Legal Definitions - Order of signals

Definition: The order in which citation sentences should be arranged when immediately following each other. In formal legal writing, citation sentences should be arranged based on the signals that introduce them, in the following order of precedence:

1. No signal
2. E.g.,
3. Accord
4. See
5. See also
6. Cf.
7. Compare with
8. Contra
9. But see
10. But cf.
11. See generally

All sources falling under the same signal should be put in a single citation sentence and separated by semicolons. Thus, each signal should appear only once in a given citation - at the start of its own citation sentence.

Example: In a legal brief, the following citation sentences might be used:

• The plaintiff argues that the defendant breached the contract. See Smith v. Jones, 123 F.3d 456 (2d Cir. 2010).
• Accord Johnson v. Smith, 456 F.2d 789 (3d Cir. 2012).
• But see Brown v. Green, 789 F.2d 123 (4th Cir. 2013) (holding that the defendant did not breach the contract).
• See generally Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 123 (1981).

In this example, the first citation sentence has no signal, so it comes first. The second citation sentence has the signal "Accord," so it comes next. The third citation sentence has the signal "But see," so it comes after "Accord." The fourth citation sentence has the signal "See generally," so it comes last.

This order of signals helps to organize the citations and make them easier to follow for the reader.