Articles Tagged with Citation

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Cite checking goes by many names, including Shepardizing, KeyCite, and authority checking, among others. At a basic level it is checking a case one plans to use to make sure it’s still okay. Rulings from cases can become invalid over time if a more recent case from the same or a higher court changes the rule, or if the legislature passed a statute that impacted the case. In order to find such events, legal publishers have created tools (called citators) to track such changes.

One of the original tools was Shepard’s (now a LexisNexis product). The online LexisNexis version allows a user to find documents that cite the case they are looking at. It also allows a user to see if any of those have overturned the case of interest, or otherwise challenged part of its ruling. In Shepard’s there are visual indicators to suggest a case is still good (green), called into question (yellow), or part of it has been overturned (red). Westlaw has a similar tool called KeyCite, and Fastcase uses Authority Check.

It is important to note that any of these tools can only indicate that there might be something. The user will have to read the newer case that may affect the original case to see what that impact actually is, and how it relates to the user’s situation.

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Anyone who reads tweets on Twitter knows the perils of what I’ll loosely call tweet lifting (aka tweet appropriation), i.e. taking without attribution (or linking).

Yes, failing to provide citations for graphs, charts, statistics, fact assertions, etc. is also a Twitter problem, and other twitterers (tweeters?) will call you to account on those – at least smart, if not also bitter and twisted, twitterers will. New twitterers won’t know the rules right away, but will (or should) catch on quickly. Maybe we need a Twitter Bluebook. (hahahaha, no, please!)

For more about tweet appropriation, so to speak, visit Plagiarism Today and enter the word twitter (among others) into the search box. You will find Mr. Bailey’s comments about twitter ethics (and egos) and related subjects. You might want to start here, this excerpt from: “Twitter, Plagiarism and Retweeting,” by Jonathan Bailey, July 17, 2014:

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I recently asked law librarians for alternate, non-proprietary, ways of saying “Shepard’s” or “KeyCite” (or Shepardizing or KeyCiting). Below you’ll find a short list and a long list of responses, and not a few “namemushs.”

We focused primarily on case citators, but keep in mind you can cite-check a lot of things, including law review articles, court rules, statutes, and regulations (to name only 4).

What’s a citator? We like this concise description of Online Citators, from the University of Washington Law School librarians.

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From Gallagher Law Library blog: Chinese Legal Citation Guidelines:

‘”Citation Guidelines for Chinese Language Materials” is a handy guide created by UW Law School Ph.D. students …. [T]he new guidelines provide interpretations of Bluebook rules for Chinese legal citation, plus detailed examples showing good practices...”‘

Direct PDF link to the Chinese Legal Citation Guidelines

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1) For documents cited in Oregon court filings I recommend starting with the free, official, and online OJD Appellate Court Style Manual.

You can link to that PDF, but I prefer going through the live OJD Publications website to make sure I have the most current version (the print/PDF Style Manual says 2002, but it has been updated since then).

2) You sometimes, though rarely, need the Bluebook (Harvard et al). The Oregon Appellate Court Style Manual will tell you when you need to go to Bluebook.

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Librarians, like mathematicians, find humor in the oddest places, so unless you’re one of us, don’t expect to find this as funny as I did:

While catching up on the back-issue research tip wonders to be found in the excellent LLSDC Law Library Lights newsletters, I came upon this article:

“Beyond the Pale: Finding Your Way Back From a Citation Netherworld,” by John Cannan, in Law Library Lights, Summer 2010, pp. 14-15.

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The current edition of “The Bluebook: Uniform System of Citation,” is the 19th.
The editors come out with a new edition about once every five years, so a new edition will not be coming out any time soon.  But their website offers free updates between editions.
Law schools can subscribe to an electronic version, but the editors expect the print version will continue to be published.
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The following blog post got me to thinking that a legal citation lesson for non-attorneys might be a challenge worth attempting, though I surely won’t get it right the first time.

3 Geeks and a Law Blog: Bloomberg Law Gets Cited By A New Jersey Court… A First for “___ BL ___” (citing to United States v. Stuler, Civil Action No. 08-273, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43338, 2010 BL 99422 (W.D. Pa. May 4, 2010))

Onward to Legal Citation for the Novice:

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