Chapter 6 answers

Brown, 347 U.S. at 495.

The full source has already been identified as Brown v. Board of Education. The distinctive name, volume, reporter, and pinpoint provide the supported case short form. Unlike a full citation, this form does not repeat the case's first page 483 or its court/year information. The context must make those omitted details recoverable.

Do not write Brown, supra, at 495 under the ordinary practitioner case convention. Do not retain 483 as though the short form still needs both first page and pinpoint. Conversely, do not reduce the reference to an unexplained page number if the reader cannot recover the source.

Find the full Brown citation in the actual document, not merely in your research notes. Confirm that Brown remains distinctive and that 495 is the passage supporting the present sentence. The short form should pass both an identity check and a support check.

Id.

The second citation immediately follows one identifiable authority and uses the same passage. Id. therefore carries both source identity and, without a new pinpoint, the unchanged location. Its italic period belongs to the abbreviation. In this citation-sentence position the initial letter is capitalized.

Do not add a different page out of habit or assume Id. merely means 'something cited earlier'. The permission depends on the current sequence. A new source inserted between the two citations would change what the abbreviation points to, even if the Brown discussion remained nearby.

Trace the immediately preceding citation. It should contain only Brown at 495, with no intervening authority that interrupts the reference. Then ask whether the second sentence still relies on that same page. If either answer changes, revise the short form.

Id. at 495 is more explicit but longer; the shortest ordinary form requested is Id. because the location remains unchanged.

Replace the intended return with Brown, 347 U.S. at 495; repeating the full Brown citation is also acceptable.

The immediately preceding source is Anderson. Id. follows that source rather than jumping backward to the case the writer meant. A 495 pinpoint does not redirect the abbreviation to Brown: location is interpreted only after identity has been established. The named short form restores the intended source clearly.

Do not leave Id. and assume a reader will recognize 495 as a famous Brown page. Do not cure the error by moving only the pinpoint or by italicizing more text. This is a broken reference caused by source order.

Read the paragraph in final order and name the antecedent of each Id. without consulting the writer's intention. The repaired Brown reference should remain clear after the Anderson citation, and 495 should still support its sentence.

A repeated full citation is useful if the paragraph begins a section likely to be read independently.

Use Brown, 347 U.S. at 495, assuming a clear earlier full citation. The ordinary case pattern does not use supra as a substitute.

Supra is available for eligible source types and cross-reference systems, including certain secondary materials. A case has its own short forms. Source category is therefore part of the shortening decision, along with prior identification and clarity. Knowing the Latin word means 'above' does not make it available for every authority mentioned earlier.

Do not keep Brown, supra merely because the full citation appears on the previous page. Closeness can help a permitted short form remain clear; it does not override the source-specific restriction. Nor should a missing full citation be concealed behind any short form.

Identify the source as a case and locate the earlier full reference. Then compare the repaired form with name-volume-reporter-at-pinpoint. No supra should remain in this ordinary case reference.

Use Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. at 248 and Bessemer City, 470 U.S. at 573-75 after introducing both full citations.

The distinctive opposing names separate the two Anderson decisions in the reader's mind. Their reporter volumes also distinguish them, but the names make the discussion easier to follow. Liberty Lobby concerns whether a material factual dispute is genuine at summary judgment; Bessemer City concerns appellate clear-error review of trial-court factual findings. The latter includes limits on deference, not immunity from all review.

Correctly identifying Bessemer City does not make it the right source for a sentence about a different procedural task. Short-form accuracy and substantive fit must be checked independently. Avoid writing 'Anderson says' in prose when the document relies on both decisions for different jobs.

For each short form, recover its full citation and state its procedural task in one phrase. If the intended sentence describes the other task, repair the source selection or the proposition, not just the name.

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

Replace Id. with a permitted identifying reference to the intended first book: its author plus a distinguishing short title and appropriate earlier reference, or the full citation. Preserve the first book's actual pinpoint once that information is supplied.

The preceding footnote cites two principal authorities, so Id. does not reliably select the first one. The repair must identify the intended book, not choose an arbitrary source based on order. The packet intentionally supplies no authors or titles; the answer is a concrete identification strategy rather than invented bibliographic data.

Do not say Id. means the first book or the last book whenever a note contains several sources. Do not invent 'Smith' or a title to make a sample look finished. The correct form follows the actual book's metadata and the document's practitioner or note-reference convention.

A reader should be able to connect the repaired reference to exactly one earlier full book citation without choosing between two candidates.

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

Read the moved paragraph and every authority appearing before its final Id. Identify the actual antecedent after the move. If the final reference still intends Report A but now follows Report B without a restoring reference to A, replace it with an eligible clear reference to Report A.

Movement changes relationships even when no citation characters change. The immediately preceding principal authority may be inside the moved paragraph or outside it; the audit must inspect the whole sequence rather than assuming its first sentence controls the final reference. Then check the intended report's pinpoint and proposition.

Do not replace every Id. mechanically with Report A simply because that was the paragraph's original neighbor. An intervening citation inside the paragraph may already have changed the antecedent. Do not keep the reference based only on the author's memory.

Trace a continuous chain from the final citation back to its identifiable source in the revised document. The chain should reach Report A for this intended use without silently passing over another principal authority.

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

Use Vale, 12 Fiction Rep. at 105. Repeating Vale v. Harbor, 12 Fiction Rep. 100, 105 (Harbor 2024), would also identify the intended source.

The immediately preceding citation identifies North Pier, so Id. would point to North Pier regardless of the writer's intention. The named short form returns expressly to Vale, whose full identification has already been supplied. Its pinpoint changes to 105 because that is the page used by the new sentence. The full alternative restores the first page, 100, as well as the court and year.

Changing only the page number does not redirect Id. to an earlier source. Do not keep Id. on the theory that the reader will recognize the intended case. The handbook prefers a distinctive name for ease of reading, but that preference does not make the correctly reconstructed full citation invalid.

Trace the repaired reference without consulting the writer's intention: it must recover Vale rather than North Pier and lead to 105. In the short form, look for at 105; in the full form, keep first page 100 before pinpoint 105.

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

Add a distinguishing short title or enough other source-specific information to identify which of the author's two books is meant. Repeat the full citation when that is clearer. Keep the pinpoint tied to the actual selected work and edition.

The author's name no longer selects one source because two earlier full citations share it. Supra relies on a recoverable earlier reference; it does not resolve ambiguity by itself. Edition and volume can also matter if the earlier citations identify versions with different pagination.

Do not assume that a correct author plus a real page number identifies the right book. Page 20 may exist in both books while supporting different propositions. Do not invent a short title that obscures rather than distinguishes the actual title.

Use the shortened reference to choose exactly one earlier full citation, then open the indicated page in that work and version. Both identity and supporting passage should match the sentence; neither check alone is enough.