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Deciphering Legal Citations: About this Guide

About legal citations

Citations are simply references to legal authority.  Most include these common elements:

  • —  Name of the legal authority
  • —  Volume or title number
  • —  Abbreviation for the name of the publication
  • —  Page or section number
  • —  Date

About this guide

This guide is intended to help researchers identify and retrieve the legal authority behind some of the more common legal citations.  It is divided into these sections. 

  • Constitutional, congressional, and administrative sources of law, including statutes and administrative codes - includes examples of common citations and links to online sources for the cited legal authority.
  • Judicial sources of law, such as court cases - includes examples of common citations and links to online sources for the cited legal authority.
  • Online resources - includes links to websites and guides that can help you with legal citations, and a description of the content in Hein Online, which is available in each Alaska State Court Law Library location.

Contact a library

Alaska State Court Law Library
Law Library Website (http://courts.alaska.gov/library/index.htm)
907-264-0585, 888-282-2082
Email the Law Library (library@akcourts.us)

 

Alaska State Library
Library Website (http://library.alaska.gov)
907-465-2920

 

Alaska Legislative Reference Library
907-465-3808
Email the Legislative Reference Library (legislative.library@akleg.gov)

 

Watch a webinar

On November 8, 2012 the Alaska State Court Law Library and Alaska State Library recorded a webinar on deciphering legal citations.  The webinar is about 1.25 hours in length.

Watch Webinar