Introduction

The Florida Style Manual is designed to aid practitioners and scholars to identify the proper citation form for legal documents and scholarly articles. The Manual 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. The Manual is an outgrowth of the Florida State University Law Review’s annual Review of Florida Legislation. From the conception of that project, the editors realized that citation to many Florida-specific sources—particularly those generated by the Florida Legislature—would lead to confusion if conventional Bluebook citation forms were followed. Other Florida sources were not addressed at all by the Bluebook. This Florida Style Manual provides meaningful citation forms for Florida-specific materials.

What’s New for This Edition

The editors of this Eighth Edition have updated the citation rules throughout the Manual to address advances in information technology and, consequently, online legal research. These changes to the Manual reflect the fact that more Florida specific sources have become available online and that increasingly these online sources are certified as either official in their own right or as alternate official versions of their print counterparts. In order to ensure the Manual remains a valuable tool for both practitioners and scholars, this Edition also includes updates to the Florida specific tables and resources throughout, provides the current version of Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.800, and conforms the Manual to the 20th Edition of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation.

A Note to Authors

All authors should strive to properly cite sources in all documents, whether legal documents or scholarly works. Not only will it increase the integrity, reliability, and persuasiveness of the instrument, but it hopefully will result in better manuscripts that ultimately will advance legal scholarship and public policy in Florida. The Law Review welcomes and encourages comments or suggestions for improvement.

The Editors of Volume 44

For a quick comparison to differing citation rules for legal documents and scholarly articles, see the following chart.