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Peer reviewed by nearly 50 law librarians, legal researchers, and legal writing professors nationwide, the ALWD Guide to Legal Citation, Eighth Edition, models how modern lawyers navigate ethical, strategic, and rhetorical decisions in citing sources. Organizing legal citation into 42 thoroughly cogent and illustrated rules, the Guide is the ideal coursebook, supplement, or stand-alone reference for American legal citation. Building on the Guide’s tradition of clarity and precision, the Eighth Edition introduces a rhetorical, practice-based approach to legal citation to develop students’ evaluative judgment, so essential to making informed, thoughtful choices about how to cite — whether for the NextGen bar exam, AI-enhanced writing, or legal practice. 

New to the Eighth Edition: 

• A reorganization of the rules, along with additional sidebars, that emphasize the persuasive value of using citations in legal writing 
• A new rule that explains the difference between acknowledging the use of AI in legal writing and citing to AI, with clear guidance on how to do each without waiving work product privilege or violating ethical obligations 
• A new rule that sets the stage for successful student learning by addressing: 
  • Why writers cite in legal writing 
  • How ethos, pathos, and logos should shape the citation choices writers make 
  • The expectations of legal readers regarding citation 
  • The various contexts in which legal citations appear 
• New sub-rules that apply to practitioner documents, such as how to draft tables of authorities for motions and briefs 
• New sub-rules that describe how to cite to the myriad sources available through various types of technology 

Professors and students will benefit from: 

• Coverage of online media, such as e-books, listservs, forums, blogs, and social media 
• Tips and directions for finding local rules 
• Citing to case reporters, statutes, legislation, and regulations found on e-sources 
• Academic Formatting icons that note differences in citation style between academic legal writing and professional legal writing 
• Fast Formats that preview essential citation components 
• Screenshots from electronic sources and Snapshots of actual pages 
• Sidebars that explain the “why” of legal citations and how to avoid common errors 
• Sample citation diagrams that illustrate the essential components of citation construction 
• Cross-references that highlight connections to content in other rules or in the Appendices 
• Detailed Appendices that feature abbreviations for use in citations and information not found in other sources, such as: 
  • Peer-reviewed local court citation conventions, websites, and other resources 
  • Additional periodicals with full-title abbreviations so writers do not have to memorize spacing rules to assemble abbreviations themselves 
  • Comprehensive rules for citing federal taxation materials