The New Bluebook Table 13 on Periodical Names

If you’re writing a seminar paper or journal note, chances are you’ll cite to a periodical at some point and you’ll refer to Bluebook table 13 (T13). T13 helps you correctly abbreviate the title of the journal, so you can refer to it in your footnotes. In the new 20^th edition, the Bluebook editors have streamlined T13. The new T13 is broken down into two parts – T13.1 Institutions and T13.2 Common Words. With the 19^th edition, T13 listed out the names of many individual periodicals with their abbreviation. The new T13 asks you to create the abbreviation from scratch, taking the abbreviation for the institution word (Cleveland, for example) from T13.1 and combining it with any needed common words (State, Law and Review, for example) to create the abbreviation – Clev. St. L. Rev. One thing to note – not all institutions are abbreviated in T13.1. If you don’t see the institution listed in T13.1, don’t make up an abbreviation! For example, Fordham Law Review is Fordham L. Rev., not Ford. L. Rev.