 Hi, this is Mary Wissner from the Gallagher Law Library at the University of Washington School of Law. I'd like to spend a few minutes with you today to give you examples of blue book signals used in law reviews. As you know, the blue book has separate rules for briefs and memos. Those are in the blue pages and for law review footnotes are academic papers. Those are in the white pages. Today, we're just looking at examples from law review footnotes. There are 10 different signals that the blue book editors list and that may be confusing or intimidating. How do I tell the difference between this one and that one? Or maybe it feels odd just to have to have some sort of word in front of a citation. But think about ordinary conversation. It's very common to start a comment in conversation by saying, well on the other hand, by the way, but I'm not the only one who's saying this. What's more, that reminds me. Look at it this way. And another thing. Listen to this. Remember that. Well, all of these are signaling to the other person in the conversation something about the point you're going to be making. Signals in law review articles do a similar thing. They tell the reader, I'm making a point here and I'm just giving an example. Or I'm making a point here and I know that it's not exactly what I just said or I know I'm going off on a tangent. No signal is the first signal. It means you have direct support. For example, here's an article by Dean Barnes. In his influential article, legitimizing racial discrimination, blah, blah, blah, critical legal study scholar Alan David Freeman. And he has a footnote citing the article by Alan David Freeman that he just mentioned in the text. Boom. Nailed it. It just means I'm talking about this thing. I'm citing about this thing. There's no interpretation. It's just absolutely direct support. Here's another example. Professor Said wrote a law review article about embedded advertising. You know, when you watch TV and they have a can of Pepsi or a box of Cheerios in the episode you're watching. Her example here is you're watching Chuck on network television. She talks about a specific incident where they had Subway products. She has a footnote, cites the episode. Chuck versus the first kill NBC television broadcast. She talks about something else in the episode, footnote, id. Same thing, same source as the previous one. And then she talks about the company's slogan, $5 foot long, and cites advertising age. An article that talks about what the company's slogan is. So very direct support. Now direct support includes quotations. For example, here's something by Professor Knusen, where she talks about the Clean Air Act, says its purpose is quote to protect and enhance the quality of the nation's air resources, drops a footnote, cites the section that says that. Absolutely direct support. Here's another quotation from Professor Watts. Decisions from the DC Circuit, borrow from State Farm's language. She quotes it, then she drops a footnote, Wedgwood Village Pharmacy versus DEA. E.G. just means you're giving an example. It comes from a Latin phrase, but it just means, for example. Use it when you know there are other examples, other sources, but you're just citing one or a few. It can be used by itself or in combination with other signals. That's what the blue book says. I like to think of it as when it's used by itself, it's being used in combination with no signal. Therefore, it's always used with something else that the blue book lists. Here's an example from Professor Kahlo. Research into various methods of persuading consumers continues. In the past few years, several scholars and commentators, notably this guy and that guy, have written about it. Footnote, E.G., this guy, that guy, that guy again, see also somebody else. So he's using E.G. because he's not saying these are the only scholars who have worked on this, but these are examples of scholars who have done work in this area. Accord means that the text quotes or refers to one source for a proposition, but there's another source that states the same thing. Sometimes you use it to show that another jurisdiction is in accord with the rule in yours. It's not used as often as many other signals. Here's an example from Professor McGinnis. As the Washington Supreme Court explained in Enray Coday, she talks about that case, then she cites Enray Coday no signal because it's direct support, but then she adds accord, Snyder versus Monroe, and gives a parenthetical explaining why she's adding that. C is a good all-purpose signal, and it's used all the time. Here's an example from Professor Nicholas where he talks about how the Oklahoma Panhandle used to be called the public land strip, the neutral strip, or no man's land. He drops a footnote. He says, C, he cites a federal statute that called it no man's land. He cites a case that called it no man's land. He cites a book that says it was called by different names, including no man's land. Here's another example of C. This is Professor Kahlo talking about soldiers and how they relate to robots that seem almost human. He has a footnote, C, and a book about robotics and war. C, an article by Professor Kahlo. C also a chapter in a book about humanoid robots. C, E, G combines the C sense of, here is general support, with the E, G sense of, I know I'm not giving you everything. Here's a footnote by Professor Mary Fan talking about an op-ed written by Newt Gingrich and Pat Nolan. She says the op-ed hit newspapers across the nation in January 2011. She says, C, E, G, and she cites the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Virginia Pilot and Ledger Star, and a couple of others. So this is enough to support her proposition that it hit newspapers across the nation, but she's not saying this is comprehensive. It's C, E, G. C also is sort of a bonus. I've given you support and here's something else you can look at. Here's an article by Professor Box and an Oregon lawyer named Philip Jones. When such a fundamental conflict was not present, courts have declined to remove the personal representative, footnote, E, G, Rolly versus Sammons. And then as a bonus, we get C also, Shad versus Lawrence. So they could have stopped with the first case, but they're adding C also as a bonus, another source to look at. C-F means that the source you're citing supports a proposition that's different from the one in the text, but it's close enough to lend support. You should add a parenthetical to explain what you're getting at. C-F is from the Latin for compare, but it's not the same as the other signal we'll look at, compare this with that. With C-F, you're comparing a source with something you said in the text or the previous citation. When you use compare this with that, you're comparing two sources in that same citation sentence. Here's an example of C-F. It's from Professor Mannheim. Article one, section five of the Constitution states this and then a footnote, no signal because she's just supporting the quotation. The US Constitution says this, then she goes on to make an assertion. This provision governs all federal elections, except for those associated with the presidential race. C-F Bush versus Gore, parenthesis adjudicating a dispute over results in presidential election. So up in the text, she's talking about election of members of Congress. The C-F is the president. It's off on a tangent, but it's an interesting tangent. Compare this with that. You're comparing two or more sources. You should use parentheticals to show the point you're making. And I'm not going to use citations here. I'm just going to use fruit. Compare apples, parenthesis, thin skin with oranges, parenthesis, thick skin. Or compare apples, parenthesis grown in Washington with oranges, parenthesis grown in warmer states. You can compare apples and oranges on many different bases. And so using the parenthetical helps your reader know why you're comparing them. You can add more. So we could say compare apples, thin skin and plums, thin skin with oranges, thick skin and watermelon, thick skin. This is not used often. I did find an example. This is from Professor Bob Anderson. The legacy of colonialism places Indian tribes in a special category under federal law. Compare this case with that case. In the first case, the Fifth Amendment, grand jury requirement does not apply to tribal governments. In the second case, the Fifth Amendment due process clause did apply to tribes as against Congress. And so he's using that comparison to support his proposition. In a yin and yang of legal citation, many positive signals have parallel negative signals. No signal means you've got direct support. Contra means your authority directly contradicts what you just said. C means you've got support, but C means the authority points the other way. C F, you have support, but C F means it points the other way. Contra is not used often. It just means that the source states something directly contrary to what you just asserted. I found an example here from a note in the Harvard law review. And the author has a footnote and then says Contra and cites the Supreme Court case. But C means the cited material supports a proposition that's not the same as what your main proposition is. Here's an example from Professor Spitzer. In contrast, in King County versus city of Algona, blah, blah, and he has a footnote, direct citation, no signal. Then the next where he's again discussing that case, he just says id, but C, and then here's a case from another jurisdiction, Arizona. He has a parenthetical explaining it, showing why you might be interested in this contrary holding from another case. C generally means we're going to tell you helpful background related to the proposition. The Blue Book editors encourage you to use a parenthetical. Again, from Professor Spitzer, beyond the text of the rules themselves, government attorneys face an array of practical ethics issues, footnote, C generally, here's an article about government lawyers, and here are a couple of other sources that he has cited before. So he's saying, if you want good background about government attorneys, here are three sources for that background. Now, to summarize, let's think about the positive signals, no signal, e.g., a chord C also, C and CF. The negative signals are contra, but C, and but CF. The only one that's explicitly a comparison is compare this with that. And then C generally is its own category of good background. Now, you might remember that along the way, I've mentioned several signals where the Blue Book suggests that you use a parenthetical. And here we go. C also, CF, but CF, compare this with that, and C generally should all have parentheticals. This has been Mary Wisner of the Gallagher Law Library. Please see our website for library services, research guides, and more.