[blindlaw] Bluebook

Stewart, Christopher K chris.stewart at uky.edu
Thu Sep 8 13:46:35 UTC 2016


For those using braille displays, I have a few questions and things to
consider. First, let me say that whatever works for any individual is
what they should do, so long as they're getting the job done. However,
I tried a lot of different things throughout law school, and I want to
discuss my issues with, in my case, trying to do these things on a
Braillenote Apex.

How does one distinguish between italics, bold, and underline when
editing a document on a braille display? Unless there's been an update
in the UBE I'm unaware of, aren't all three indicated with dots (4-6)?
I feel like there is probably a keystroke that would say the exact
font parameters, but to me, it seems like at that point you would lose
the streamline efficiency of using the braille, since that's what I
have to do on the computer anyway.

Another problem with the braille display is that, unless there is
something I've missed, it's difficult to know whether there are gaps
in italics throughout a long title because you start long
italics/bold/underline strings with a double dot 4-6, then put another
dot 4-6 before the final word. This would suggest that there could be
breaks that the braille would not reflect, if that makes sense. Oh,
and remember that one of the things to look out for in citations is
that you do not underline/italicize the comma following the case name.
Again, in braille there would be no way of determining whether that
comma were italicized or not, and one would be back to the same place
of asking the machine for the font parameters in that instance.

Finally, is there even a means of showing small caps in braille? This
is just a curiosity as I didn't even know what small caps were until I
came to law school. However, a brief google search indicates some
confusion among braille translators about small capitals. So, while
one person's law review uses bold instead of small caps, I don't think
that is super common, and I seriously doubt that a law review
editorial board would consider sacrificing the uniformity of the
journal's citation system as a reasonable accommodation.

Don't get me wrong. I think a braille display is a wonderful tool,
especially for dealing with editing the actual body of a brief or
article. I just encountered a number of issues when trying to use it
for Bluebook purposes. I appreciate anyone's thoughts, especially as I
just sold my Braillenote and am considering whether to get something
new.

Oh, and the online Bluebook is wonderfully accessible. You can even
make notes to yourself, search for more obscure citation forms rather
than trying to rely exclusively on the table of contents, Etc.

Best,
chris




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