Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2021
Abstract
Unfortunately, the two most prominent citation guides for legal writing, the Bluebook and the ALWD Guide to Legal Citation, include provisions allowing legal writers to embed a full citation to legal authority as a grammatical element of a textual sentences. As a result, both beginning and experienced legal writers do not hesitate to burden their sentences with the clutter of full citations. Most dubiously, legal writers far too often begin the topic sentence of a paragraph with the phrase “In [case name],” followed by an embedded citation, thereby wrongly emphasizing the case name instead of the legal principle that the case supports. To better complement legal writing instruction and good practice, the Bluebook and ALWD should revise their manuals to discourage the use of embedded full citations and to exclude example sentences beginning with “In [full case name].”
Recommended Citation
Ben Bratman,
The Folly of the Embedded Full Citation: How the Bluebook and ALWD Manuals Encourage Weak Legal Writing,
74
The Second Draft
1
(2021).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.pitt.edu/fac_articles/435