Federal bill
Original research draft · October 2026
Working pattern
[Bill title], [chamber designation] [number], [Congress], § [section] ([version/date]).
Capture from the source
Chamber; number; Congress; version; document date; section
Check before you use it
Compare the cited version with later versions or enacted text when making a historical claim.
Common error: Bill numbers recur and introduced text may never become law.
Completed example
Assembly, legislative term, bill, stages, and wording are fictional. TRAIN H.R. is a teaching identifier and does not identify a United States congressional bill.
Archive Access Proposal, TRAIN H.R. 18, 6th Training Cong., § 4 (introduced Jan. 14, 2025).
Read the supplied source facts
Fictional packet TRAIN-L27 comes from an invented Federal Assembly of Northmere used only for drafting exercises. Its sixth Training Congress has a lower-chamber bill styled TRAIN H.R. 18, the Archive Access Proposal. The introduced version is dated January 14, 2025; section 4 proposes a monthly index. A committee-reported version dated March 7 replaces monthly with quarterly and renumbers the provision as section 5. A prior Training Congress also used bill number 18 for unrelated text. The packet does not include an enacted version or a record of final passage.
Why this works
The chamber designation, bill number, legislative term, version, date, and section identify the particular proposal used. The sentence supported by this citation should say that the introduced bill proposed a monthly index. It should not say that the legislature required one. A recurring bill number without the legislative term would not reliably identify the source. Comparing later language requires a second source card because the reported version changes both substance and numbering. Preserve the exact version label displayed by the training document rather than translating every stage into a generic publication date.
When the facts change
To discuss the reported proposal, cite TRAIN H.R. 18, 6th Training Cong., § 5 (reported Mar. 7, 2025), and describe the quarterly interval. A historical comparison may place both citations beside the respective texts. If later research finds an enactment, locate its adopted language independently; neither a bill's popularity nor its presence on a legislature's website establishes enactment.
Apply the receiving court or publication’s requirements. These working forms do not establish citation permission, precedential weight, or support for a legal proposition.