Agent Skills
› brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills
› ylj-sources-and-bluebook
ylj-sources-and-bluebook
GitHub用于构建耶鲁法律评论文章的引用体系，确保所有法律与事实主张均附带精确的蓝皮书格式引注及页码定位。
Trigger Scenarios
起草涉及法律、法院裁决或事实的句子时
不确定案例、法规、书籍等来源的蓝皮书格式时
脚注仅一般性引用而未标注具体页码或章节时
准备稿件以便学生编辑进行逐条来源核查时
Install
npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill ylj-sources-and-bluebook -g -y
SKILL.md
Frontmatter
{
"name": "ylj-sources-and-bluebook",
"description": "Use when building and formatting the citation apparatus for a The Yale Law Journal (YLJ) piece — pinpoint cites, Bluebook form, and source support for every assertion. It governs cite construction; the final editorial cite-check and source-pull is ylj-footnotes-and-cite-check."
}
Sources & Bluebook (ylj-sources-and-bluebook)
Legal scholarship is carried in its footnotes, and YLJ formats them in Bluebook form (The
Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation), supplemented by the Journal's own citation requirements. Every
sentence that asserts law or fact carries a footnote with a pinpoint cite to authority that actually
supports it. This skill builds correct, supported cites as you draft; the line-by-line editorial verify
happens later in ylj-footnotes-and-cite-check.
When to trigger
- Drafting any sentence that states what the law is, what a court held, or a fact
- Unsure of Bluebook form for a case, statute, regulation, book, or article
- A footnote cites a source generally instead of to the exact page/section
- Preparing the manuscript so student editors can source-pull every footnote
Core rules YLJ editors enforce
- A cite for every proposition. Assertions of law and fact are footnoted; unsupported claims get flagged in source-pull.
- Pinpoint, always. Cite the exact page (
id. at 412), section (§ 1983), or paragraph — never just the first page of a long opinion when you rely on a holding deep inside it. - The source must actually say it. A cite that doesn't support the sentence is the single most common source-pull failure; quote or paraphrase only what the page contains.
- Bluebook form by source type (typeface, order of authorities, signals, short forms):
| Source | Skeleton (Bluebook) |
|---|---|
| Case | Name v. Name, Vol Reporter Page, pin (Court Year). |
| Statute | Title U.S.C. § X (Year). |
| Regulation | Vol C.F.R. § X (Year). |
| Book | Author, Title Page (ed. Year). |
| Law-review article | Author, Title, Vol Journal Page, pin (Year). |
| Short forms | id.; supra note N; hereinafter, used consistently. |
Signals and explanatory parentheticals
- Use introductory signals precisely —
See,See also,Cf.,But see,Contra,E.g.— each means a different relationship between the cite and the text; misuse signals to a reader (and a source-puller) that you misread the source. - Add explanatory parentheticals for any cite whose relevance isn't obvious from the text — they prove you read the source and save editors a step.
- Order string cites by the Bluebook hierarchy of authorities; don't list cases alphabetically.
Quotations and paraphrase
- Verbatim language needs quotation marks and a pinpoint cite; paraphrase still needs a cite to the Bluebook + the Journal's requirements. Cleaning up another's words without quotation marks is a source-pull and integrity failure.
- For altered quotations use the Bluebook conventions (
[ ],. . .,(emphasis added)).
Checklist
- Every law/fact assertion has a footnote
- Every cite is pinpointed to the page/section relied on
- The cited source actually supports the proposition (spot-check the hardest ones)
- Bluebook form correct per source type; short forms (
id.,supra) consistent - Signals chosen deliberately; explanatory parentheticals where relevance isn't obvious
- Quotations marked and pinpointed; alterations flagged per Bluebook
Anti-patterns
- "String of see-cites" with no pinpoints — guarantees source-pull friction
- A cite to the first page of a 40-page opinion for a holding buried at page 38
- Wrong signal (
Seewhere the source directly states it, or vice versa) - Paraphrase that tracks the source's wording without quotation marks (integrity flag)
- Deferring all Bluebook formatting to "the editors will fix it" — they cite-check, they don't ghostwrite
Output format
【Apparatus state】% of assertions footnoted; pinpoints present? Y/N
【Bluebook form】case/statute/article skeletons applied consistently? Y/N
【Signals】used deliberately? Y/N
【Quotations】marked + pinpointed + alterations flagged? Y/N
【Next】ylj-writing-style for prose, then ylj-footnotes-and-cite-check for the full verify
Supplementary resources
../../resources/external_tools.md— Bluebook, citation managers, and source-checking tools../../resources/official-source-map.md— YLJ Bluebook / citation-requirement facts
Version History
- 1839142 Current 2026-07-05 14:33
