Chapter 2Free sample

Anatomy of a Citation, Sentences & Signals

What a citation is made of, where it goes, and what each signal tells your reader.

A citation sentence is built from slots, and each slot answers a question your reader would otherwise ask. Both sentences below come from Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024). The first, adapted from Justice Kagan’s dissent at 469 with its explanation narrowed to the cited page, fills the slots a single authority most often needs. The second, from the Court’s opinion at 386, joins two authorities.

One authority, the usual slots filled

Cf. Wilkinson v. Garland, 601 U.S. 209, 230 (2024) (Alito, J., dissenting) (arguing that a broad reading of questions of law would leave only pure factual challenges outside judicial review).

1 signal: capital, as it opens the sentence
2 the authority, in the form its own chapter teaches
3 pinpoint: the page you rely on
4 year only: U.S. already names the Court
5 opinion type: whose words
6 explanation: what the page does for your sentence
7 period: the citation sentence ends

Two authorities in one citation sentence

United States v. Moore, 95 U.S. 760, 763 (1878); see also Jacobs v. Prichard, 223 U.S. 200, 214 (1912).

8 no signal: the Court’s sentence quotes this page
9 semicolon: next authority, same sentence
10 second signal, lowercase inside the sentence
11 second authority, with its own pinpoint and year