How to cite a livestream

Bluebook (22d ed.) citation format · B18 / R18.7.3 · Internet & electronic

Example

NCAAW Iowa vs. South Carolina, at 1:49:50 (Fubo, aired Apr. 7, 2024, at 16:49 ET) (on file with the Yale Law Journal).

More examples

Each of these is checked against the rules on every change to the tool.

Djamber_D, Studio Session (Twitch, streamed Apr. 12, 2024, at 15:05 ET) (on file with the Columbia Law Review).

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On file with — Where a reader can get an unpublished or hard-to-find source: what follows “on file with” — “author”, or the library or journal holding it (R17.1).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

Program name — The source’s name, as the rule for this type gives it.
Account — The account, as it appears on the source.
Platform / service — The service the material was posted on.
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)

NCAAW Iowa vs. South Carolina, at 1:49:50 (Fubo, aired Apr. 7, 2024, at 16:49 ET) (on file with the Yale Law Journal).

Law review footnotes (Whitepages)

NCAAW Iowa vs. South Carolina, at 1:49:50 (Fubo, aired Apr. 7, 2024, at 16:49 ET) (on file with the Yale Law Journal).

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

NCAAW Iowa vs. South Carolina, at 1:49:50 (Fubo, aired April 7, 2024, at 16:49 ET) (on file with the Yale Law Journal).

Why

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

Right

NCAAW Iowa vs. South Carolina, at 1:49:50 (Fubo, aired Apr. 7, 2024, at 16:49 ET) (on file with the Yale Law Journal).

Governing rules

B18 / R18.7.3

18 — the internet, electronic media & other nonprint resources.
18.7.3 — live streaming media services.

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: