Brief Formatting: Step Three: Mark Citations for the TOA

1. Be finished writing your brief.
   If you find mistakes, you will be able to edit later, but marking TOA citations at the end of the writing process is typically the most efficient and easiest approach.
2. Make sure your backup copy is updated.

Note on Screenshots

These were taken on a PC running Windows 10 Enterprise and using Microsoft Office 365. Slight variations may occur depending on your computer configuration and version of Word. Notably, on a Mac, the buttons in the Mark Citation dialogue box will appear at the bottom of the boxes, not to the right of the boxes.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. With your brief open, put your cursor where you want to start finding citations to mark.
2. On the References tab, click Mark Citation to open the dialog box. The PC keyboard shortcut is Alt+Shift+I. Mac users can assign their own shortcut if they'd like.
   
    
3. Click Next Citation. Word will search for things like v., Id., In re, and § to help you identify citations in your brief. That text will appear in the Selected text box. If it is a false hit (not really a citation you need to mark), click Next Citation again. If it is a citation you need to mark, you can then select the complete citation in your brief and click the Selected text box to add that information there.
4. The citation that appears in Selected Text will be what the Table of Authorities includes, so if it has a pinpoint, delete that part of the cite.
5. Use the Category drop-down box to select the category that should be associated with this cite.
6. In the Short citation box, define the short citation form you want to associate with this citation. This will help Word identify additional uses of this citation, and will help you pick the citation when you need to make the association yourself (e.g., for Id. citations). Do not worry about italics here. See the example below:
   
   
    
7. Click Mark All and Word will mark all the uses of this citation it is able to identify. (It will also copy what had been in the Selected text box to the Long citation box, as shown below.)
   
   
    
8. As soon as you click Mark All, Word will show hidden characters,  even if you did not already have that toggle turned on. The hidden text Word inserts will appear after the cite you marked in curly brackets:
   
   In the example above, you see the cite to Coles v. Cleveland Bd. of Educ. The TA indicates it is going in our Table of Authorities. The text after the \l provides the long cite (the citation that will appear in the TOA). The text after \s provides the short cite, which is used to identify additional references to the case. The text after \c provides the category number. The 1 indicates the assigned category is the first one listed in the Category drop-down box.
9. Repeat steps 3-7 to mark all citations Word can identify. When Word takes you to an Id. cite, you can choose the citation you want from the Short citation menu, as shown below.
   
10. When you are done using Mark All, click Close.
11. Now you need to look for any cites that Word missed. This is going to be easiest to do leaving show hidden characters turned out. Find the first cite you still need to mark and selected it. Click Mark Citation to open the dialog box. Your citation will be in the Selected text box, and you can complete the rest of the process, steps 4-7. HINT: Did Word miss a short citation for an entry you already marked? Make sure you do not have a typo, extra space, missing period, or other mistake in your short citation.

If you need to review instructions later, here are some key moments in the video:

0:00 Introduction
0:21 Starting to use the mark citation tool (How to access it, First use of Next Citation to find and mark a citation)
3:18 Explanation of marked citations coding
4:38 More examples of using Next Citation in the Mark Citations tool to find and mark citations
7:46 Marking citations Word missed
9:01 Manually editing coding to change category

If you would prefer to practice marking citations in a document that is not your brief, here is the document used for the demonstration.