Chapter 12 answers

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

Harbor Admin. Code tit. 4, § 12.3(b) (2025). The compilation name, title, section, subsection, and edition come from the fictional packet. The pinpoint identifies the signed-application text. It is not a real regulation, and no current federal or state regulatory command is verified by this exercise.

The packet identifies a regulatory compilation with a title and a nested section, so the citation follows that structure. The subsection identifies the signed-application requirement rather than the whole title. Its 2025 parenthetical describes the inspected fictional edition. The model's administrative character must not be lost by calling it the Harbor Code used for statutes in other exercises.

Do not replace Harbor Admin. Code with Harbor Code or omit title 4 because both exercises happen to use numbered provisions. The source categories differ.

Locate the signature requirement at title 4, § 12.3(b), and verify that the compilation name still identifies a regulation.

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

The agency proposed removing the signature requirement in its March 1, 2025 notice; the supplied 2025 code still requires a signature. Attribute the change to the proposal rather than saying it occurred. The packet supplies no final adoption or effective date for a change. Do not invent a final rule to reconcile the draft's stronger claim.

The proposal announces a contemplated change; the supplied operative code describes the existing signature requirement. Without final adoption and relevant effective-date evidence, the stronger elimination claim exceeds the packet. A precise repair can discuss the agency's proposal while preserving the difference between its desired revision and a command already in force.

Do not insert an imagined final-rule date to make the draft's conclusion work. The missing adoption information is an actual limit on what can be concluded.

Circle the verbs: proposed is supported; eliminated is not. Confirm the citation identifies the proposal when that is what your sentence describes.

28 C.F.R. § 35.130(b)(7)(i) (2024). The title, code, nested section locator, and edition identify the historical regulatory text. The separate Register item is identified by its title, volume 89, first page 31,320, and publication date April 24, 2024. Its first page states June 24, 2024 as the effective date and separately lists compliance dates. A Register page identifies a published document and passage; a C.F.R. section identifies codified text within a title. The two locators and the publication/effective dates are not interchangeable, and these checks describe the historical publications rather than a later compliance assessment.

The two publications organize information differently. The C.F.R. address locates codified text by title and subdivisions; the Register address locates a dated publication by volume and pages. The Register's effective-date field answers when the published final rule says it takes effect. Its publication date remains part of that document's identity, not an interchangeable date slot.

Do not replace April 24 with June 24 in the Register publication citation. That transfers an effective date into the field identifying the published item.

Match each coordinate to its source: C.F.R. section, Register volume/page, publication date, stated effective date. Keep all four roles separate.

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

Distinguish the June 1 publication date and August 1 effective date, then investigate which rule governs the July conduct and whether any relevant transition provisions apply. Publication alone does not prove the new command was operative in July. Preserve both dates and the actual source text instead of inferring applicability from the date the notice became available.

The dates alone show that publication and effectiveness are distinct. They do not identify every transition clause or the rule governing the particular July conduct. Read the old and new provisions and any applicability language before selecting the source. Preserve an unresolved applicability question if the packet does not give enough information to answer it.

Do not announce that the new rule necessarily controls July because readers could access it in June. Availability is not the same event as legal effectiveness.

Find the language connecting the rule to July conduct. If the only evidence is publication, the legal-application conclusion remains unsupported.

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

Attribute the reasoning to the ALJ decision and disclose that commission review is pending under the supplied packet. Do not call it the commission's final holding. Identify the deciding level and actual pinpoint. Any substantive weight or finality conclusion needs the applicable procedural law and status research beyond this citation exercise.

An agency's adjudicative structure can separate an initial decision from later agency review. The packet expressly supplies pending commission review, so the citation and sentence must preserve that posture. A pinpoint to the ALJ's reasoning may support what the ALJ said while leaving final agency action, precedential weight, and ultimate disposition for separate research.

Do not remove the pending-review qualification merely because the ALJ's reasoning sounds definitive. Confidence of prose does not change the deciding level or procedural status.

Identify who decided, what passage supplies the reasoning, and what review remains pending. All three facts should match the packet.

Official origin identifies who issued the page, not automatically whether its contents bind everyone. Determine whether the item is guidance, interpretation, a regulation, an order, or another source type, and inspect the operative authority if the sentence asserts a legal duty. Attribute the FAQ's statement accurately. A valid government URL cannot substitute for status and proposition checking.

An official website establishes provenance, but source classification determines the function of the item. A question-and-answer page can explain an agency's position without itself supplying the operative regulatory command. If the paragraph asserts what the agency recommends, cite that guidance. If it asserts a binding duty, trace the duty to the relevant authority and applicable text.

Do not treat a .gov address as a substitute for a statute or regulation citation. Domain identity cannot supply legal force absent from the document.

Read the item's title and status language, then test the sentence's verb: explains or recommends may fit where legally requires does not.

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

The 2025 label describes the inspected edition. The 2026 retrieval date records when you accessed that edition and helps reconstruct the research event. Keep the two in separate fields. Later access does not silently update the edition's legal text or establish that it includes every amendment through retrieval.

A dated compilation is a versioned source. Downloading it later establishes a research event, not an amendment to the words inside. Preserve the source's edition label, any revision or currency statement, and retrieval timestamp independently. That record lets a future editor distinguish what you read from what might have changed after the edition was issued.

Do not relabel the same 2025 PDF as a 2026 edition because the file's local creation date changed on download. Local filesystem metadata is not publication history.

Find the edition year in the document itself and the retrieval time in the source record. They need not match.

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

The link opens the March 3 staff memorandum, not the September 8 commission order. The shared docket identifies the proceeding but does not identify one document within it. The memorandum recommends thirty days; the order adopts twenty. Retrieve the September order and locate its disposition before giving its full citation and pinpoint for the twenty-day result.

The packet gives two distinct authors or deciding levels, dates, and functions. A staff recommendation is an input to the proceeding. The commission order is the document whose result the sentence describes. Matching Docket 25-14 confirms a relationship between the items, but cannot bridge the difference in their contents. The document title and date must match as well.

Do not borrow a page from the March memorandum and place it after the September order's name. That would construct a citation whose identity and locator come from different documents.

Open the September 8 order, confirm Docket 25-14, and find the twenty-day disposition. The date, document type, and supporting passage must match the finished sentence.

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

Use the rationale's actual page 8 and characterize it as the agency's explanation in the notice, rather than as proposed regulatory text at page 10. The source identity and status still belong in the citation. A nearby page containing related material is not a substitute for the passage the sentence uses.

The claim concerns the agency's explanation, so the correct passage is the rationale at page 8. Proposed regulatory text at page 10 performs a different job even within the same notice. A citation must identify the notice's status and the page supplying the explanation, while the sentence attributes the reasoning to the agency's proposal-stage discussion.

Do not move the pinpoint to page 10 merely because it looks more like legal text. The question is where the relied-on rationale appears, not which page seems stronger.

Open page 8 and identify the explanatory words. Confirm that your sentence calls them a rationale rather than an already operative command.