For many major pieces of legislation, already-compiled histories exist. Biddle has several sources of Compiled Legislative Histories.
Precompiled legislative histories will provide citations to Congressional documents, and some also provide the full document texts.
Identify the law you are researching by bill, Public Law, Statutes at Large, Popular Name, or Code citation.
If the bill you are researching was never passed into law, you will only have access to the bill citation and possibly a popular name.
Below are example citations to an original law and a subsequent amendment to that law.
| Name of Law (Popular Name) | Session Law | Statute at Lg. | Code Sec. | Bill No. |
| Immigration & Nationality Act of 1952 | 1952:477 (alt. cite for laws before 1956) | 66 Stat. 166 | 8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq. | 81 S. 3455 |
| Immigration & Nationality Act Amendments of 1976 | Pub. L. 94-571 | 90 Stat. 2703 | 8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq. | 94 H.R. 14535 |