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

| Form | Pattern | Example | |------|---------|---------| | Full | Party v. Party, Vol. Reporter Pg., Pincite (Court Year) | Smith v. Jones, 123 F.3d 456, 458 (9th Cir. 2020) | | Short | Party, Vol. Reporter at Pincite | Smith, 123 F.3d at 459 | | Id. | Id. at Pincite | Id. at 460 | | Subsequent history | Append with comma | Smith v. Jones, 123 F.3d 456 (9th Cir. 2020), aff'd, 540 U.S. 100 (2003) |

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

| Type | Example | |------|---------| | Federal statute | 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (2018) | | State statute | Cal. Civ. Code § 1542 (West 2020) | | U.S. Constitution | U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1 | | State constitution | Cal. Const. art. I, § 7 |

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

Rules & Regulations

| Type | Example | |------|---------| | Fed. R. Civ. P. | Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) | | Fed. R. Evid. | Fed. R. Evid. 702 | | Fed. R. App. P. | Fed. R. App. P. 28(a) | | C.F.R. | 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(j) (2020) | | Fed. Reg. | 85 Fed. Reg. 12,345 (Mar. 2, 2020) |

Secondary Sources

| Type | Example | |------|---------| | Restatement | Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 90 (Am. L. Inst. 1981) | | Treatise | 5 Wright & Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1216 (3d ed. 2004) | | Law review | Sunstein, On the Expressive Function of Law, 144 U. Pa. L. Rev. 2021, 2025 (1996) | | A.L.R. | Annotation, Title, 100 A.L.R.5th 1 (2002) | | Black's Law Dict. | Term, Black's Law Dictionary (12th ed. 2024) |

Signals

| Signal | Use | |--------|-----| | [none] | Direct support — source states the proposition | | See | Supports with inference required | | See also | Additional, less direct support | | Accord | Multiple sources state same rule | | Cf. | Support by analogy | | But see | Directly contrary | | But cf. | Contrary by analogy | | See generally | Background or general support |

• 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

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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