A Handy Bluebook Format Citation Generator for Website
As a law student, what gives you the biggest trouble? Is it time management? Is it doing all of the reading that you have to do? We bet it’s the most boring part – referencing and citing. In law, like in probably no other field of study, citing is an integral part of ANY activity, whether it’s writing a case brief, submitting an article to Law Review or working on your thesis.
In law, citing goes beyond giving credit to someone else’s work. You can’t possibly write anything without relying on relevant court decisions, statutes, constitutions, etc. And so, your readers should know exactly where to go for more detailed information.
Citing norms in law are much more extensive than in any other field and include specific norms for all kinds of legal and academic documents. There are cases, court decisions, statutes, constitutions, books, and articles – you probably know all of them even better than we do. The difficulty is that the format for citing these sources differs A LOT.
All of the relevant norms are gathered in the Bluebook style guide – a complication of rules that is both revered and feared by law students. The guide has been revised extensively and is now in its 20th edition, which only proves how much work has been contributed to it.
Blue-covered and thick, Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation is where you can spend hours delving into details and norms and still have no clear idea of how to cite a certain source. That’s why we offer you to save some time and trouble by using this free Bluebook website citation generator. With its help, you will cite your online sources easily and effectively while making sure that all of the relevant norms are complied with.
Using our generator for in-text website citation
Using our Bluebook format citation generator for website is rather simple. You won’t have to take any more steps than you would do when citing any other style, even if it’s far less complicated. To generate a citation:
- Choose the appropriate style (Bluebook) and the source (website)
- Provide the information to be used in the citation (titles, URL, access date, etc.)
- Click on “Generate”
- Have your citation generated and insert it into an appropriate place in your paper (in-text, footnote or endnote – depending on the documents)
This generator is completely free, no matter how many sources you need to cite. Make sure your citations are in order and don’t take you more time and effort than they should! Use the most convenient Bluebook in-text website citation tool online now!
How to make the Bluebook in-text website citation?
Even though the Bluebook does not encourage citing electronic sources, the reality is such that more and more valuable information is published online before (if ever) being published offline. The Rule 18 of the Bluebook 20th edition does contain some norms on citing electronic (online) sources – the addition which has been made only in the 19th edition of the guide.
The Bluebook distinguishes 3 ways of citing materials:
- Citing hard-copy materials
- Citing hard-copy materials with a specification of where they can be found online
- Citing online materials
If a hard copy of an electronic material can be traced, the guide advises you to cite such hard copy. In some cases, citing for electronic and non-electronic sources will not differ. Therefore, you won’t have to search for the physical hard copy of the source you are citing. Such cases include authenticated documents (those whose authenticity and comparability to the print version have been established by the government), official versions (documents published exclusively in the online form) and exact copies.
In case if both the print and the online version of the document exist and can be cited, you are free to include “Available at” in your citation after all of the other elements. Make sure your work processor doesn’t automatically turn the address into a hyperlink as it will violate the norms.
Electronic sources are to be cited when hard-copy counterparts are not available or irretrievable.
When it comes to citing different formats, e.g. an HTML and a PDF version, choose the PDF format and include its address after “Available at.”
A citation to a page of a website includes the following elements:
- Author’s name
- Web page title
- Website title
- Date and time
- URL
If the page doesn’t have a clearly specified author, you may reverse to a “corporate author” (the name of the organization or company that owns the website). In case neither is available, omit the author part completely.
The title of the page can be found in the title bar of the web browser. It must be capitalized and italicized. If you are citing a specific comment to the page, specify it in the title part of your citation. In case no title is provided for a web page, use a so-called descriptive title (non-italicized).
The title of the website should be in small caps and abbreviated according to the norms of the Bluebook Guide (Table 13).
The date and time should be included if such webpage’s date and time are related directly to what you are citing. The date should be abbreviated according to the norms of the Bluebook (Table 12). In case no date is provided that relates to the subject matter of your citing, then include the “last updated” date from the website in parenthesis after the URL of the page. If no such date is provided, indicate the date of your last access.
The root URL can be used instead of a full URL if the full version is too long and contains non-textual characters or cannot be used directly to access the source.
Once a specific source has been cited once, you can and should switch to short-form citations where you can drop the URL. Mind, however, that the use of short-form citations is only possible when the reader won’t have any difficulties navigating back to the full-form citation of a specific source.