Need quick help with a legal citation
January 22, 2010 11:12 AM

[Law student filter]. I desperately need quick help to find out the proper bluebook citation for an article from the NY Review of Books. Anyone out there with a blue book handy able to help me out? Many thanks!!!
posted by leticia to Education (14 answers total)
T.13 doesn't have a specific abbreviation, so I would use the standard journal article citation:

Full Name, Article Name, ** (vol #) N.Y. Rev. Books (in small caps) ***(first article page), ***-**(pages) (year).

e.g.

Steve Johnson, Big Bad Book Review, 12 N.Y. Rev. Books (in small caps) 100, 101-02 (2009).
posted by craven_morhead at 11:25 AM on January 22, 2010


To cite an entire magazine article within a law review article:
John Q. Smith, Article Title, New York Review of Books , Jan. 19, 2010, at 55.
Where Jan 19., 2010 is the cover date of the issue.

Let me know if this isn't what you need. I've got my copy of BB sitting right next to me.
posted by katemonster at 11:25 AM on January 22, 2010


Bah, Author's name shouldn't be italicized.
posted by craven_morhead at 11:25 AM on January 22, 2010


Citation of an entire magazine article goes like so, per Rule 16:

John A. Doe, Title of Article, N.Y. REV. BOOKS, Jan. 22, 2010, at [first page number of article].

Citation of a non-consecutively paginated magazine goes like this, per Rule 16.4:

John A. Doe, Title of Article, N.Y. REV. BOOKS, Jan. 22, 2010, at [first page number of article], [particularly cited page].

Is the NY Review of Books consecutively paginated? If so, it would be like this, per Rule 16.3

John A. Doe, Title of Article, [Volume Number] N.Y. REV. BOOKS [First Page of Volume], [first page number of article] (2010).

N.Y. REV. BOOKS should be in small caps in either case.
posted by jedicus at 11:26 AM on January 22, 2010


Yeah, remember the small caps. They get stripped out of the html here.
Also, it sounds like you're using an article, but n.b. that a book review has a different citation form.
posted by katemonster at 11:29 AM on January 22, 2010


Yep, a non student written book review looks like this:

[name], [Article Title], [vol] N.Y. Book Rev. [issue] (year) (reviewing [name], [title] (both in small caps) ([year])).
posted by craven_morhead at 11:34 AM on January 22, 2010


Yep, a non student written book review looks like this:

[name], [Article Title], [vol] N.Y. Book Rev. [issue] (year) (reviewing [name], [title] (both in small caps) ([year])).


Rule 16.6.1 says the parenthetical can be reduced to simply "(book review)" if it is already clear what book is under review.

This whole thread is a great example of why the Bluebook desperately needs to be reformed and simplified.
posted by jedicus at 11:43 AM on January 22, 2010


If it matters, searching US Combined Law Journals on Lexis gives 1873 hits for "N.Y. Rev. Books." Searches for "N.Y. Rev. Books." w/5 "book review" and "N.Y. Rev. Books." w/10 reviewing gave 70 and 197 hits, respectively. So it appears that either people normally cite non-book review articles or most people don't use the book review citation format. Take from that what you will.
posted by jedicus at 11:54 AM on January 22, 2010


Yall rock. It's an article, not a review, so i guess I'll go with the consecutively paginated example. The real stinker is that I have a pdf from the NY Rev site, so i don't have the pagination. WAIT, did someone just say lexis has it? I'll have to have a look there.

And jedicus, you are half right. The bluebook needs to be torched altogher!!

thanks much, all :o)
posted by leticia at 12:00 PM on January 22, 2010


WAIT, did someone just say lexis has it? I'll have to have a look there.

I don't think Lexis has the actual NY Review of Books. I was just looking at how it's usually cited in law journals.
posted by jedicus at 12:12 PM on January 22, 2010


Is your .pdf not a direct scan from the issue?

Does your law library have the dead tree version?
posted by craven_morhead at 12:25 PM on January 22, 2010


It's an article, not a review, so i guess I'll go with the consecutively paginated example.

No, you want the nonconsecutively paginated citation format. "Consecutively paginated" refers to things like law reviews where the first page of an issue might be "page 783" (because it's not the first issue in a volume, and the page numbers only start over once there's a new volume). I don't have a copy of the NYRB handy, but I'd be shocked if it were consecutively paginated. Whether it's an article or book review has nothing to do with whether it's consecutively paginated.
posted by Jaltcoh at 12:36 PM on January 22, 2010


The real stinker is that I have a pdf from the NY Rev site, so i don't have the pagination

I have a pile of NYRB issues at home. If you can't find it in lexis, let me know.

and yes, the bluebook (and its minions) should be torched.
posted by lex mercatoria at 2:12 PM on January 22, 2010


"Consecutively paginated" refers to things like law reviews

[smacks forehead] D'oh, I knew that. :o) don't know what i was thinking.

my printout of the article is from the html format NY Rev has on its own site, so no embedded pagination. Unfortunately i'm far away from hard copies of anything (including my bluebook), so i'm doing the best i can. I may just have to fudge it and put down the first page of the article.

lex, thanks for the offer, but the article i have is from Feb 98. I'm guessing you don't have that one lying around! :o)

thanks again
:o)

ps, Lexis doesn't have NY Rev. [grumbles...]
posted by leticia at 3:19 PM on January 22, 2010


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