Chapter 19 answers

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

Restore roman type to case names in the journal’s citation footnotes, retain italics for narrative case names, and apply genuine small-capitals formatting to correctly capitalized journal names. Preserve the names, volume, first page, pinpoint, and year already established from the sources.

The exercise supplies the receiving journal’s convention. It distinguishes a case name functioning in narrative prose from a case name displayed in a citation. Small capitals are a typographic treatment, so an editor should not replace the underlying name with ordinary uppercase letters. The same bibliographic record can support more than one display style.

Italicizing every case name ignores the supplied distinction. Retyping the journal name in full capitals can also survive export as the wrong underlying text even if its visual size is adjusted. Neither change warrants altering metadata.

Inspect one narrative reference, one full citation footnote, and one journal name in the exported document. Does each follow the supplied role and retain the correct spelling?

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

“Vale reports replication-material requirements at two journals.” Mara Vale, Open Research Records, 12 Fiction Scholarship J. 100, 112 (2025).

The author remains roman; the article title is italic; the supplied journal abbreviation is small capitals. Volume 12, first page 100, and year 2025 identify the article; page 112 identifies the reported requirements. The sentence states the narrow proposition supplied by that page. It does not describe every court, every journal, or a measured effect on research accuracy.

Replacing “two journals” with “courts” changes the institutions being discussed. Dropping the first page and using 112 alone loses an identifying component. A correct citation form does not compensate for either substantive expansion.

Does the sentence name the source’s actual population, and does the citation keep both the article’s first page and the passage’s pinpoint with the requested typefaces?

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

“Vale recommends public repositories.” Vale, supra note 7, at 115.

The full article citation is in note 7, and the later passage is page 115. This is an eligible secondary-source return reference under the supplied academic convention. Note 8 cites another author, so an immediate id. would identify that intervening authority rather than Vale. The reporting verb “recommends” also preserves the policy character of the supplied passage.

Do not turn the recommendation into an empirical conclusion or a court requirement. A pinpoint at 115 locates the author’s proposal, but cannot transform it into measured evidence. Nor should the return reference point to note 8 merely because that note is closer.

Follow the note number to its destination: does note 7 contain Vale’s full article citation? Then verify that page 115 is the recommendation, not the separate report at page 112.

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

Change the return reference to “Vale, supra note 10, at 115.” Link the note-number field to the actual full-citation note where the software permits; refresh it after reorganization and inspect the exported destination.

The source and pinpoint have not changed. The position of the full citation has. The repair therefore changes the return destination from 7 to 10 while preserving Vale and page 115. Stable source identifiers in the editorial record can help track the work independently of its changing note number.

Automatic numbering does not guarantee an accurate cross-reference. A field can point to the wrong note from the outset, remain unrefreshed, or lose its link during export. A global replacement of every “7” would also damage unrelated notes and locators.

Activate or follow the final reference and inspect note 10. Does it identify the intended article fully, rather than another short form or a newly inserted source?

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

No. Continue citing the inspected 2024 working paper at page 18 unless and until the relevant passage in the 2025 publication is obtained and checked. Read the final article, determine whether it preserves or revises the claim, and record its actual pinpoint before substituting it.

Pagination is not a simple offset. Editing can add front matter, remove paragraphs, alter headings, change conclusions, or move the passage. An abstract does not establish the location or full substance of the relied-on passage. The published version might become the better source, but that is a source substitution requiring inspection.

Adding 200 to a manuscript page number manufactures a locator. Calling the working paper “published” merely because a related article exists also misidentifies the version used. If the historical development matters, both versions may need separate treatment.

Can you open the cited version at the stated page and find the actual supporting passage? If not, the proposed replacement is not ready.

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

“The article quotes a judicial sentence and criticizes that reasoning.” Cite the article at the inspected passage. Before stating directly what the court reasoned or held, obtain the decision and examine the quoted passage, its speaker, surrounding analysis, and procedural context.

The present evidence is the article’s treatment of the case. A truthful attribution makes that object of analysis explicit. The decision may confirm the quotation, reveal a qualification, identify a separate opinion, or show that the article quoted a party’s argument. Those possibilities explain why the underlying source must be read before a direct judicial characterization.

Do not write “the court held” with only the article citation and assume a parenthetical cures the unperformed check. Conversely, you can analyze the article’s criticism without pretending to have inspected the decision.

Does the sentence disclose that the inspected source is the article, and does the research log distinguish that completed reading from the still-needed judicial-source check?

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

Use three distinguishable statements: “Source A identifies three decisions adopting the rule” with a note to A; “Source B reports that 80 percent of its surveyed litigants understood the rule” with a note to B; “I propose expanding the rule” followed by your stated reasons.

The first is a report about decisions, the second an empirical claim about a defined survey population, and the third an original recommendation. Separate placement makes each note’s function clear. If you later assert the courts’ holdings directly, inspect those decisions. If the percentage becomes central, inspect the survey’s population, method, and limitations rather than expanding it to all litigants.

One note at the end can appear to support every clause, including your own recommendation. A survey percentage also does not automatically establish that expansion will improve outcomes. Explain that inferential step yourself.

Can a reader identify which source supports each reported fact and where the writer’s proposal begins?

Submissions is the title of a journal’s webpage containing publication instructions, not a paginated article in a numbered volume. The named “Scholarly Integrity” section directs the reader to the relevant policy. The last-visited date records when the changing page was inspected.

A source’s institutional author does not determine its document type. Harvard Law Review can issue articles and also maintain submission pages. Adding a volume and page would invent metadata for the latter. The section heading supplies an honest descriptive locator where no printed page identifies the passage. The access date does not become the policy’s adoption date or establish that it remained unchanged afterward.

Do not infer a publication year from the last-visited date, or describe the model as a universal rule for every law review. It records one publication’s instructions within the stated inspection scope.

Does the citation identify the actual page and heading, while the prose distinguishes that publication’s policy from a general academic convention?

Fictional training example — not legal authority.

“Release edits: restore the required small-capitals styles and update both forward references to Section V after confirming that Section V still contains the promised discussion. Refresh linked fields and inspect the final PDF destinations. Re-export and recheck the affected pages.”

The preserved words establish textual completeness, but the missing typeface violates the supplied presentation requirement and the old section labels misdirect the reader. These are separate defects. A reference must match both the destination’s current name and its substance; a renamed section may also have been reorganized.

Do not approve the export merely because a text comparison passes. Do not replace every Roman numeral IV globally: some may identify real source subdivisions or other unchanged sections. Target the two internal references and confirm their purpose.

Can a reader distinguish the styled source elements and follow each repaired reference to the discussion it promises in the actual delivered PDF?