How to cite an online video

Bluebook (22d ed.) citation format · B18 / R18.7.4 · Internet & electronic

Example

Hbomberguy, Plagiarism and You(Tube), at 34:19 (YouTube, Dec. 2, 2023), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDp3cB5fHXQ&t=8233s (on file with the University of Pennsylvania Law Review).

What the citation needs

Required

None.

When they apply

Account / uploader — The account / uploader, as it appears on the source.
Video title — The title as it appears on the source. R8(a): capitalize every word except articles, conjunctions and prepositions of four or fewer letters, unless they begin the title or follow a colon.
Platform — 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.
URL — The web address, where you cite the source online (R18.2).
Perma / archive URL — An archived copy’s address, such as a perma.cc link, given in brackets after the URL (R18.2.1(d)).
On file with — Where a reader can get an unpublished or hard-to-find source: what follows “on file with” — “author”, or the library or journal holding it (R17.1).

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)

Hbomberguy, Plagiarism and You(Tube), at 34:19 (YouTube, Dec. 2, 2023), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDp3cB5fHXQ&t=8233s (on file with the University of Pennsylvania Law Review).

Law review footnotes (Whitepages)

Hbomberguy, Plagiarism and You(Tube), at 34:19 (YouTube, Dec. 2, 2023), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDp3cB5fHXQ&t=8233s (on file with the University of Pennsylvania Law Review).

The words are the same in both; only the typeface changes.

Governing rules

B18 / R18.7.4

18 — the internet, electronic media & other nonprint resources.
18.7.4 — web-based videos.

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: