How to Use This Manual

     This Manual is designed to be a “user friendly” resource for practitioners and scholars, providing proper citation forms for Florida materials. It supplements the uniform citation system for Florida legal documents contained in Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.800 and the standard citation authority for American legal journals, the 20th Edition of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. Because the proper citation form for various materials differs depending on the type of document the author is writing—legal document or scholarly work—it is important to note the distinction and use the correct form.

     The rules in the Manual are applicable to all types of legal writing, from legal documents to scholarly works. Where there are differing citation forms for legal documents and scholarly works, they are so designated. Otherwise, all of the citation examples given in the Manual conform to the typeface conventions required for legal documents.