Bluebook: capitalisation & unreported cases

bmanby
I have two queries on the Bluebook Law Review :

1. My references are entered with minimal capitalisation. In some other styles they are automatically changed to first letter capitalisation for longer words - but this does not happen for the Bluebook, although that is the requirement of the style.

2. Unreported cases - Bluebook style is not very clear, but at minimum should include name of court, docket/case number, and date of judgment. Instead, the footnote is just giving me the name of the case followed by a comma and then the year in brackets. The cases I want to cite are in national courts (not the US) or regional courts (in Africa, Americas or Europe) - it is common for national cases to be available only at an online link or in PDF only.

thank you for any help
  • adamsmith
    We'll do 1). Not sure about 2) - getting case citations even approximately right, especially once you move beyond the US, is likely beyond what Zotero can do. If you cite a lot of legal materials, I'd recommend checking out Juris-m: https://juris-m.github.io/
  • bmanby
    edited June 13, 2023
    Thanks for quick reply! And could I add 3 - full date for blog posts, not just the year?
    Yes, legal citations are a nightmare, but at least if the name of court, docket number and full date of judgment are given by Zotero, editing them into the correct style is easier.
  • adamsmith
    I can check what's going on with cases. I'd have figured we'd include basic information, but it might be the case logic is just written for reported cases. We can definitely do full dates for blog posts.
  • bmanby
    Another request: reports are not showing the institution that published them (that is, where there is a human author and the institution is not itself the author). I can't quite work out how the Bluebook wants this to be done, but looking at some examples it seems the institution is either supposed to be listed before the year of publication; or as a co-author?
  • bmanby
    Greetings - sorry to ask again, since I'm so grateful for the fantastic service Zotero supplies - but any luck in fixing these 4 points?
  • damnation
    I have implemented the title casing as well as the full date for post-weblog, although I don't have access to the documentation.
    Please check:
    https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/raw/1801286195361e1c01c3d3e8b288aded01316df8/bluebook-law-review.csl
  • bmanby
    Thank you! Title casing and full date for blogs are fixed.
    Will you be able to adjust the referencing for unreported cases, and add publisher for reports with individual authors?
  • damnation
    As I had mentioned, I don't have access to the guidelines. I'd need exact examples in a current vs wanted format.
  • bmanby
    I also don't have access to the Bluebook (just one among many reasons why it is not a helpful citation system...) but what I have coming out of Zotero & what I would like are:

    Unreported cases

    What I have:

    Case name (normal font, first letter caps), (year), URL

    What I would like is to delete the year in brackets and add the text between <<< & >>> , like this :

    Case name, <<< docket number, name of court (in full on first citation), judgment dated (with full date month, day, year), available at >>> URL

    This may or may not be the correct format, but it gives me (and others) the necessary information to be able to edit it further.

    Reports published by an institution but with individual authors:

    What I have :

    NAME OF INDIVIDUAL AUTHOR (SMALL CAPS), Name of report (italics, first letter caps), (year), URL.

    What I would like is to add the name of the institutional author after the individual author, as follows:

    NAME OF INDIVIDUAL AUTHOR (SMALL CAPS), NAME OF INSTITUTION (SMALL CAPS), Name of report (italics, first letter caps), (year), URL.

    I think this is what the Bluebook wants, from available online sources.

    Thank you.
  • adamsmith
    The Indigo book is a free and open citation manual that describes the same Uniform Requirements as the bluebook https://law.resource.org/pub/us/code/blue/IndigoBook.html
  • bmanby
    Aha!
  • bmanby
    But I don't think it changes my requests.
  • adamsmith
    what types of reports are you citing? I'd put most reports in the "non-periodical" category and cite like a book (which is the current behavior).
  • bmanby
    I was thinking of something like this current citation in Bluebook style:

    PATRÍCIA JERÓNIMO, Report on Citizenship Law: Angola, (2019), https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/62284.

    Which Chicago would render as:

    Patrícia Jerónimo, ‘Report on Citizenship Law: Angola’, GLOBALCIT Country Report (Fiesole: European University Institute, April 2019), https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/62284.

    According to the advice at the link below, the Bluebook wants it to be:

    PATRÍCIA JERÓNIMO, EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE, Report on Citizenship Law: Angola, (2019), https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/62284.

    But you may know better than me....

    --

    https://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/bluebook-legal-citation/how-to-cite/books-reports-treatises

    Institutional Authors

    If the author of a work is an institution, provide the complete name.

    4 Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, The American Law of Mining 98 (2d ed. 1984).

    NOTE: In some circumstances, a particular individual within an institution will be given authorial credit. If this is the case, provide the individual's name, followed by the institutional name separated by a comma.
  • adamsmith
    I'd distinguish between institution as an author and institution as a publisher here. If the institution is really authoring a report, add it as an author (single field) in Zotero and this will come out basically right (I think Zotero will add an "and" -- we can't avoid that).
    If the institutions is merely a publisher -- as is surely the case for the EUI in your example -- I'd add it as an institution and Zotero will treat it as a publisher, i.e. cite it in Chicago style but not in Bluebook.
  • bmanby
    Thanks very much for the guidance. So if, for example, if a report by an NGO (say, Human Rights Watch) is authored by a named individual you'd add HRW after a comma, but not if an academic institution? But really, why would you not want to know that the EUI published the report - it's relevant information. (On the other hand, Chicago insistence on including the location of the publisher is also a bit unnecessary nowadays.) But not within your control I realise!
    Anyway, I hope you can add some information to what is shown for the unreported cases?
  • bmanby
    I have partially solved my problem. If I add the name of the court as also the 'reporter' then at least the name of the court is provided, which is the most important element.
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