Free supplement: “How to Write About Law” — Citation

The guiding principle in citation is that whoever reads your work must be able to find whatever it is you are citing to verify that the person you claim said that thing in fact said that thing; and also in case your reader wants to read the other sources in your field.

We provide the maximum practical information.

Last Name, First Name, Title, Volume, Page, Year; URL
Publisher and place of publication are no longer required because it is much easier to find those out. Thing is.. I would include them anyway.

You basically cannot go wrong as a student by including too much information: this is because then your professors will be able to find your sources. You will likely NOT be downgraded if you provide too much information or even deviate in a minor fashion from blue book: as to publishers, they will always edit, or likelier require you to edit, your work to meet their house style guide. By providing more than enough information you make your job much easier later: deleting information is MUCH easier than finding it AGAIN

In UK style you include the first and last pages of the article as well as the page cited. In the US you include only the first and cited pages. Guess what, I recommend you include first page and last page as well as page cited thus:

I also recommend citing by last name and first name even though law publishers generally will have you cite First Name Last Name they will then alphabetize by LAST name! By citing last-first, you enable yourself ot use th automatic sort feature. Plus, non-law publishers (politics, economics, history) go last name first name so e.g.

Eric Engle, My Brilliant Article, 1 Journal of Law and Economics 1 (1-37) (2018).

blue book is what you should use.

Foonoting is a basic and necessary scientific foundation of your work. Be dilligent