ALWD Citation Manual: A Professional System of Citation, 3rd Edition

This phenomenally popular reference rivals The Bluebook because it:

• is written, designed, and edited by professionals: Darby Dickerson, a leading authority on American legal citation, and the Association of Legal Writing Directors
• simplifies and clarifies citation by using one consistent and logical system for any type of legal document
• makes information extremely accessible, with an easy-to-navigate organization, subheadings, two-color design to flag key points, numerous examples, "Fast Formats" for double-checking citations, Sidebars with tips on avoiding common problems, and diagrams and charts to make information available at a glance
• presents complete coverage of citation basics, citation for primary and secondary sources, citation of electronic sources, and incorporating citations into documents, as well as how to properly quote material and edit quotes
• offers eight helpful appendices, including local court citation formats, commonly used abbreviations, federal tax citation guidelines, and an example of a legal memorandum that demonstrates the proper integration of citations
• includes a website for updates and additional appendices
• facilitates instruction with a thorough Teacher's Manual and PowerPoint CD containing class suggestions, exercises, and helpful ALWD-Bluebook conversion charts

Be sure to notice the new material in the Third Edition:

• new Rule 7.2 provides guidance on citing both page numbers and footnote or endnote numbers; new Rule 7.3 clarifies citing footnotes and endnotes when using the id. short citation
• new Rule 8.4 addresses citing material that appears on multiple supplements
• revised Rule 19 includes additional information on citing Code of Federal Regulations sections appearing in electronic databases and a new rule (19.13) on citing patents
• Rule 21 has been expanded to include rudimentary information about citing basic international, foreign, and intergovernmental sources
• new Rule 37.3 explains how to cite unpublished working papers, including material that appears on SSRN.
• new rule 40.3 explains how to cite weblogs
• updated examples are provided throughout the text
• All appendices now appear in the book
• all appendices now included in the book

If you are not already planning to use The ALWD Citation Manual in your next course, examine the new edition of this revolutionary reference and be prepared to change your min

An author website to support classroom instruction using this title is available at http://www.alwdmanual.com

First, a disclosure - I was a co-chair of the ALWD Citation Manual Oversight committee and so am not disinterested in the book.

In a hands-on competition between the ALWD Citation Manual and the Bluebook, the ALWD Citation Manual wins hands down. When you try to use each book (the "hands-on" test), the ALWD Citation Manual is simply incomparably superior to the BB.

About three years ago, the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD, variously pronounced "Al Wid" or "All Wood" (I personally prefer the latter)), an organization of more than 200 members representing approximately 150 law schools, undertook the ambitious project of developing and publishing a new legal citation manual. The years of work came to fruition when the ALWD Citation Manual was published. This book, prepared by professionals for professionals, will, I believe, eventually displace The Bluebook.

ALWD Citation Manual and the Bluebook

One of the guiding ideas for the new manual was that it would be, for the most part, a restatement of the rules of citation based on the citation form actually used by experts. As a result of this conservative approach, citation done in the ALWD format will be familiar to practitioners and scholars alike. There are a number of small changes, but the citations will be instantly understood by any lawyer who learned any one (or more) of the 16 different versions of citation promulgated by the 16 different editions of The Bluebook.

Because the learning (and unlearning) to be done is minimal, it will be easy to adapt to either system and to move between them. Those who know The Bluebook will be able to adapt to the ALWD Citation Manual easily; those who learn the ALWD Citation Manual will be able to conform ALWD-compliant work to Bluebook requirements with relatively little additional specialized learning, especially for practitioner documents.

A Teaching Tool

The ALWD Citation Manual is not merely a reference book; it is also a teaching book. The attention paid to making the book much easier to teach from and learn from will make it particularly attractive to those who teach legal citation. Key features furthering this aim are the explicit articulation of a general rule of citation, numerous user-friendly examples of citations of each type of work, and design features that facilitate ease of reading and parsing rules. The book features two color printing; "Sidebars" to explain matters related to citation that are not rules per se; and "Fast Formats," a collection of pages illustrating proper citation form for most types of works. This latter feature will be very useful for someone who knows the citation forms already but needs to double-check some detail. The "fast formats" will also provide students and teachers with a rich source of examples of the application of the rules.

ALWD is maintaining a Web site which will include a ALWD Citation Manual support page to provide answers to frequently asked questions and to update the Manual as needed.

Goals and Features of ALWD Citation Manual

ALWD had a number of aims in creating this citation manual: to simplify some of the rules, to reduce inconsistencies, to make the rules responsive to the needs of lawyers as well as scholars, and, over the long term, to provide stability and uniformity of citation rules.

Among the simplifications, two stand out most prominently. First, how you cite a source does not depend on where you cite it. Gone are the arcane differences that depended upon whether the case was cited in a brief to the court, in a footnote to the text in an academic journal, or in the text proper of a law review article. The citation form in each setting is now the same.

The second major simplification is the elimination of the use of small caps in citations. There are now only two type styles: italics and regular type. If the portion of the cite is not in italics (such as signals and titles), then it is to be in regular type. The ALWD Citation Manual contains a simple list of what to put in italics; everything not on the list is to be in regular type.

Providing stability and uniformity of citation over the long term is important so that the scholars of tomorrow can understand the citations of today. Stability of citation form will also mean that what law students learn today will not be obsolete five years out of school. These goals, seemingly inherent in the very underpinnings of a system of citation, do not appear to have been sufficiently appreciated by the publishers of The Bluebook. Even as these goals were paid lipservice-the subtitle of The Bluebook is "A Uniform System of Citation" after all-the achievement of both stability and uniformity has been frustrated by frequent changes in citation form wrought by the student publishers of The Bluebook over the years.

This is a laudable effort and should prove very helpful to lawyers now and in the future.


You need this book for legal citation!   December 24, 2003
11 out of 12 found this review helpful

If you are in law school hopefully you'll have the option to use this book instead of using the Bluebook, it is much easier to understand and it's laid out in a way that is easy to follow. Also the index is very good, which is important in this kind of reference book.

Someone above, shamelessly promoting the CiteIt! program needs to get a clue--you will not (and I mean not have a hope of) make it through your legal citation class using the CiteIt! program alone. If you think you can just plop a big mess into the program and a pristine citiation will drop out the bottom, guess again.

The software is not that good. I'd rate CiteIt about a four on a 10 point scale. It's nice, and it does have some good features, but if you've got to do real-world law school legal citation work to do don't think you can get by with a program alone. At least not anything I've see so far.


At last! Something Besides the Blues   March 29, 2001
Will Tompkins (Vista, CA USA)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

Sometimes things change for the better, but not the Bluebook. What good fortune then that we are offered an alternative-especially one as organized and straightforward as the ALWD Citation Manual.


Not a new citation system; a better way to learn citation.   May 2, 2002
Wayne Schiess (Austin, TX United States)
20 out of 27 found this review helpful

Disclosure: I am on a committee that promotes the ALWD Citation Manual. But I volunteered for the committee because the ALWD Manual is so good. Students who learn citation from the ALWD Manual will be fine because most of the concerns expressed by critics of the ALWD Manual are based on myths.

Myth 1: Practicing lawyers know the Bluebook. Sorry, but most lawyers don't even own the current Bluebook. Most own the one they got in law school, whether that's the 13th, 14th, 15th, or 16th edition. We're now on the 17th edition. And even then, most lawyers cite according to what they vaguely recall from law school, or they get someone else to do the citations.

Myth 2: Judges require bluebook citation form. Wrong. Most courts DO NOT require Bluebook form. Instead, they require uniform and consistent citations. And most judges would not know Bluebook citations from ALWD Manual citations. The differences are so few and so minor.

Myth 3: Students who learn ALWD Manual form will be in trouble when they go to work on a journal and must use the Bluebook. I doubt it. They will know citation form better because they learned it from a readable, logical manual. What will happen is that they will become disgusted with the Bluebook once they see how poorly written it is.


Very accessible introduction to legal citation   November 3, 2004
james manden (chicago)
6 out of 8 found this review helpful

The Alwd Citation Manual is more efficient to use than the Bluebook, and I have been happy using it throughout law-school.

With regards to the CiteIt software, I must warn potential buyers that a better name for it would have been CrapIt...
It is way overpriced, and basically useless.
The most fun I had with CiteIt was uninstalling it!