Paradise Valley Community College ResearchGuides - Citing Your Sources

Citing Laws

It is also common to cite specific laws. When doing this use the following formats:

U.S. Code citations- Name of act (if any), title number, USC, section number, date, medium of publication.

Example - 17 U.S.C. Sec. 304. (2000). Print.

Federal Act /Public Law - Public Law number, Statutes at Large volume number, inclusive page numbers, date it was enacted and its medium of publication

Example - Aviation and Transportation Security Act, Pub. L. 107-71, 115 Stat. 597-647. 19 Nov. 2001. Print.

Code of Federal Regulations - Title/number, Volume Source § xxx (year).

Example - FDA Prescription Drug Advertising Rule, 21 C.F.R. § 202.1 (2006).

Arizona Revised Statutes - Title number, A.R.S., Section number, medium of publication.

Example - 13 A.R.S. 270. Print.

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Citing Legal Cases

The most common use of legal citations is when you need to reference a specific case. The format for citing a case is:

Case name, volume number case reporter abbreviation, page number, (year)
Terry v. Ohio, 392 US 1 (1968)

So Terry v. Ohio, 392 US 1 (1968), refers to a particular case, Terry v. Ohio, the text of which begins on page 1 of volume 392 in the United States Reports. The case name is pretty self-evident. The tricky part is translating the case reporter abbreviations. The most common abbreviations are:

Abbreviation	Title	Description
US	United States Reports	The official reporter for United States Supreme Court cases.
SCt	Supreme Court Reporter	An unofficial reporter for United States Supreme Court cases.
L.Ed.	Lawyers' Edition, United States Supreme Court Reports	Another unofficial reporter for United States Supreme Court cases.
F.2d or F.3d	Federal Reporter, 2nd or 3rd Series	The reporter for the United States Circuit Courts of Appeal.
F.Supp or F.Supp.2d	Federal Supplement, 1st or 2nd series	The reporter for the United States District Courts opinions.
S.W., S.W.2d, or S.W.3d	Southwestern Reporter, 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Series	The reporter for the highest courts in selected states, including Texas.

If you can't figure out a case reporter abbreviation, try looking it up here.

Journal citations are given the same way, such as:

Author, title, volume number, journal title, page(s), date of publication
Malken, Jeffrey, "Stolen Photographs: Personality, Publicity, and Privacy", 75 Tex.L.Rev. 779 (1997)

The article is titled "Stolen Photographs: Personality, Publicity, and Privacy" by Jeffrey Malkin, published in the Texas Law Review, volume 75, page 779, published in 1997.

For addtional help on legal citations please refer to Cite right : a quick guide to citation styles--MLA, APA, Chicago, the sciences, professions, and more.

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