Legal Writing: Citation Resources

Lexis offers online training exercises for using either ALWD or Bluebook. 

Once you are logged into Lexis, click on Go to Lexis+ and then click the grid icon in the upper left corner to open a menu of additional Lexis products. Choose Interactive Citation Workstation.

Source: Lexis screenshot taken by Drake Law Library

Once you understand the basic legal citation form, you still might need help figuring out what an abbreviation means or how to abbreviate a source title. The following resources can help.

Tip: If you are having difficulty determining the proper citation format, it may be helpful to search recent editions of other law reviews to see how they did it. For Bluebook, try looking at the Columbia Law Review, Harvard Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Yale Law Journal because their editors compile the Bluebook. 

At any point in your research, you may suspect that a citation is incomplete or inaccurate. Here are some suggestions for these instances.

Alter your search.
A mistake may only be in part of the citation. Try searching with another part (e.g. author instead of title), or run a key word search and only put in some of the title words.

For Law Review/Journal: Ask the appropriate staff member to contact the author. Not only is this sometimes the most expeditious option, it can also be the only viable choice.