Tag Archives: Peter Martin

A Compilation of Punctuation Guides for the Punctuation Police.

10 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by in Legal Writing, Punctuation, Readability, Style Manuals

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If you are a member of the Punctuation Police, you will enjoy this sample of punctuation guides. Depending on your profession, some style guides are more important than others. For example, if you are in the legal profession, you would look to the Bluebook for specific rules on punctuation. 

Another source of multiple style guides, including rules on punctuation and grammar, can be found at http://www.RefDesk.com under http://www.refdesk.com/topgram.html and Library Spot, Grammar and Style, at http://www.libraryspot.com/grammarstyle.htm. -CCE

The Punctuation Guide
http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/style.html

Tips on Grammar, Punctuation and Style
Harvard College Writing Center
http://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/tips-grammar-punctuation-and-style

Punctuation and Style: A Quick Reference Guide
Office of Communications, University of Puget Sound
http://pugetsound.edu/files/resources/3379_PSGuide0309.pdf

Introduction to Basic Legal Citation, by Peter Martin, Cornell University Law School, Legal Information Institute (not just for legal citations – CCE)
https://www.law.cornell.edu/citation/

When Peter Martin, aka Bluebook Yoda, Talks About The Bluebook, I Listen.

16 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by in Abbreviations, Acronyms, Brief Writing, Citations, Initialisms, Legal Writing, Parentheticals, Punctuation, Quotations, Readability, String Citations, The Bluebook

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Bluebook (20th ed.) and Restatements, Model Codes, etc., by Peter Martin, Citing Legally

http://citeblog.access-to-law.com/

Prior to publication of the new Bluebook, law journals, lawyers, and judges were in pretty close agreement on how to cite a Restatement section (e.g., Restatement (Second) of Torts § 46 cmt. j (1965) [as cited in the May 2015 issue of the Harvard Law Review] or Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 349, cmt. a (1981) [as cited in an Aug. 2015 decision of the Seventh Circuit]). Journals put the titles in large and small caps.  Lawyers and judges didn’t. Furthermore, consistent with their treatment of other static material, many lawyers and judges left off the date element. In an era in which briefs are held to a maximum word count, why include the redundant ‘(1965)’ or ‘(1981)’? The Bluebook reflected that consensus. Its prescribed formats for citations to provisions in Uniform Codes, Model Acts, the federal sentencing guidelines, and the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct were consistent with it. See The Bluebook R. 12.9.5 (19th ed. 2010).

Without warning the 20th edition of The Bluebook changed that. . . .

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Excellent Argument About Technology and Citation Placement.

13 Saturday Jun 2015

Posted by in Apple, Brief Writing, Citations, E-Briefs, E-Briefs, E-Filing, Footnotes, iPad, Laptop, Legal Technology, Legal Writing, Mac, Microsoft Office, PC Computers, Readability, Tablets

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If the Judge Will Be Reading My Brief on a Screen, Where Should I Place My Citations? by Peter Martin, Jane M.G. Foster Professor of Law, Emeritus, Cornell Law School, Citing Legally Blog

http://citeblog.access-to-law.com/?p=149

 

As pointed out in this article, more courts require e-filing and are using tablets and other technology to read what you file. If you do not use technology, then you do not know how your document appears on the screen. It is quite different than reading something on a printed page.

So what to do? Keep writing as you always have and ignore changes brought about by technology or adjust? -CCE

A. Introduction

In a prior post I explored how the transformation of case law to linked electronic data undercut Brian Garner’s longstanding argument that judges should place their citations in footnotes. As that post promised, I’ll now turn to Garner’s position as it applies to writing that lawyers prepare for judicial readers. . . .

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Is The Bluebook Protected By Copyright?

31 Sunday May 2015

Posted by in Citations, Copyright, Intellectual Property, Legal Writing, Public Domain, The Bluebook

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Legal Minds Differ On Whether The Bluebook Is Subject To Copyright Protection, by Leslie A. Gordon, ABA Journal

http://tinyurl.com/o228qkc

Controversy is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of The Bluebook, but the bible of legal citation is at the center of an increasingly nasty dispute over whether it is subject to copyright protection.

Open-source advocates are contending that the style and citation manual is an essential piece of legal infrastructure and can’t be preserved as private property under copyright law. The book’s publishers say otherwise. . . .

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Basic Bluebook Guide.

16 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in Citations, Legal Writing, The Bluebook

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Bluebook Guide, Georgetown Law Library

http://perma.cc/8TZR-WN43

This guide was designed for law students in the Georgetown University Law Center. It covers the Bluebook’s organization and how to cite to the most common legal citations. It is not as thorough and complete as Peter Martin’s Cornell Legal Information Institute’s resource at: https://researchingparalegal.com/2013/10/31/peter-martins-introduction-to-basic-legal-citation-an-alwd-and-bluebook-cheat-sheet/.

This guide does not explain how to use certain types of lesser used legal sources. But, if you want a resource for case law, statutes, and other basic legal resources, this will work. -CCE

Oklahoma’s 2014 Official Citation Change – What Does it Mean?

02 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in Citations, Legal Writing, Oklahoma Civil Appellate Procedure, Oklahoma Supreme Court, Public Domain Citations, Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act

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Oklahoma Makes It Official (But What Does That Signify?), by Peter Martin, Citing Legally Blog

http://citeblog.access-to-law.com/?p=107

For over 16 years Oklahoma appellate courts have attached non-proprietary, print-independent citation data to their decisions at the time of release, placed those decisions online at a public site, and required lawyers to cite state precedent using this contemporary system. Moreover, setting Oklahoma apart from other neutral citation pioneers, the judiciary staff applied neutral citations retrospectively to all prior decisions rendered during the print era, placed copies of them online as well, and encouraged but did not require that they also be cited by the new system.  Until this year, however, the print reports of the National Reporter System remained the “official” version of Oklahoma decisions.  As of January 1, 2014, sixty years after the Oklahoma Supreme Court designated the West Publishing Company as the ‘official publisher’ of its decisions, it revoked that designation.