More on My Bluebook Incompetence

I'll admit it: I'm not a good Bluebooker. Not even close. My small group professor 1L year (where we get basically all of our legal research & writing instruction) was not in any way a stickler about us learning proper citation form (he said he cared more about content than form), so I sort of just winged it and hoped for the best. The professor I do research for says, "I don't care how you cite stuff, just make sure I can find it." [Can you see why I like working for him?] I've been on two secondary journals for multiple semesters, but I've never had to do more than a handful of pages of Bluebooking at a given source cite, and most of the citations are pretty basic. However. This semester I became an articles editor for one of my journals....and that means I have to do a lot more Bluebooking, while trying not to look like a complete idiot.

So don't judge me too harshly, please. I'm trying to learn, I really am. But to give you a sense of just where my baseline is, here's a transcript...I was gchatting with a mutual friend of Cat & yours truly today:

me: Geezus. Ordering of citations?!?! RIDICULOUS.

J [HLS student]: haha

I get e-mails about that!

me: I didn't even know it was a thing until last week.

J: "Dear journal, juts reminding you that this is one of the most commonly neglected rules."

me: gah

totally insane

J: ordering of signals as well

me: yeah

I figured that out just TODAY.

J: hahaha

me: who'dhaveknown!??!

J: it's such bs!

me: I am such a bad law student.

I am going to be such an incompetent summer.

J: lol

me too!!!

me: I can't even Bluebook.

me: but now, with my "I know how to order stuff" knowledge, that's like the only rule I'm honoring.

it's zero-sum, man.

and ordering cases? whoa!that was mind-blowing!

...

me: yeah

I'm pretty much gonna be like "sorry, people, I'm a bad Bluebooker."

"Don't assume anything I said is correct."

J: Good idea, SB.

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