12. Cite Scholarship and Digital Publications

12.1 Identify authorship and the work

For a book, preserve the author or editor, title, edition, relevant page or section, publisher information when needed, and publication date. For an article, preserve the author, article title, journal or publication, volume, first page or article identifier, pinpoint, and date. Distinguish an edited collection from a chapter within it.

Fictional book model: Nora Bell, Evidence in Motion 73–75 (2d ed. 2026). Fictional article model: Omar Vale, Designing Readable Records, 12 Harbor Legal Studies 41, 49 (2025). These sources are invented to demonstrate components. Do not include them in an authority list as real publications.

Use the title page, publication record, or article itself to verify metadata. A bookstore listing may abbreviate a title or combine editions. A citation manager may import a book review's metadata instead of the reviewed book's metadata.

12.2 Distinguish editions and versions

Page numbers can change between editions, ebook formats, preprints, accepted manuscripts, and final publications. Cite the version you actually used. If a final published version exists and the task calls for it, obtain that version and verify the passage rather than simply changing the date in a preprint citation.

For a looseleaf or continuously updated work, preserve the relevant update information and a stable section locator if the publication uses one. Do not invent a single publication year for a work whose cited content has a more specific revision date.

12.3 Make web references survive beyond the link

Record the author or responsible organization, page or document title, publication or update date, website or series where helpful, and URL. Add a retrieval date when the content changes or lacks stable date information and the receiving instructions call for it. Prefer a document's stable public page over a temporary search-results URL.

A title and author help the reader recover a source if the link later fails. A URL alone may reveal neither. Remove tracking parameters when doing so preserves the destination, but retain parameters that select the actual document or version.

An archived copy can preserve what you saw. It does not prove that the content was accurate, authoritative, or current when you saw it. Preserve the original URL and archive date so the role of the archive remains clear.

12.4 Use persistent identifiers honestly

A DOI, repository identifier, or accession number can make retrieval easier. Confirm that it resolves to the work and version being cited. Do not assume that a syntactically plausible identifier belongs to the source merely because a tool generated it.

For datasets, preserve the creator, title, release or snapshot date, version, repository, and identifier. If your claim comes from an analysis you performed, describe the selection and method separately. The dataset citation identifies the input; it does not establish the validity of your calculation.

For software used in a scholarly analysis, record the version and the role it played. A tool that extracted citations did not necessarily verify their legal significance. A spreadsheet that calculated a percentage did not verify the underlying counts.

12.5 Cite audiovisual and unusual sources by function

For a recording, preserve the creator or speaker, title, event or series, date, platform or archive, and timestamp. For an interview, identify the participants, date, form, and availability as appropriate to the assignment and permissions. For a social-media post, preserve the account identity, date, the relevant text or description, and a stable link or retained copy where permitted.

The source's role remains the central question. A public post may establish that a statement was made; it does not automatically establish the truth of the statement. A lecture may explain a doctrine; the governing legal source still needs to be checked before that doctrine is represented as controlling law.

Sources and convention notes

This chapter supplies Citation Code editorial models and source-handling practices. Its invented bibliographic examples are expressly fictional. Actual publication metadata must be obtained from the source institution or publication before a model is completed.