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Substantial Paper & Journal Note Guide: Bluebook Citation Format

Overview

As every law student knows, putting citations in Bluebook format is a hassle. If you are not using a citation manager to insert your citations into your paper in Bluebook format, you can get some help from Westlaw, Lexis, and other websites. However, none of these services or websites work perfectly, so you still have to double-check all citations.

Copying Citations from Westlaw

On Westlaw, to copy text with the Bluebook (aka Standard) citation:  

  1. Highlight the desired text in a document
  2. When the dialog box automatically appears, click on Copy with Reference (Standard)​
  3. Paste the text into a Word document

Checking Citations Using Westlaw's Drafting Assistant Essential

You can use Drafting Assistant Essential to check your paper to correct Bluebook citation formats. You upload your paper and the paper checks each citation.

  1. Sign into Westlaw as usual at lawschool.westlaw.com
  2. Click on the Tools tab
  3. Scroll down and click on Drafting Assistant Essential
  4. Click on Upload Word Document, navigate to your Word document, click on it, and click Open
  5. Click on Site Formatting
  6. Next to Select Profile, click on Create New
  7. Type a name in the Profile Name field, change Citation Styles to Law Reviews, and click the Save button
  8. Click Run Cite Formatting
  9. Go through each citation and click to Accept the change or Skip the citation
  10. Click the Finish button
  11. Click on Download document to download the document with your changes

Copying Citations from Lexis

On Lexis, to copy text with the Bluebook (aka Standard) citation:  

  1. Highlight the desired text in a document
  2. When the dialog box automatically appears, click on Copy (Quick): Standard
  3. Paste the text into a Word document

Bluebook Citation Generators

There are also some Bluebook citation generating websites you can check out. For each site, you can type in the information about the document you are citing and the system generates a citation in Bluebook format.

As always, you have to double-check your citations.