Bluebook Citation Format

Bluebook Citation Format

Practitioner-format citation rules (Bluepages) for cases, statutes, rules, regulations, and secondary sources.

Quick Start

Most common pattern — full case citation with pincite:

Smith v. Jones, 123 F.3d 456, 458 (9th Cir. 2020)

Structure: Party v. Party, Vol. Reporter Pg., Pincite (Court Year)

Cases

Key rules:

• Italicize case names including v.
• Omit "Inc.," "Ltd.," "Co." when other party-description words present (R. 10.2.1(h))
• Abbreviate court names per T.7; omit court if obvious from reporter (U.S. Reports → Supreme Court)
• Id. only for the immediately preceding authority

Statutes & Constitutions

• "§" (single) or "§§" (range) — always space after the symbol
• Include code year in parenthetical; cite current version unless historical version is relevant

Rules & Regulations

Secondary Sources

Signals

• Italicize signals; capitalize only at the start of a citation sentence
• Order authorities within a signal per R. 1.4: constitutions → statutes → cases (by court hierarchy) → secondary sources

Short Forms

• Cases: Id. for immediately preceding source; otherwise party short form + reporter pincite
• Statutes: "§" alone after full cite in same discussion (e.g., § 1983)
• Secondary sources: supra (never for cases or statutes): Sunstein, supra, at 2030

Common Pitfalls

• Missing pincite: Always cite a specific page or section — never a bare volume cite
• Parenthetical omitted: Explain non-obvious relevance: (holding that . . .)
• Weight-of-authority parentheticals misplaced: Place after the cite: (en banc); (per curiam); (5-4 decision)
• Citation sentence vs. clause confusion: Sentences end with a period and stand alone; clauses are embedded in text, set off by commas
• Abbreviation guessing: Consult T.6 (case names), T.7 (court names), T.10 (geographical terms) rather than improvising

Changes from original:

• Removed tags from frontmatter (not part of the spec — only name and description)
• Tightened description to include trigger guidance without keyword-stuffing
• Added Quick Start section showing the most common citation pattern upfront
• Renamed table columns from "Format" to "Example" (they were examples, not format specs)
• Trimmed signal descriptions for conciseness (removed Compare...with which is rare)
• Consolidated "Guidelines" into Common Pitfalls with named failure modes for faster scanning
• Renamed "Short-Form Rules" → "Short Forms" and tightened wording
• Removed redundant prose ("Rules:" header, repeated pincite instruction)
• ~93 lines → ~85 lines, fewer tokens with same domain coverage