Bluebook Legal Citation
Access to Tarlton is temporarily restricted to current UT Law faculty, staff, and students, from January 3 - 30, in keeping with university guidelines implemented in response to the recent developments of the COVID-19 pandemic. Other members of the UT Austin community who need assistance accessing library resources should contact the library's Circulation Desk (circ@law.utexas.edu, 512-471-7726). Online reference services are also available.
Introductory signals appear at the beginning of citation sentences. Signals are important because they indicate how a cited authority relates to the text. This relation can be supportive, comparative, or contradictory. Signals can also inform a reader what inferential degree exists between the text and cited source.
A reader can thus determine if a cited source supports or contradicts an author's assertion and whether it is necessary to take an inferential step between a cited source and the text simply by looking at the signal used.
