How to cite an unpublished audio

Bluebook (22d ed.) citation format · B18 / R18.8.3 · Internet & electronic

Voice memos, voicemail and other recordings that were never released.

Example

Voice memo, at 00:54, Jacob A. Sarasin, Legal Observer, Nat’l Laws. Guild (recorded Apr. 17, 2024, at 08:02 ET) (on file with author).

What the citation needs

Required

On file with — Where a reader can get an unpublished or hard-to-find source: what follows “on file with” — “author”, or the library or journal holding it (R17.1).

When they apply

Nature of the recording — The nature of the recording, as it appears on the source.
Speaker / creator — The speaker / creator, as it appears on the source.
Time stamp — The point in a recording or post you are citing.
Date — The date the rule for this source calls for, with the month abbreviated per T12 (“Nov. 24, 1978”).
Time — The time, where the source is dated to it.

In a brief and in a law review

The Bluebook sets citations two ways: the Bluepages for court documents and legal memoranda, the Whitepages for law review footnotes. Here is the first example above as each one prints it, in its typeface.

Court documents (Bluepages)

Voice memo, at 00:54, Jacob A. Sarasin, Legal Observer, Nat’l Laws. Guild (recorded Apr. 17, 2024, at 08:02 ET) (on file with author).

Law review footnotes (Whitepages)

Voice memo, at 00:54, Jacob A. Sarasin, Legal Observer, Nat’l Laws. Guild (recorded Apr. 17, 2024, at 08:02 ET) (on file with author).

For this source the two are set the same way.

Common mistakes

Each of these is a citation the checker refuses, with what it says is wrong and the corrected form.

Wrong

Voice memo, at 00:54, Jacob A. Sarasin, Legal Observer, Nat’l Laws. Guild (recorded April 17, 2024, at 08:02 ET) (on file with author).

Why

Abbreviate the month: “April” should be “Apr.” (T12).

Right

Voice memo, at 00:54, Jacob A. Sarasin, Legal Observer, Nat’l Laws. Guild (recorded Apr. 17, 2024, at 08:02 ET) (on file with author).

Governing rules

B18 / R18.8.3

18 — the internet, electronic media & other nonprint resources.
18.8.3 — unpublished audio recordings.

Build this citation with the generator, check one you have already written, or paste a whole list of footnotes to check them in order.

Related source types

Internet & electronic: