By Chinua Asuzu
Pinciting means using pinpoint or jump citations—citations to the precise page you’re referring to or quoting from.
“Pinpoint citations are those that include the exact page on which the quote, proposition, holding, or rule is found. Use them to show your reader the exact source of important points.” Mary Barnard Ray & Jill J. Ramsfield, Legal Writing: Getting It Right and Getting It Written, 4th ed. (Thomson West, 2005), 72–63.
In your citations, include pinpoint references when appropriate or available. Pinpoints refer to the page of the passage in an article, book, case, or law report you cite, quote, or rely on.
“The brief should always disclose, not only the page on which the opinion begins, but also the exact page on which the pertinent discussion occurs.” Mortimer Levitan, ‘Confidential Chat on the Craft of Briefing,’ 4 Journal of Appellate Practice & Process (Issue 1, 2002), 305, 310.
Pinpoints are always helpful when referring to any species of authority, but in judicial authority (cases and law reports), they’re essential when your citation refers to dicta, holdings, propositions, quotations, or rules, as generally happens.
Pinpoint citations to judicial authority refer to precise pages (and in some law reports, the paragraphs).
For example, in the citation “Emordi v Igbeke [2011] 9 NWLR (Part 1251) 24 (SC), 35G–H (Fabiyi JSC),” the case is reported from page 24, the pinpoint is page 35, and the pinpoint paragraphs are G to H.
Don’t insert the words page or its abbreviation p. or pg., whether in lower- or uppercase.
Don’t precede the pincited page number with at or particularly at.
When addressing the court orally, you can say at or particularly at [page], but don’t write either term.
Forget per [judge] when you pincite. Just add the judge’s name in parentheses after the pinpoint page.
The Nigerian Weekly Law Reports includes lettered paragraphs (not paragraphs in the grammatical sense). So pinpoint to the paragraph: 107G–H (Ademola JSC).
Pinciting is part of your task of making the reader’s task easier. Pinciting enables a reader desirous of verifying your citation to do so easily and quickly.
Don’t waste your readers’ time by forcing them “to scroll through the entire case to find the relevant part. Pinciting makes it easy for the court to confirm that the law says exactly what you say it says. Being reliable when citing the law makes you credible.” Gerald Lebovits, ‘Persuasive Writing for Lawyers–Part II,’ 82 NYSBA Journal (No. 3, March/April 2010), 64.
Pinciting lends credence to your analysis and enhances your ethos.
If you cite a concurring or dissenting judicial opinion, say so after your pincite: (Augie JSC, concurring) or (Nweze JSC, dissenting).
If you cite an article in a law journal, you cite the page of the journal from which the article starts. To pincite, you then pinpoint the page you are quoting from.
Maxwell Ukpebor, ‘Abuses in Transfer Pricing,’ 2 West African Tax Journal, 18, 32.
In the above example, you’ve cited an article by Maxwell Ukpebor titled ‘Abuses in Transfer Pricing.’ The article is published from page 18 of volume 2 of West African Tax Journal. This means that page 18 is where the article begins. The passage you quote from is on page 32. Including this page is pinciting.
