Research Guides : Citation and Research Tools: For Academic Writing

Resources for Journal Citation

Florida Style Manual
Published by the Florida State University Law Review, this pdf guide focuses on the proper citation of Florida sources.
Legal Information Institute Introduction to Basic Legal Citation
Cornell's citation guide is the most complete resource you'll find outside of the Bluebook. It has examples, charts, and detailed explanations of each Bluebook rule.
Citeus Legalus
An academic-style Bluebook citation generator developed to automatically create citations based on the type of source. You provide the information in a form and the program orders and abbreviates based on the Bluebook.

Books to Help You Write Your Paper

Academic Legal Writing by Eugene Volokh
ISBN: 1599417502
Publication Date: 2010
Designed to help law students write and publish articles, this text provides detailed instructions for every aspect of the law school writing, research, and publication process.
Scholarly Writing for Law Students, Seminar Papers, Law Review Notes and Law Review Competition Papers, 4th by Elizabeth Fajans; Mary R. Falk
ISBN: 0314207201
Publication Date: 2011-01-07
Employing a process theory of writing, the text first describes the enterprise of scholarly writing, and then discusses techniques for brainstorming, researching, drafting, and revising for substance and style. There are also chapters on footnote practice, plagiarism, law review editing, and publication. Appendices provide a sample law-review competition paper, answers to in-text exercises, and sample syllabi for scholarly writing courses.
Making Law Review by Wes Henricksen
ISBN: 1594605203
Publication Date: 2008-09-01
Making Law Review explains how the competition works, and reveals the surprising and innovative techniques students have used to excel in it. Author Wes Henricksen interviewed dozens of current and former law review members at many of the top law schools to learn their secrets to success in the write-on competition. This book synthesizes those students' experiences into a comprehensive body of valuable advice on topics such as how to best prepare for the competition, how to effectively allocate your time throughout it, and how to write a winning submission paper.

Non-Bluebook Citation Tools

Are you writing for a non-legal journal or publication? There are plenty of resources to cite in MLA, APA, and Chicago style available online.

Citation Machine
A citation generator for APA, MLA, Turabian, and Chicago style citations. Similar to Citeus Legalus, it is a very streamlined online tool.
Purdue OWL
Purdue University's online writing lab is an excellent source for figuring out how to read MLA and APA citations and make your own.
NoodleTools
An MLA, APA, and Chicago style bibliography composer and research tool that lets you keep digital notecards and produce citations as you research. The free version just does citation, but the paid version is an all-around research program that works with desktops and iPads.

Citation in Academic Writing

Writing an article for a legal journal requires an understanding of the "white pages" of the Bluebook to create proper footnotes. If you are seeking publication for your article, clear and well-Bluebooked citations will sway editors in your favor. The more organized you are, the less work it will take when writing and editing your piece. Keeping track of your resources and being able to provide a publisher with a complete list of cited references (or the resources themselves) will save you (and your future editor) time when they check your citations.

Academic Citations Automatically from Westlaw

WestlawNext has an option to output citations from copied text in Law Review Format:

Scroll to the bottom of the screen and select "Preferences" from the bottom left.

Click on the tab marked "Citations" and under Citation Style, choose "Law Reviews" and click save. You can also choose whether to Italicize or Underline your titles.

Citeus Legalus

There are few web-based citation generators out there, and Citeus Legalus may be the most versatile of the bunch.

The website design is pretty straightforward, just pick the type of resource you are citing to and either use the search function or select "Manual Entry." Under teh Manual Entry function you can pull up a form that asks for the relevant information. Make sure to check each tab to be sure you've filled out everything you need to supply. Then click submit to generate your citation!

Here's an example of the citation Citeus Legalus puts out:

Note that all the information you include will be put into the citation, so mouse over the ? to get further guidance on whether a piece of information is necessary. When you copy and paste this citation into MS Word, the font and font size are unlikely to match your standard fonts. Be sure to double check the cite against Bluebook and confirm formatting has copied correctly, especially italics and small caps.