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Citing Sources or Mitigating Plagiarism: Teaching Law Students the Proper Use of Authority Attribution in the Digital Age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2019

Extract

Learning the rules of legal citation is a challenge for new and seasoned legal researchers alike. Good instruction and practice are required to master these rules. Think about the first sport you learned to play. Did you master all the rules the first time you played the game? Do most people even read a rule book when learning to play a new sport? Initially, it is a challenge for any player learning the game to follow all of the rules correctly. Generally, only coaches study the rule book. The rules of the game are very important so coaches and players know what is and is not permitted “on the field.”

Most rules are disseminated orally and learned through practice. Law professors who teach legal research or supervise legal writing are the coaches in the game of legal citation; they must disseminate the rules to their students. The professors have a duty to stimulate a student's mastery of legal citation rules to meet the proficiency required of legal writing in the profession. Law students who do not master the rules of legal citation are more likely to plagiarize.

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Copyright © 2014 by the International Association of Law Libraries. 

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References

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157 Young attorneys entering law firms are expected to draft legal documents and are often directed to formbooks to retrieve sample documents they can edit to fit the facts of their client's case. Practicing attorneys often incorporate the use of formbooks in their legal drafting. In the practice of law, this text is freely borrowed and recycled without attribution. Gerhardt, supra note 76.Google Scholar

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159 37 C.F.R. § 202.1(c).Google Scholar

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166 Gerhardt, supra note 76.Google Scholar

167 University of Hawaii at Mānoa William S. Richardson School of Law, Policy on Plagiarism, at 10.Google Scholar

168 McGaugh & Hurt, supra note 163, at 121.Google Scholar

169 Bluebook R.1.1(b)(ii), at 53.Google Scholar

170 Martin, Brian, Plagiarism: A Misplaced Emphasis, 3 J. Info. Ethics 36-47 (1994), available at http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/94jie.html. When a citation is used after paraphrased work, it alerts the reader that the original author's information has been restated and gives credit to the original author. This removes any potential charge of plagiarism.Google Scholar

171 University of Hawaii at Mānoa William S. Richardson School of Law, Policy on Plagiarism, at 10. Under an exception to this rule, some legal scholars omit a citation when the idea can be found in five or more independent sources.Google Scholar

172 Bluebook R. 10, at 87-109.Google Scholar

173 Id. R. 1.2, at 54-56. When a signal is incorporated, it should be accompanied by a parenthetical describing the relevance of the source. The citation and signal combination give credence to the purpose for citing the authority.Google Scholar

174 Johnson, Tom, How to Write an Essay: 10 Easy Steps 59, Aug. 2004, available at http://www1.aucegypt.edu/academic/writers/.Google Scholar

175 Bluebook R. 10.6.2, at 100.Google Scholar

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177 Dickerson, Darby, Footnoting Law Review Competition Papers, 30 Stetson L. rev. 477, 478 (2000).Google Scholar

178 Bales, Richard A., Footnotes, 68 Bench & Bar Kentucky 41 (2004). Citations should not be the transition for a sentence. Test the substance of the citation.Google Scholar

180 Seligmann, Terry Jean & Seymour, Thomas H., Choosing and Using Legal Authority: The Top Ten Tips, 6 Persp. 1 (1997), reprinted in The Best of Perspectives 73 (2001).Google Scholar

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187 Bales, supra note 178.Google Scholar

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192 Schiess, supra note 69, at 541; Westinghouse Elec. Corp. v. NLRB, 809 F.2d 419, 425 (7th Cir. 1987).Google Scholar

193 Westinghouse, 809 F.2d at 425.Google Scholar

194 Id.; Gerhardt, supra note 76.Google Scholar

195 Van Winkle v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp., 683 N.E.2d 985, 989-90 (Ill. App. Ct. 1997).Google Scholar

197 Schiess, supra note 69, at 536. Pinpoint citation is also called a jump citation, dictum page, or pincite. Black's Law Dictionary 278 (9th ed. 2009).Google Scholar

198 Dickerson, Darby, Citation Frustrations—And Solutions, 30 Stetson L. Rev. 477, 507 (2000).Google Scholar

199 Association of Legal Writing Directors & Darby Dickerson, ALWD Citation Manual: A Professional System of Citation 36 (Aspen Publishers 4th ed., 2010).Google Scholar

200 Schiess, supra note 69, at 536.Google Scholar

201 Gerhardt, supra note 76, at 16. When you fail to refer readers to specific pages where the referenced material appears, readers become frustrated. Scheiss, supra note 69, at 537. Pinpoints are valuable to anyone who reads and checks legal authority because without pinpoints, the checker's job is much more complicated. Id.Google Scholar

202 Schiess, supra note 69, at 537.Google Scholar

203 Bryan A. Garner, The Elements of Legal Style 86 (1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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213 Malmud, Joan, Adding Method and Alleviating Madness: A Process for Teaching Citation, 12 Persp. 117 (2004).Google Scholar

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215 Shepard's provides an 800 number on each of their titles. How to Shepardize: Your Guide to Legal Research Using Shepard's Citations, https://www.lexisnexis.com/shepardscitations/printsupport/shepardize_print.pdf.Google Scholar

216 Joel Fishman & Dittakavi Rao, Navigating Legal Research & Technology: Quick Reference Guide to the 1,500 Most Common Questions about Traditional and Online Legal Research 45 (2010).Google Scholar

217 Nancy J. Kippenhan, Assistant Professor of Law Liberty University School of Law, www.liberty.edu/academics/business/index.cfm?PID=26798-20k.Google Scholar

218 Gordon, Stacy L., A Better Tradition: Why Law Review Should Adopt a New Citation Format, 68 Mont. L. Rev. 175 (2007); Chin, supra note 207; Gallacher, supra note 69, at 14-18.Google Scholar

219 Dennis Fan, (June 20, 2014).Google Scholar

220 Weresh, supra note 79, at 776.Google Scholar

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222 Peter W. Martin, Introduction to Basic Legal Citation (LII 2012 ed.).Google Scholar

223 Gerhardt, supra note 76.Google Scholar

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225 Lysaght, Pamela & Tonner, Grace, Bye-Bye Bluebook?, 79 Mich. B.J. 1058, 1059 (2000).Google Scholar

226 The ALWD website shows its survey determined that 131 schools used the Bluebook exclusively, 19 schools used the ALWD exclusively, 10 both, 16 either and 8 others. ALWD Association of Legal Writing Directors website is available at (last visited Jan. 24, 2014); Gallacher, supra note 69, at 19 n.93 (in 2006, 91 schools were using the ALWD exclusively).Google Scholar

227 Lysaght & Tonner, supra note 225, at 1058. As of January 24, 2014, a total of 203 institutions are approved by the American Bar Association, ABA-Approved Law Schools, Available at http://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/resources/abaapprovedlawschools (last viewed Jan. 21, 2014); Weresh, supra note 79, at 3.Google Scholar

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229 Bennett, Frank G., Citations Out of the Box, Creative Commons Attribution, 2013.Google Scholar

230 Linda J. Barris, Understanding and Mastering the Bluebook: A Guide for Students and Practitioners (Teachers manual) 1 (2011).Google Scholar

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234 Students complain that the first year of law school is a time of major information overload. While they are expected to absorb an enormous amount of new terminology and information on substantive law, they are equally expected to consume the very new and complex nature of legal citation, a foreign language all its own. Lysaght & Tonner, supra note 225. Legal citation can be a very frustrating process for the student and professor. Gerhardt, supra note 76. Another frustration for practicing lawyers is that the examples in the text use law-review typeface conventions rather than practitioner typeface conventions. Schiess, supra note 69, at 537. However, mastering the Bluebook is a manageable and attainable goal. And although mastering the Bluebook is confusing, having no “uniform system” of citation would indeed be worse. Barris, supra note 230, at 3. Robert Berring notes, “The Uniform System of Citation has inflicted more pain on more law students than any other publication in legal history.” Weresh, supra note 79 (quoting The Bluebook: a Sixty-Five Year Retrospective Vol. 2, app. A, 6 (1998)). Ultimately, you will be able to write most but not all citations without use of this manual. Some sources will drive even the most experienced legal writer back to the pages of the Bluebook or local citation guides. Martin, supra note 222. That is why the Bluebook is ultimately so useful because it provides a system so that everyone's citations are similar. Barris, supra note 230, at 3.Google Scholar

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244 Dickerson, Reducing, supra note 231, at 9. The main purpose of any legal citation is “to allow the reader to efficiently locate the cited source.” The Bluebook: General Principles of Citation, http://www.legalbluebook.com/Public/lntroduction.aspx. The Bluebook citation forms are designed to provide the information necessary to lead the reader directly to the specific items cited. Id. The editors of the Bluebook understand and acknowledge that, “no system of citation can be complete” because of the constantly increasing range of authorities cited in legal writing. Id. Therefore, they suggest when citing material not explicitly discussed in the Bluebook, that the writer “try to locate an analogous type of authority that is discussed and use that citation form as a model.” Id. at 3. And regardless of the citation manual the writer has to use to cite a source not available in the Bluebook, the writer should make every effort to “provide sufficient information to allow the reader to find the cited material quickly and easily.” Gerhardt, supra note 76.Google Scholar

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258 See, e.g., Wharton, Cathleen, Floyd, Daisy Hurst, and Downs, Bertis E. IV, Citation Form for Briefs and Legal Memoranda, The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (Jan. 30, 2015), http://www.cali.org/lesson/561. CALI, the center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction, provides more than 100 interactive lessons and tutorials to help law students learn the law.Google Scholar

260 LexisNexis Research Help, http://web.lexis.com/help/research/gh_brief-check.asp (last visited May 10, 2014).Google Scholar

262 CiteGenie, http://www.citegenie.com/ (last visited Feb. 21, 2014). This site is published by CiteGenie.com and is not affiliated with Lexis or Westlaw.Google Scholar

263 Dworsky, supra note 83.Google Scholar

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