Citation exampleslegal case in Cell

How to cite a legal case in Cell

A court decision or legal judgment. Style required by Cell Press journals.

Quick answer

To cite a legal case in Cell, include the author(s), year, title, and container or publisher details. A concrete example is below.

Example

Author, A. Brown v. Board of Education. 347 U.S. 483, — (1954).

This example is rendered with the official CSL definition for Cell. For the exact style required by your journal, paste your references into DEEPNOTIS and pick that style from the dropdown — the app covers 2,800+ variants.

What you need

For a legal case, Cell expects these fields at minimum:

  • Case name
  • Year
  • Reporter volume and page
  • Court
  • Jurisdiction

Common mistakes

  • Mixing bibliography formatting with in-text citation rules. Reference-list entries and in-text cites follow different patterns — use the style's official guide for both.
  • Forgetting the DOI. When a DOI exists, most styles now require it (usually as a full https://doi.org/… URL).
  • Inconsistent capitalization. APA uses sentence case for titles; MLA and Chicago use title case. Mixing them is the single most common style error.

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Last updated: 5 May 2026