Alwd Citation Manual: A Professional System of Citation, Second Edition

by Laurel Currie Oates and Darby Dickerson

In its first edition, The ALWD Citation Manual revolutionized the teaching of legal citation and became the most popular new law school book in Aspen history. Now upholding the new standard of one consistent system of citation for all forms of legal writing, this revised edition offers even more assistance to students and professors. This remarkable coursebook earned its phenomenal popularity by clarifying and simplifying the citation process: written,...

• Format: Spiral-bound
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0735536406
• ISBN13: 9780735536401
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Aspen Publishers
• Length: 491 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.8" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Very accessible introduction to legal citation

The Alwd Citation Manual is more efficient to use than the Bluebook, and I have been happy using it throughout law-school. With regards to the CiteIt software, I must warn potential buyers that a better name for it would have been CrapIt... It is way overpriced, and basically useless. The most fun I had with CiteIt was uninstalling it!

You need this book for legal citation!

If you are in law school hopefully you'll have the option to use this book instead of using the Bluebook, it is much easier to understand and it's laid out in a way that is easy to follow. Also the index is very good, which is important in this kind of reference book. Someone above, shamelessly promoting the CiteIt! program needs to get a clue--you will not (and I mean not have a hope of) make it through your legal citation class using the CiteIt! program alone. If you think you can just plop a big mess into the program and a pristine citiation will drop out the bottom, guess again. The software is not that good. I'd rate CiteIt about a four on a 10 point scale. It's nice, and it does have some good features, but if you've got to do real-world law school legal citation work to do don't think you can get by with a program alone. At least not anything I've see so far.

Not a new citation system; a better way to learn citation.

Disclosure: I am on a committee that promotes the ALWD Citation Manual. But I volunteered for the committee because the ALWD Manual is so good. Students who learn citation from the ALWD Manual will be fine because most of the concerns expressed by critics of the ALWD Manual are based on myths.Myth 1: Practicing lawyers know the Bluebook. Sorry, but most lawyers don't even own the current Bluebook. Most own the one they got in law school, whether that's the 13th, 14th, 15th, or 16th edition. We're now on the 17th edition. And even then, most lawyers cite according to what they vaguely recall from law school, or they get someone else to do the citations.Myth 2: Judges require bluebook citation form. Wrong. Most courts DO NOT require Bluebook form. Instead, they require uniform and consistent citations. And most judges would not know Bluebook citations from ALWD Manual citations. The differences are so few and so minor.Myth 3: Students who learn ALWD Manual form will be in trouble when they go to work on a journal and must use the Bluebook. I doubt it. They will know citation form better because they learned it from a readable, logical manual. What will happen is that they will become disgusted with the Bluebook once they see how poorly written it is.

At last! Something Besides the Blues

Sometimes things change for the better, but not the Bluebook. What good fortune then that we are offered an alternative-especially one as organized and straightforward as the ALWD Citation Manual.