multiple times, use ibid or supra after the first citation instead of repeating the full quote. In general, in-text references are used for memos and facts, while footnotes are used for other legal texts. The two most common forms of reference in legal writing are in-text references and footnotes. The main difference between them is that references in the text are usually included in the text itself, while footnotes are given at the bottom of the page. The most commonly used style manual for citing legal documents is the Bluebook: A Unified Citation System. The APA, PLA, and Chicago Manual of Style all refer to the Bluebook to cite specific documents such as cases. A legal citation is a reference to a legal document such as case law, law, law review article, etc. If you are quoting a section of this Constitution that has since been amended or repealed, note the date in parentheses at the end of the quotation, for example, If this bill is passed, the effect of the ninth point of the new paragraph 4 of proposed § 7.0.2 (“paragraph 9”) of the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act, R.S.O.
1990, c E.9 will give the Lieutenant Governor in Council the authority to set prices for certain necessities during a declared state of emergency. While the constitutional review of paragraph 9 should be exhaustive, it may include an assessment of the pricing power. The above is used when referring to the same source in a footnote that is not immediately above it. It should also be noted that, depending on the document, underlining can be replaced by italics and vice versa – provided one of them is consistent. This was confirmed in Home Oil Distributors v. British Columbia (Attorney General), [1940] SCR 444 (“Home Oil”). In Home Oil, the impugned legislation allowed prices for coal or petroleum products to be fixed from time to time. The Act was considered intra vires of the province, although it concerned the activities of non-provincial enterprises operating in the province. As cited in Hughes v Page, 1998 CarswellBC 216 (WL Can) (SC) [Hughes], it is the majority decision in Hayes that determines the test used today in British Columbia. Hayes` focus on profit-sharing is not limited to this case.
In British Columbia, see also Hughes and Jenks/McCrory, [1998] BCJ No. 995 (QL) (SC). Title of the law, document number, term # Legislative body, session number § Number (year of state). Here is the first example of the passage from the references section in the text above, which illustrates how to provide the same references using footnotes. Protecting America`s Crop: Hearing on H.R. 2414 before the H. Subcomm. on immigration, citizenship, refugees, border security and international law, 111th Cong (2010) (Statement by Stephen Colbert, host, The Colbert Report, Comedy Central Studios) When you quote the name of the case, you usually summarize.
If there are several plaintiffs or defendants, only the first part of each category is indicated. In addition, the names of the persons in the name of the case are shortened to surnames only – no first or middle names, no initials, no “aka” or “et al”. In Hayes, supra, the parties did not meet the “joint gainful transaction” test.