Bluebook and Citation Resources
A guide to print and online resources for assistance with Bluebook citations.
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Reference Department
Citation Style Guides
The current edition of The Bluebook is the 21st edition, published in 2020. "The 2021 printing of The Bluebook Twenty-First Edition was published in late January 2021. Most changes are typo fixes. However, several noteworthy changes were made."
For the 21st edition, Table T2 - Foreign Jurisdictions is now exclusively available online. This is accessible even without an online subscription. More information on changes that were implemented in the new edition can be found in the Hein release, an authorized distributor for The Bluebook.
The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation by 
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The 21st edition (2020) is available in print in the Library and online (individual subscription fee required). The Bluebook contains three major parts as well as an index: the Bluepages (a guide for practitioners and law clerks to use when citing authority in non-academic legal documents), the Whitepages (rules for academic publications such as law journal articles and research papers), and a series of tables to be used in conjunction with the rules. "The central function of a legal citation is to allow the reader to efficiently locate the cited source. . . . Because of the ever-increasing range of authorities cited in legal writing, no system of citation can be complete. Therefore, when citing material of a type not explicitly discussed in this book, try to locate an analogous type of authority that is discussed and use that citation form as a model. Always be sure to provide sufficient information to allow the reader to find the cited material quickly and easily."
ALWD Guide to Legal Citation by - This link opens in a new window
An alternative to The Bluebook that establishes one citation system for all types of legal documents, making no distinction between law journal articles and other types of legal writing. The citations that result from using the ALWD Guide are identical to legal citations advanced in the twenty-first edition of The Bluebook.
Citation Aids
- The Bluebook Uncovered: A Practical Guide to Mastering Legal Citation byKeyed to The Bluebook (21st edition, 2020) and one of the required texts for GW Law's Fundamentals of Lawyering class, this free online book (in PDF) is "designed to help first-year law students master the fundamental Bluebook citation rules that will be needed in legal research and writing courses and in legal practice. It can also act as a Bluebook refresher for other law students, clerks, attorneys, judges, and paralegals."
- Basic Legal Research byProvides an overview of legal citation, followed by detailed instructions and examples for citing the main types of primary and secondary legal authority.
- Citation Form for Briefs and Legal Memoranda byThis series of exercises from the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) helps students learn the rules of proper citation form. For each response to a question, a brief explanation is provided, including references to the applicable Bluebook rules.
Request CALI password information at the reference desk. - Cite-Checker: Your Guide to Using The Bluebook byOverview of legal citation for law and paralegal students.
- Interactive Citation Workbook byContains exercises designed to help you learn the citation rules you will use most frequently. The print book is designed to work with the web based workstation. Includes separate sets of exercises for The Bluebook and the ALWD Citation Manual.
- International Citator and Research Guide: The Greenbook by"The ICRG set, conveniently organized into global regions, is a source of foundational and comprehensive citation standards for scholars working with all types of international and foreign materials. It presents each citation standard in the context of that country or organization’s history and legal institutions."
- Introduction to Basic Legal Citation byCitation primer that introduces The Bluebook through concise rule summaries that are linked to numerous examples. Excludes foreign and international materials.
- Legal Citation in a Nutshell by
- Legal Research Exercises: Following The Bluebook byWorkbook with exercises on finding a citing various legal sources.
- Prince's Dictionary of Legal Citations: A Reference Guide for Attorneys, Legal Secretaries, Paralegals, and Law Students byContains citation examples for the entire range of primary and secondary sources. Examples for cases, statutes, and administrative materials are jurisdiction-specific.
- Understanding and Mastering The Bluebook byGuide that provides examples, illustrations, guidance, and comparison charts covering The Bluebook.
- User's Guide to The Bluebook byA concise guide that contains only the rules you need to know for everyday legal writing and explains them step by step.
Citation Software and Resources
- Lexis: Lexis for Microsoft Office
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Lexis for Microsoft Office assists in verifying and formatting both citations and quotes. Contains a check cite and check quote tool. - Mendeley
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Mendeley helps researchers collect and organize their citations and sources for free. It also produces bibliographies and gives you the ability to share your documents. - RefWorks
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RefWorks is a cloud-based tool for managing citations and creating bibliographies. Through a subscription, the GW Libraries makes RefWorks available to all current students, faculty, and staff at the university. As a GW alum, your RefWorks account follows you when you leave GW for free. - West CiteAdvisor (Download)
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CiteAdvisor, a component of West's Drafting Assistant, identifies citations in your legal document and suggests the correct citation format. - West CiteAdvisor (Online version)
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Online version of CiteAdvisor, a component of West's Drafting Assistant. - Zotero
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"Zotero is, at the most basic level, a reference manager. It is designed to store, manage, and cite bibliographic references, such as books and articles. In Zotero, each of these references constitutes an item. More broadly, Zotero is a powerful tool for collecting and organizing research information and sources." - Zotero: Juris-M
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Juris-M, a variant of the Zotero research management and citation tool, is designed to support legal and multilingual resources. Like Zotero, it is open-source and free to install.