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The Bluebook: a Uniform System of Citation is a book and a widely used legal citation system for the U.S. compiled by the Harvard Law Review Association along with the Columbia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal. Currently, it is in its 17th edition.
Usage
The Bluebook citation system is the standard at many of the most prestigious American law schools (though the total number has been decreasing slowly). It is often used in the federal courts. In contrast, many state courts (especially New York and California) use homegrown citation systems which are quite different from Bluebook style.
Controversy
The Bluebook is notorious for being too rule-oriented, too concise, and too cryptic in comparison to the far more helpful citation system guides used in other academic fields (e.g., Turabian). It has been criticized for the maddeningly bizarre nature of some of its rules, such as having two separate styles for academic legal articles (where citations are always footnoted) and court documents (where citations are always inline).
Several other alternatives have been proposed, of which the ALWD system appears to be the most viable competitor.
Examples Of Bluebook Citation
Mary Miles Prince, the Coordinating Editor of the Bluebook, publishes a much larger book called Bieber's Dictionary of Legal Citations which contains examples of how to cite virtually every well-known legal publication in North America under the Bluebook system. The current edition of the Bluebook is included as an appendix.
See also
External links
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