Show the exerciseHide the exercise
Using the verified Anderson model, identify first page, pinpoint, reporter volume, and decision year. Explain why each field has a different function.
In the model, 242 is the first page, 248 the pinpoint, 477 the volume, and 1986 the decision year. The first page identifies the report; the pinpoint locates the majority passage; the volume selects the bound sequence; the year supplies temporal identification. None can substitute for another. The U.S. reporter separately identifies the publication and supplies the ordinary Supreme Court court-omission rationale.
Show the exerciseHide the exercise
Repair “Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 248 (2026)” for the inspected majority passage, explaining both errors.
Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). Restore the decision's first page 242 and retain 248 as the relied-on location. Replace the access year with the actual decision year. A full citation needs source identity and passage location; the project's 2026 access record belongs in the verification ledger.
Show the exerciseHide the exercise
Fictional training example — not legal authority. The reporter metadata is volume 12, Federal Reporter Third Series, first page 100, passage 106, Ninth Circuit, decision year 2001. Parties are Maria Vega and North Harbor Corporation. Build a citation using Vega v. N. Harbor Corp. as the supplied citation name. North is abbreviated here because it modifies the corporation's name; a place that is itself a party receives different treatment.
Fictional training example — not legal authority.
Vega v. N. Harbor Corp., 12 F.3d 100, 106 (9th Cir. 2001). The supplied name, Third Series abbreviation, first page, pinpoint, circuit, and year perform separate identification tasks. All metadata in this exercise is fictional despite the use of a real reporter abbreviation. Do not add it to a real-authority list or search for an invented holding.
Show the exerciseHide the exercise
Fictional training example — not legal authority. A search result labels a decision “Vega,” but the opinion contains both a majority and a dissent. Your sentence adopts the dissent's view. Identify the additional source information needed before finalizing the citation.
Fictional training example — not legal authority.
Locate the dissent's actual passage and pinpoint; identify the dissent author if supplied and its opinion status. Confirm the sentence describes dissent reasoning rather than majority adoption. Preserve the case's full identity but do not use a majority pinpoint for the dissent's argument. If the necessary dissent metadata remains unavailable, mark the citation unresolved instead of guessing.
Show the exerciseHide the exercise
Explain why a state's name in a reporter abbreviation may be insufficient to omit all court information.
A reporter may reveal the state without revealing whether the decision came from the highest or an intermediate court. The parenthetical must retain court-level information when the governing convention requires it and the reporter does not supply it. Famous-case familiarity is not a valid omission test. Apply the reporter and court rules together, including relevant local requirements.
Show the exerciseHide the exercise
Fictional training example — not legal authority. A reported opinion was decided in 2018, downloaded in 2026, and printed in a volume released in 2019. Which year belongs in an ordinary case parenthetical under the baseline, and what must you check before assuming a different answer?
Fictional training example — not legal authority.
Use 2018 for the ordinary decision-year parenthetical. The download year records access, and the bound-volume release year records publication activity; neither changes the decision date. Check whether the source is actually a standard reported decision or a format requiring a full date or other special treatment. Preserve the three dates separately in research notes when they matter.
Show the exerciseHide the exercise
Explain why copying a case name from a publisher's headline can produce an unsuitable citation even if the headline is accurate.
A headline can include extra parties, procedural descriptors, given names, or a simplified title suited to search display. The citation-name rule has its own omissions, abbreviations, and exceptions. Inspect the actual opinion and apply those rules while preserving identity. Even an accurate headline can be unsuitable as a finished citation name, and a simplified headline may hide a consolidated or procedurally named proceeding.
Show the exerciseHide the exercise
Fictional training example — not legal authority. Your notes say “12 F. 100,” but the source says “12 F.3d 100.” Explain why adding the omitted series is a substantive identification repair.
Fictional training example — not legal authority.
The series is part of reporter identity. F. and F.3d do not refer to the same sequence, so volume 12 and page 100 can lead to different decisions when the series is omitted. Restore F.3d from the inspected source rather than inferring it solely from the year. This repair changes the reader's source destination, not merely typography.
Show the exerciseHide the exercise
Describe how to cite the duplicated R12.3.1 passages unambiguously in an editorial source record. Do not choose between their different subjects by label alone.
Record the source heading, parent heading, duplicate label, distinctive beginning/context, URL, and snapshot location. For example, identify whether the passage concerns general division omission or a court already indicated by the reporter. The bare R12.3.1 label cannot disambiguate the duplicated passages. Preserve the source error in the editorial record and link the intended contextual section.
- Previous
- Chapter 4 answers