Law Subject Guide: Basic Rules

Every time that you would reference a resource within the text of your paper, you insert a footnote via the tool provided in the word processing program you are utilizing.

Then you include the bibliographic citation in full for the resource within said footnote. However, if you reuse a resource within your paper, you should be aware of two things:

• If you're citing the same source as you did in your last immediate footnote, you write Ibid. instead of rewriting the citation again. If there are page number changes, you include a comma after Ibid., and then the page numbers that are different from the previous footnote citation.
• If you reuse a source that came before other sources that have been used since, then you can shorten your citation during the subsequent uses--utilizing only last names (with first initials used if there are multiple authors with the same last name), titles reduced to four or fewer words, and page numbers.

Example:

1. Peter Pomerantsev, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia (New York: Public Affairs, 2014), 139-40.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., 41.
4. Jennifer Doyle, "Relational Aesthetics and Affective Labor," in Hold It Against Me: Difficulty and Emotion in Contemporary Art (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013), 89-93.
5. Pomerantsev, Nothing Is True, 159.

One Author

Core Elements:

First name then last name

Examples:

Two to Three Authors

Core Elements:

Last name, then comma, and then first name (for leading author), and first name then last name (for co-authors).

Example:

Four or More Authors

Core Elements:

Only list the leading author's name followed by et al.

Example:

Organization as Author

Core Elements:

For a corporation, government department, university, or any organization that takes authorship responsibility, simply list their name in full.

Example:

No Author

Core Elements:

Begin the citation with the title of the resource.

Example:

Titles for Smaller Works

Core Elements:

Put quotation marks around, and type smaller works (e.g., articles, chapters, television episodes, songs, poems, etc.) in title case (the first letter of each word is capitalized--except for conjunctions, articles, and prepositions that are not the first words in either the title and/or subtitle). Follow the original capitalization of organizations with their names (e.g., WebMD).

Example:

"Cognition and the Assessment of Interaction Episodes in Jazz Improvisation."
"Building Steam with a Grain of Salt."

Titles for Larger Works

Core Elements:

Italicize and type larger works (e.g., academic journals, magazines, newspapers, books, television shows, etc.) in title case (the first letter of each word is capitalized--except for conjunctions, articles, and prepositions that are not the first words in either the title and/or subtitle). Follow the original capitalization of organizations with their names (e.g., WebMD). Websites, however, are not italicized.

Examples:

Mo' Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove
Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street
Resident Advisor
HuffPost

Date Is Available

Core Elements:

Month Day, Year
Journals and books, include year only.

Examples:

November 29, 2016
2017

No Date

Core Elements:

If it is a website or a database resource with no publication or revision date (copyright dates are not considered relevant for resources accessed online with Chicago), then include an access date before the URL.

Example: