10Constitutions and Statutes

An editor sees “Section 107 proves our use is legal.” The citation has no title, code, version, or subsection. The source actually lists factors for deciding fair use. The repair must identify the provision and narrow the sentence to what the inspected text supports.

Identify constitutional subdivisions; distinguish a code from session laws and annotations; preserve title, section, and subsection information; state version information accurately; and avoid treating a citation as a substantive legal conclusion.

An ordinary federal constitutional citation uses U.S. Const. followed by the applicable article or amendment and its subdivision. Use art., amend., §, and cl. where the provision has those divisions. A constitutional article is not a statute title; an amendment number is not a reporter volume.

Article III, section 1 vests the federal judicial power in a supreme court and inferior courts Congress may establish. U.S. Const. art. III, § 1. The National Archives transcription was inspected for that text (EX-006). This demonstrates a provision locator. It does not resolve every jurisdictional question under Article III.

State constitutions use the state abbreviation and the provision's actual subdivision system. Do not convert every state locator into federal article/section/clause structure. Historical constitutional provisions may need a year or an explanatory notation showing amendment or repeal. Preserve which version you inspected. An obsolete provision can be a proper historical source without being present law.

A federal code citation ordinarily identifies the title number, U.S.C., and the section. Subsections extend the locator: § 107(1) differs from § 107 as a whole. The title number tells the reader which major subject division of the code to consult. The section number alone is often insufficient because the same number can occur in several titles.

Model: 17 U.S.C. § 107(1) (2024).

The inspected 2024 Code provision identifies purpose and character of the use, including commercial or nonprofit educational character, as one listed fair-use factor. This is an edition-specific source demonstration (EX-007). The sentence does not claim commercial uses are automatically unlawful or educational uses automatically lawful. It also does not claim the 2024 volume is a complete verification of amendments through 2026.

Indigo distinguishes current code citation from historical-version citation. A current provision may not need a year under its baseline; a historical citation must identify the relevant version. Our explicit 2024 parenthetical identifies the edition actually inspected. It is not a rule requiring that year for every current citation.

An enactment date identifies when legislation became law. An effective date identifies when its provisions operate. A code edition year identifies a publication/version. A website retrieval date identifies when you accessed a page. None can be silently substituted for another.

When an event occurred before an amendment, the governing version may be historical. Find the provision and amendment history applicable to that event. Save the text used and identify its date. Do not cite the current page and describe the old text unless the page actually supplies that historical version.

A supplement can modify a bound code's text. Identify the relevant publication information when citing a bound volume with a supplement. A code page carrying an “effective through” statement needs that statement recorded in the research card. Current website availability is not evidence that the text governs every historical event.

An annotated code includes editorial features such as case notes. Those features help research but are separate from the enacted provision. A citation to the statute supports the statute's text; a citation to an annotation does not make the annotation law. If you use a publisher's commentary, identify and cite that secondary material appropriately rather than attributing it to the legislature.

State codes vary in titles, chapters, acts, articles, and section layouts. Illinois ILCS numbering, for example, has chapter/act/section information. California uses subject codes. Use the actual state's structure and receiving-court rule. A federal U.S.C. pattern is not a universal state-code template.

Indigo T3 preserves both uniform-style entries and local notes, sometimes using different abbreviations. That distinction matters: the table's general Ill. Comp. Stat. form differs from the ILCS local form addressed by Illinois Rule 6. Do not silently blend a uniform citation table with a jurisdiction's instruction.

A session law identifies legislation as enacted, often by public-law or chapter number and session-law publication. A codified provision identifies its organized location in a code. Use session laws when the enactment itself, an uncodified provision, an amendment, or historical text is the relevant source.

A popular act name can help identify legislation but does not necessarily replace title/code/section information. An act may affect many sections. If your proposition concerns one subsection, locate it rather than citing the act's name as though it were a pinpoint. Chapter 13 expands session laws and legislative materials.

An unambiguous code-and-section reference can often be shorter after a full identification. Preserve enough information to distinguish multiple titles or codes. Id. follows its own immediately-preceding-source rule; do not use it to skip an intervening case citation. Supra is generally unsuitable for statutes under this book's baseline.

For section ranges, preserve subsection boundaries and use §§ when citing multiple sections. A range from subsection (a) through (c) is not a range from sections 1 through 3. Write the actual locator carefully, including parentheses and hyphens. A malformed subsection can redirect the reader to a different legal command.

Replace “Section 107 proves our use is legal” with an edition-specific, supported observation: “The inspected 2024 Code lists the purpose and character of the use among the fair-use factors. 17 U.S.C. § 107(1) (2024).” Evaluating a particular use requires more than this factor's existence. The repair removes an unsupported outcome claim while supplying a reproducible locator.

Identify constitution/code/session law → collect jurisdiction and divisions → select precise provision → identify version → separate text from annotations → verify the sentence → check receiving requirements.

Fictional training example — not legal authority. Harbor Code § 20(b) in a supplied 2023 edition requires notice within ten days. A supplied 2025 amendment changes the period to fourteen days and says it applies to requests submitted on or after July 1, 2025. The training dispute concerns a request submitted April 1, 2025. All code text and dates in this workshop are invented and supplied only to teach version analysis.

The newest text is not automatically the text governing the earlier request. Begin with the event date, then inspect the amendment's effective and applicability language. Under this packet, the April request falls before the stated applicability boundary. The earlier ten-day text is relevant to that event. The later amendment may be discussed as background, but a citation to the fourteen-day version would misstate the supplied rule for the training dispute.

Create a version record with four separate dates: enactment, effective date, applicability boundary, and source edition or update date. They may coincide, but they describe different things. A code website's update date tells you something about its presentation; it does not necessarily decide when an amendment applies. A session law may contain transition language outside the codified section. Inspect that language when the problem depends on which version governs.

The citation should identify the version actually used under the applicable convention. If your paragraph explains the historical ten-day rule, cite its historical source and date information. If it contrasts the amended rule, identify the later version separately. Do not attach one undifferentiated citation to both descriptions when the source versions differ. A reader needs to reproduce the temporal comparison, not merely locate the code's current homepage.

The real § 107 demonstration in this chapter uses the official 2024 Code edition. Its example proposition identifies the purpose-and-character factor in the text inspected. That is a historical edition check. It does not establish that no later amendment occurred, and it does not resolve an actual fair-use dispute. The ledger records that boundary so the model can teach statutory structure without pretending to supply contemporary advice.

Subsection precision matters within a single version too. If the rule appears in (b)(2), a citation to (b)(1) directs the reader to another provision. Parenthetical hierarchy is part of the address. Copy the source's capital letters and punctuation exactly. If the source uses a section with a hyphenated number, distinguish that number from a range. A formatting cleanup that changes these characters can alter which legal text is identified.

Before finalizing, ask whether the paragraph needs a code citation, an enactment citation, or both. Codified operative text and the act's enactment or transition provisions perform different jobs. Use the source containing the proposition you describe. If the relevant transition provision is not supplied or accessible, identify the uncertainty rather than importing the current code's wording into the earlier event. Time is a source-selection question before it becomes a parenthetical-format question.

A statutory address is a hierarchy. Read it from the largest unit to the smallest before shortening it. In 17 U.S.C. § 107(1) (2024), the 17 identifies the code title, 107 the section, and (1) a subdivision within that section. A familiar act name can be useful prose, but it does not replace that address. Two different enactments can amend the same code section, while one enactment can amend many code sections.

Fictional training example — not legal authority. A supplied Harbor enactment has section 3, which inserts Harbor Code title 8, section 20; the new code section contains subsections (a), (b), and (c). A draft calls the notice rule “section 3(b) of the Harbor Code.” That combines the enactment's section number with the code's subdivision. The packet places the operative notice rule in Harbor Code tit. 8, § 20(b) (2025). If discussing how the enactment changed the code, identify the enactment's section 3 separately. A correct number copied from the wrong layer remains an incorrect locator.

Use the plural symbol for multiple sections, not merely for several subdivisions of one section. Under this book's house convention, a reference to the two supplied subsections is Harbor Code tit. 8, § 20(b)-(c) (2025). A reference to two separate sections would use §§ followed by those section numbers. Repeating complete subsection addresses is preferable when a compressed range might obscure the hierarchy. Never collapse (b)(1) and (b)(3) into (b)(1)-(3) if you mean only those two nonconsecutive provisions rather than the intervening provision as well.

Ranges require two further checks. First, decide whether the punctuation belongs to the section number: a state provision numbered 12-104 has an internal hyphen. Second, decide whether the author means an inclusive range or a list. A source citation is not the place to guess that everything between two selected sections also supports the proposition. For distant or nonconsecutive provisions, list the actual locators. For a provision spanning an exceptionally long section, select the subdivision that contains the rule and any material exception.

Federal and state publication years

Indigo R16 makes a year optional for a current United States Code citation. Its state-code baseline differs: R17 calls for the edition or publication year, while acknowledging that local practice may omit it. Do not generalize the federal no-year convention to every state code. A historical federal provision needs a historical version; a state model following Indigo ordinarily needs its edition year even when discussing the current code. An applicable receiving rule can alter that presentation.

The publisher field has a similarly limited function. Under Indigo, a current U.S.C.A. citation identifies West and a U.S.C.S. citation identifies LexisNexis. That field identifies the publication consulted. It does not identify Congress as having written the publisher's notes. State codes have their own publisher requirements, so consult the state entry and the actual source. Do not append a commercial publisher to an official-code citation merely because the research began in a commercial search interface.

For an edition plus supplement, collect the base edition and relevant supplement designation together. Then determine whether the relied-on text appears in the base volume, the supplement, or both. A parenthetical describing both is useful only when it accurately identifies the source used. Copying a supplement year from a neighboring provision can misidentify the applicable text. If the electronic source supplies a currency-through statement rather than a volume title page, preserve that statement as given; do not manufacture a printed supplement designation.

Constitutional and statutory short forms

Constitutions have a tighter rule than many sources. Indigo R23.4 calls for the full constitutional citation each time, with id. permitted for sequential citations to the same constitutional provision. It does not authorize a general constitutional supra form. Repeating U.S. Const. art. III, § 1 is short enough to keep the source unambiguous and maintains the supplied article/section address.

For code short forms, an eligible Id. can refer to another section within the same title when the new section is stated. A move to a different code title calls for more identifying information under R22.2. Even an otherwise permitted short form fails if the surrounding paragraph has made its referent uncertain. Check the last cited source in the final document order, the code title, and the new provision together. These three checks prevent a visually tidy reference from redirecting the reader to the wrong law.