The Volokh Conspiracy

If citation rules were rational, law reviews would have much less work to do.

Law reviews actually get a point here by not requiring the city of publication.

My guess was always that some publishers may publish different editions from different cities. So seeing "London:" instead of "Boston:" would let you know that you are looking at the British edition of the text.

What I've always wondered is, why does the copyright page of a book often contain things like, "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10"?

I always assumed it was to aid in finding a copy of the book. If the book turned out to be rare, and the publisher obscure, this might be the only way to track down a copy to reference.

Ditto on the : 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3

What the heck is that for?

The 1-10 numbering shows how many times that book has been printed. The numbers are all put on the printing press plate in the beginning. Then, if the book is reprinted, the number 1 is scratched off. If it is printed again using the same plate, the #2 is scratched off, and so on. Pick some books in your library which are likely to have gone through more than one press run - say a dictionary or a popular novel - and you will find some of them are missing some of those numbers.

I know it's "fashionable" to say that you don't care about citation form, but it drives me crazy when associates give me work with incorrect citation form. If there's a rule, you might as well do it right instead of doing it wrong, even if you think the rule's dumb (please, PLEASE, put a space between the F. and the Supp.). Maybe its the law review managing editor in me.

JohnO, it's a good bet those associates learned the ALWD citation system where F.Supp. is correct because there is a general rule in court abbreviations where a single letter abbreviation like F. is not followed by a space, thus "F.Supp." or "U.S." but "Conn. Super."

Having wasted my 1L year learning the ALWD system that no one I file anything with follows (Oklahoma courts use Bluebook or public domain citations, and federal courts use Bluebook), I know all too well how hard it is to unlearn. Our LRW&A program uses the ALWD, but the law review uses Bluebook. Pure silliness.

Ted, have your IT department make that the default in a new profile.

I'll have to take your word for it. That's not how we were taught, but I threw away my ALWD manual when I finished that useless LRW&A class.

On the 9 8 7 6 5 etc.:

The differences between printings are not trivial. They often include corrections, which is why it is important to have this information internally. For example, a math textbook may have some errors in the first three printings that are corrected in the fourth. So if you pick up a book and see 09876, you know that the corrections have been made.

On the double sequence, I have only seen that in special cases. The ones that I saw consisted of two parts. This is particularly common in teacher's editions of textbooks. For example, if, in the aforementioned math textbook, you find 890//09876543, it would mean that the book contains teacher edition text from 8th printing and it is based on the 3rd printing of the student edition. Since teacher editions are not printed in as large quantities as student editions, it is possible for the current teacher ed printing to still contain errors that might have already been corrected in the current student ed. As far as the example you cite is concerned, Ii have no idea what it is, but I'd bet it has two parts--one in 4th printing and one in 6th.

It's certainly true that for rare works, the city of publication can be invaluable. Historians of Chinese law, for example, occasionally have to deal with missionary publications from the nineteenth century.

Nineteenth-century law is not as dead as one might think -- Hong Kong common law still uses it.

Still, for any university press, it's silly. Particularly since it is often impossible to tell where the book was printed as presses have offices in several cities.