Citation of law journal articles is standardized by the courts in the United States.
The legal system has a standard system of citation that is used in all briefs filed in all courts within the United States. Written in a regularly updated tome called the "Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation," this system breaks down all possible items that can be cited and identifies a standard format so that the item can easily be found by the judges using the document or a reader looking for additional information. Law journal articles are often cited in legal documents to help give academic bravado to a legal argument.
Instructions
Cite a Law Journal Article
1. Identify the article you would like to use in your legal document or brief. Make sure that the article is noted and bookmarked for quick reference when composing the document.
2. Determine the section of the "Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation" that explains properly cite a law journal article. In the 2010 edition of the Bluebook the section is 2-800 titled "Cite Articles and Other Law Journal Writing."
3. Write the information or informational elements of the law journal article that will be needed to properly record the citation on a piece of paper. For a law journal article there are six elements needed in a citation. Those elements are the authors' full name as it appears in the article, the title of the article or headline (this must be underlined or italicized), volume number of the law review, the abbreviated name of the law review, the page number of the article's first page and the law review's year of publication.
4. Take the elements of the citation and enter them in your legal document or brief directly after the text that you used from the source you are citing. The Bluebook contains examples that can be applied in most cases to any source selected for citation.
Tags: journal article, your legal document, Bluebook Uniform, Bluebook Uniform System, Cite Journal, document brief