Author & Acknowledgments

About the Author

Linda J. Barris, J.D., taught legal research, writing, and citation for more than fifteen years. She is the author of Understanding and Mastering The Bluebook, now in its fourth edition.

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the many legal writing instructors, librarians, colleagues, and friends who have offered insight and feedback over the years on citation matters great and small. Your ideas and input have helped shape Understanding and Mastering The Bluebook, which in turn helped shape this program.

Every year since 2018, the Dean's Writing Fellows of Indiana University Maurer School of Law have thoroughly reviewed and tested the exercise sets and tutorials and provided thoughtful suggestions for improving the MBIE program. I would like to thank the Fellows from 2018 through 2023 and the following Fellows from 2023–24 and 2024–25: Will Brown, LuLu Faulk, Abigail Flowers, Corbyn Fry, Amani Khoury, Emily Levine, Allyson McBride, Bilal Mozaffar, Tyler Parrish, Anastasia Rivera, Adam Rosenthall, Lily Rutledge, Zachary Smith, Emily Uthe, and Raven Vance. Their input has made the program a better experience for all users.

I cannot begin to express my thanks to the IT professionals who used their expertise to make this program possible. Carol Thomson and her team at FireStream Media, Emily Gillcoat, key developer, and Claudia Fulshaw of (of Claudia Fulshaw Design) did the wonderful graphic design. Thank you all.

A special thanks to the team at Carolina Academic Press. Scott Sipe has shepherded this project from the day of its creation and every step along the way. But without the talents of Chase Baity, website content manager, the annual updates would never happen.

Linda Barris

This program is published as a guide to the rules of legal citation set forth in The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation®, twenty-first edition, copyright 2020 by the Columbia Law Review Association, the Harvard Law Review Association, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and The Yale Law Journal. The Bluebook is published by The Harvard Law Review Association, Gannett House, 1511 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138.