numerals: “the law students read 23, 9, and 120 pages over the weekend, respectively.” Also, any
number that begins a sentence must be spelled out, regardless of value.
Do not use superscripts for ordinals: write “1st,” not “1
st
.” While we are on the subject of
ordinals, remember that for citations using ordinals that end in two or three, write 2d and 3d, not
2nd and 3rd.
7. Abbreviations for Periodical Names (T.13).
T.13 lists the names of institutions and their abbreviations (for example, “Geo.” for
“Georgetown”), to use when you cite to various law journals. Sometimes, however, you will
need to cite to a law journal whose institution is not listed in T.13. If that happens, you can
determine the proper abbreviation for the journal’s title by finding the individual words and their
respective abbreviations in T.6 and T.10. If the title contains a word that is not listed in either
table, you can use the entire word. Additionally, you should omit “a,” “at,” “in,” “of,” and “the”
from all abbreviated titles. Do not, however, omit “on.” Furthermore, if any of these omissions
reduces the title to a single word, that word should not be abbreviated even if it is contained in
T.6 or T.10. Finally, see Rule 6.1(a) for the spacing of abbreviations.
8. General Format for Parenthetical Information (Rule 1.5).
The general rule is that parentheticals should start with a lower-case present participle such as
“holding” or “finding,” and end without punctuation, such as: (holding that defendant should
have been given Miranda warnings).
This general rule, however, has two exceptions:
First, if your parenthetical directly quotes at least one full sentence, it should begin with a capital
letter and end with closing punctuation. But if you are only quoting a short phrase, use a present
participle as described above and do not include closing punctuation.
Second, if the parenthetical does not require a full participial phrase to provide necessary
context, it can just contain a short statement. For example: See also Gelboim v. Bank of America
Corp., 574 U.S. 405 (2015) (Section 1407 consolidation); Hall v. Hall, 138 S.Ct. 1118 (2018)
(Rule 42(a) consolidation).
When a single citation contains multiple parentheticals, place them in this order: (date) (degree-
granting institution) (ProQuest) [hereinafter short name] (en banc) (Last name, J., concurring)
(plurality opinion) (per curiam) (alteration in original) (emphasis added) (footnote omitted)
(citations omitted) (quoting another source) (citing another source),
http://www.domainname.com (last visited) (explanatory parenthetical), prior or subsequent
history.