If you need more information on this topic, please contact the reference desk:
by phone: 651-290-6424
via e-mail: reference@mitchellhamline.edu
Or, during regular work hours, you may chat with a Mitchell Hamline research librarian here.
Nothing helps you gain an understanding (if not an appreciation) of the Bluebook better than constant use. That being said, here are some places you can go if you're stuck on a citation issue. Don't forget that you can always contact a reference librarian for help.
Finally, a good trick for figuring out the citation for a truly bizarre source is to see how other law reviews have done it. In HeinOnline, Westlaw, and Lexis, you can limit your results to those articles occurring in the four journals that write the Bluebook (the Columbia Law Review, Harvard Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review and the Yale Law Journal) and see how those editors have dealt with your source.
Perma.cc is a web-based service that allows journal editors to create and link to a permanently preserved copy of almost any publicly-available web resource. Creating Perma.cc Perma Links for web citations prevents link rot, the problem of web resources becoming unavailable when websites change the URLs of their content or remove content entirely.
The Library has created organization-level Perma.cc accounts for each of Mitchell Hamline's law reviews and journals. The organization-level accounts allow editors to create an unlimited number of Perma Links at no cost. Contact Sean Felhofer for login assistance.
Use Perma.cc when citing to material on the Internet, such as websites, newspaper articles, blogs, working papers, or any website or webpage that does not use another form of permanent URL.
Common permanent URLs include any link that starts with https://hdl.handle.net or https://doi.org/ or https://purl.fdlp.gov. These links will remain stable over time and do not require the creation of a Perma.cc Perma Link.
Do not use Perma.cc for links to articles or resources found in commercial databases such as Westlaw, Lexis, HeinOnline, Bloomberg, and others. Commercial databases maintain their own permanent URL systems.
Rule 18.2.1(d) of The Bluebook (21st edition, 2020) encourages archiving Internet sources when a reliable archival tool such as Perma.cc is available. In the citation, the archived URL should be appended to the full citation in brackets.
For example:
See Andrew Jacobs, Matt Richel, & Mike Baker, ‘At War with No Ammo’: Doctors Say Shortage of Protective Gear Is Dire, N.Y. TIMES (Mar. 19, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/health/coronavirus-masks-shortage.html [https://perma.cc/BLH9-XHPN]
Contact Sean Felhofer for assistance with Perma.cc