Today, most of us rely more heavily upon online, rather than hard-copy, information sources. Understandably, we are also citing online sources (besides Westlaw or Lexis) more often in our briefs. Along with the influx of online citations, however, has come a myriad of varying citation formats, including the humble “available at” citation to a webpage’s address (URL). We can and must do better.
Fortunately, The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (Columbia Law Review Ass’n et al. eds., 20th ed. 2015) can help. But don’t grab any old Bluebook—get the 20th edition, which provides online source citations in Rule 18.2.
Also, you must remember that online content—especially webpages—can change or vanish at any moment. Indeed, we’ve all experienced clicking on a link only to see “Error 404. File not found.” In fact, after a year, more than 20 percent of links have “link rot,” which means that the linked webpage is no longer available. After five years, link rot increases to 50 percent. To ensure that a link will take your readers to the cited source for years to come, we recommend adding archived links.
Read on to learn about archived links and the citation formats for common online sources you may encounter in practice.
To avoid link rot, consider providing a backup link obtained through a service that archives online content, such as Harvard Law School’s Perma.cc or the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. As shown below, per Bluebook Rule 18.2.1(d), you should reference your archived link (aka “permalink”), in brackets immediately after the current URL.
While adding an archived link may appear to clutter citations and footnotes, a citation’s purpose is to ensure that readers can locate the source. With roughly 50 percent of all citations linked in Supreme Court opinions now failing to reach the proper webpage, some “clutter” may be warranted to ensure accuracy. Adam Liptak, In Supreme Court Opinions, Web Links to Nowhere, N.Y. Times (Sept. 23, 2013), https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/24/us/politics/in-supreme-court-opinions-clicks-that-lead-nowhere.html [https://perma.cc/BQD5-SC58].
Bluebook Rule 18.2 sets forth the following format for most online content:
If no author is identified, begin your citation with the title; and if the material is undated, provide a parenthetical after the URL that indicates when you last visited the page: “(last visited [date]).” The following citation is to internet content that is both undated and anonymous:
When a source exists in both hard copy and online formats, you may include the online version to make obscure sources more accessible for readers. To do so, Bluebook Rule 18.2.2(f) directs you to provide the original print citation followed by a link to the online format.
Many print sources are available online as PDFs or another format that preserves the original source’s pagination, which allows you to include pin cites to a specific page or section.
Social media is even more dynamic than a standard webpage, sometimes changing by the second. Fortunately, most social-media posts are time-stamped, which makes it easier to direct your reader to a specific post. However, before copying a post’s URL, make sure you open the post in its own window or tab, so the URL directly (and only) refers to that post by number, as opposed to linking back to a profile page with a person’s entire posting history.
We hope our summary of Rule 18.2 and our tips will help next time you cite to an online source.
