My first-year law students are beginning to learn about legal citation.\u00a0 Today we discussed a\u00a0question that sometimes causes confusion:\u00a0 whether to abbreviate the first word of a case name.\u00a0 The answer requires a student to synthesize a\u00a0few rules from the Bluebook.<\/p>\n
Bluebook\u00a0Rule 10.2.2 states that all words listed in Table 6 (the table of abbreviations) must be abbreviated, even the first word in a party name.\u00a0 Table 6 notes that a word of eight letters (or more) may be abbreviated at the author’s discretion if substantial space is saved.\u00a0 Abbreviated words are punctuated by a period, unless the abbreviation is formed with an apostrophe (Corp., but Ass’n).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
However, Rule 10.2 distinguishes\u00a0case abbreviations in text from those in a stand-alone citation sentence.\u00a0 In text means that the citation appears within the sentence the student is drafting about the law, application, etc.\u00a0 Rule 10.2 provides that in text, words that would otherwise be abbreviated under Table 6 are not abbreviated.\u00a0 This is true whether it’s the party’s first name, or regardless of the placement of the name in the sentence (beginning, middle, end).<\/p>\n
Finally, Rule 10.2.1(c) comes at the question from the angle of what words must always be abbreviated in text.\u00a0 It states that only “widely known acronyms” (such as CIA, FDA, per Rule 6.1(b)) and eight words (&, Ass’n, Bros., Co., Corp., Inc., Ltd., and No.) are to be abbreviated.\u00a0 A further exception, though, is that the eight words are not to be abbreviated if they begin a party’s name.<\/p>\n
So,\u00a0the short answer is “it depends.”\u00a0 If the case is cited in text, the first word would never be abbreviated, unless it’s a widely known acronym.\u00a0 If the case is cited as a citation sentence, then the first word would always be abbreviated if it’s found in Table 6 or is a widely known acronym, and you may choose to abbreviate a word of\u00a0eight or more letters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My first-year law students are beginning to learn about legal citation.\u00a0 Today we discussed a\u00a0question that sometimes causes confusion:\u00a0 whether to abbreviate the first word of a case name.\u00a0 The answer requires a student to synthesize a\u00a0few rules from the Bluebook. Bluebook\u00a0Rule 10.2.2 states that all words listed in Table 6 (the table of abbreviations) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,42,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-practice","category-legal-writing","category-public","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}