Introduction to Basic Legal Citation - access-to-law home

§ 7-200. Significant Changes in The Bluebook:
19th edition
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The nineteenth edition made even fewer significant changes than its immediate predecessor.
The "Bluepages" – the sole title now given the introductory material introduced in the
eighteenth – and accompanying tables expanded from forty-three pages to fifty-one.
Expansion and elaboration occurred throughout, most notably in the concluding set of tables
(which comprise over half the volume). They grew by nearly forty percent. The bulk of that
growth was concentrated in T2's coverage of foreign jurisdictions, from the Argentine
Republic to the Republic of Zambia.
Electronic Media
Finally acknowledging that the Internet has for many types of legal material supplanted print
distribution, The Bluebook now sanctions citation to electronic documents obtained from
reliable online sources "as if they were the original print," permitting the omission of URL
information in such cases.
18th edition
The Bluebook's eighteenth edition made few changes of substance. The book's format was
revised; numerous rules were clarified; the treatment of foreign and international materials
was expanded; and the tables were both added to and extended. The Bluebook continues to
deal predominantly with the citation needs and norms of law journal writing. However, the
material previously relegated to nineteen pages of "practitioner notes" has, in this latest
edition, been expanded into a first section entitled "An Introduction to Basic Legal Citation"
(this work's title since its release in 1993). That section is accompanied by a new set of tables
furnishing references to local (jurisdiction-specific) citation rules and style guides,
information that has been included in the ALWD Citation Manual from the start.
Electronic Media
The Bluebook's coverage of Internet-based material significantly expanded and rationalized.
While the seventeenth edition divided Internet citations into three categories, the eighteenth
reduced the number to two – direct citations of material accessible only online and parallel
citations furnished to facillitate access to material distributed in print, but not widely available
in that form.
17th edition
Introductory Signals
The introductory signal rule changes made by the sixteenth edition were reversed in the
seventeenth. Rule 1.2 now provides as it did prior to 1996. "E.g." is back as a separate signal
and "contra" is restored.