Thursday 20 August 2015

Amusing musings on The Bluebook

With school starting and a new batch of 1Ls arriving and the publication of the 20th edition of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, the ABA Journal has published some amusing commentary by Bryan Garner on the Bluebook.
A few quotes:
"What I’ve come to realize is that when it comes to The Bluebook, small changes are made for the sake of making small changes."
"From an author’s standpoint, the most irksome thing about a new Bluebook is the nettlesome changes that take place."
"There are rules, you see, exceptions to rules and exceptions to exceptions. These are all elaborated in the 560 pages of the 20th edition. By contrast, the earliest edition of The Bluebook in my possession is the 10th edition of 1958. It weighs in at 124 pages."

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