LibGuides: UIUC Bluebook LibGuide: Whitepages

Whitepages guide contents

For more information on how to cite different types of materials using the Whitepages, follow these links:

White or Blue?

White Pages
These are for academic legal writing: journals and law reviews
Blue Pages
These are for practitioner legal writing: court documents and legal memoranda

Do it with style

Rule 1 tells you where to put citations, and the nitty gritty rules for citing particular authorities begin with Rule 10 for cases. What's in between are the style rules. These rules apply to everything in the Whitepages.

It pays to know these rules, or at least know where they are, before you jump into the authority-specific rules.

R2 Typefaces for Law Reviews

R3 Subdivisions (citing parts of larger works)

R4 Short Citation Forms

R5 Quotations

R6 Abbreviations, Numerals, and Symbols

R7 Italicization for Style and in Unique Circumstances

R8 Capitalization

R9 Titles of Judges, Officials, and Terms of Court

Additional help with the bluebook

Blue Tips
Provides tips on using the Bluebook, from the Bluebook's official webpage www.legalbluebook.com.
Bluebook Guide: Introduction
A LibGuide created by the Georgetown Law Library which introduces The Bluebook and basic concepts of legal citation to new law students.
Cornell's LII: Basic Legal Citation (online) The online book was recently revised in the summer of 2016 to reflect the release of a new, free citation guide, The Indigo Book, and the publication of The Supreme Court's Style Guide. Like all prior revisions this one also included a thorough review of the relevant rules of appellate practice of federal and state courts, and the latest edition of The Bluebook, released in 2015. It is linked to the new Indigo Book. As has been true of all editions released since 2010, it is also indexed to the The Bluebook and the ALWD Guide to Legal Citation.
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Importantly, however, it documents the many respects in which contemporary legal writing, very often following guidelines set out in court rules or style guides, diverges from the citation formats specified by those academic texts. The current online format, released in early 2016, was created with the assistance of a team of students enrolled in a graduate software engineering course at Cornell.

The content of this guide is also available in three e-book formats: 1) a PDF version that can be printed out in whole or part and also used with hyperlink navigation on an iPad or other tablet, indeed, on any computer (Be aware that not all PDF readers allow the user to follow links. You'll want one, like Adobe's, which does.); 2) a version designed specifically for use on the full range of Kindles as well as other ereaders or apps using the Mobi format; and 3) a version in ePub format for ereaders or apps that work with it. To access any of them, select “eBooks” at the top of the page. (Over 50,000 copies of the 2015 edition were downloaded.)

Since the guide is online, its further revision is not tied to a rigid publication cycle. Any user seeing a need for clarification, correction, or other improvement is encouraged to “speak up.” What doesn't work, isn't clear, is missing, appears to be in error? Has a change occurred in one of the fifty states that should be reported? Comments of these and other kinds can be sent by email addressed to peter.martin@cornell.edu. (Please include "Citation" in the subject line.) Many of the features and some of the coverage of this reference are the direct result of past user questions and advice.

Interactive Citation Workbook for The Bluebook : A Uniform System of Citiation by Tracy L. McGaugh, Christine Hurt
Call Number: KF245 .M34 2010
This book, available in the Law Library's Practical Skills collection, will help you learn Bluebook citation. It is especially helpful when used with Lexis' Interactive Citation Workstation.

Lexis+ This link opens in a new window
Lexis provides an interactive citation workshop which can be accessed by selecting the left topmost drop down menu and picking "Interactive Citation Workstation."
This subscription is available by login and password and limited to College of Law students and Faculty.

Recent College of Law faculty publications
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View the most recent accomplishments, including publications and citations, of College of Law faculty in this area of law.

Introduction to the Whitepages

The Whitepages, which follow the Bluepages, are mostly intended for use in law journals. That qualifier "mostly" is there because the rules in the Bluepages often refer to the Whitepages for the full rule. Therefore, you will not be able to ignore the Whitepages just because you're not on a journal.

The rules in the Whitepages are usually abbreviated using the letter R. ex. R12.4 is the rule for citing session laws.

Typeface conventions

The Bluebook uses four different typefaces:

Ordinary Roman
Underlined
Italicized
Large and Small Capitals

The rules for when you use each one in citations is summarized below: (from R2.1)

Italicize or underscore:

Full and short case names (ex. Brown v. Bd. of Ed. or Brown)
Titles of book, articles, and essays
Titles of legislative materials

Large and Small Caps used for authors and titles of books, titles of periodicals

Everything else should be in ordinary roman

Textual material (the actual text of your piece, as opposed to the citations) only uses ordinary roman and italics. See R2.2.

Where do cites appear? Footnotes

In academic legal writing, law journals, citations are placed in footnotes. For a detailed discussion on where to place the numbers for your footnotes, see R1.1(a).

Within those footnotes, citations are made in citation sentences and clauses.

Citation sentence: to cite support for the entire preceding sentence.

ex. The law may not block one group of citizens from access to government assistance.¹

¹Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 633 (1996).

Citation clause: to cite support for only part of a sentence.

ex. The Supreme Court once declared separate but equal constitutional,² but declared it unconstitutional nearly a century later.³

²Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).

³Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483 (1954).