10.6

Citing Federal Statutes

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INTRODUCTION

You should find this fairly simple compared to case citations!

In the example below, the actual statute begins at §351. The material above that is a collection of research sources provided for the previous statute (§350). Those research sources are only in the unofficial publications of the federal code, and thus when researching, use one of the unofficials and not the official U.S.C.









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Lecture Notes . . .

The key to understanding federal statutory citation is the fact that there are three publications, but only one set of statutes. The United States Code (U.S.C.), the United States Code Annotated, U.S.C.A. (Thomson/West), and the United States Code Service, U.S.C.S. (Lawyer's Cooperative) all publish the complete federal statutes. Only U.S.C., though, is official. Therefore, no matter what set we decide to research in, we will always cite to the official version, U.S.C.

Just drop the "A." or the "S." if you are researching in the unofficial, but citing to the official since the Title and Section number will be the same.

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Structure of Citations to U.S.C.





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Example of Statute Page . . .