Reference

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Reference

Reference is derived from Middle English referren, from Bibliographies

Middle French rèférer, from Latin referre, "to carry back",

Bibliographies are special reference works that are used

formed from the prefix re- and ferre, "to bear".[1] A large

to identify as many published works on a given subject as

number of words derive from this root, including referee,

possible, and serve as compilations for other authors or

reference, referendum, all retaining the basic meaning of

researchers.

the original Latin as "a point, place or source of origin"

that something of comparable nature can be defined in

terms of. A referee is the provider of this source of origin,

Library and information sciences

and a referent is the possessor of the source of origin, In a library, "reference" may refer to a dictionary, an en-

whether it is knowledge, matter or energy. cyclopedia or other reference work, that contains many

Because of its meaning, the word reference is used brief articles that cover a broad scope of knowledge in

in every sphere of human knowledge, adopting shades of one book, or a set of books. However, the word reference

meaning particular to the contexts in which it is used. is also used to mean a book that cannot be taken from

References can take on many forms, including: a the room, or from the building. Many of the books in the

thought, a sensory perception that is audible (ono- reference department of a library are reference works, but

matopoeia), visual (text), olfactory, or tactile, emotional some are books that are simply too large or valuable to

state, relationship with other,[2] spacetime coordinate, loan out. Conversely, selected reference works may be

symbolic or alpha-numeric, a physical object or an ener- shelved with other circulating books, and may be loaned

gy projection; but, other concrete and abstract contexts out.

exist as methods of defining references within the scope References to many types of printed matter may

of the various fields that require an origin, point of de- come in an electronic or machine-readable form. For

parture, or an original form. This includes methods that books, there exists the ISBN and for journal articles, the

intentionally hide the reference from some observers, as Digital object identifier (DOI) is gaining relevance. Infor-

in cryptography. mation on the Internet may be referred to by a Uniform

The following sections give specific usages of refer- Resource Identifier (URI).

ence in different subjects. Librarians also conduct reference interviews at the li-

brary reference desks, to help people find the informa-

tion they seek. Help may also be available outside the li-

Knowledge brary though virtual reference and digital reference ser-

vices.

Systems

Encyclopedias & books of facts

Data processing and computer science Some published sources are produced as reference works

Main article: Reference (computer science) that allow quick access to essential information about

In computer science, references are data types that refer given subjects, sometimes compiled as topical collec-

to an object elsewhere in memory and are used to con- tions, and sometimes as general collections of entries.

struct a wide variety of data structures, such as linked

lists. Generally, a reference is a value that enables a pro-

gram to directly access the particular data item. Most

programming languages support some form of reference.



Computer programming, programs &

data

The C++ programming language has a specific type of ref-

erence also referred to as a "reference"; see reference

(C++).









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Associations, organizations and muse- their key role in communication and co-operation be-

tween different people, and also because of misunder-

ums standings that can arise. Modern academic study of ref-

erence has been developing since the 19th Century.[4]

News media, journalism and publishing In scholarship, a reference may be a citation of a text

that has been used in the creation of a piece of work such

Philosophy as an essay, report, or oration. Its primary purpose is to

allow people who read such work to examine the author’s

Causation sources, either for validity or to learn more about the

subject. Such items are often listed at the end of an arti-

Psychology cle or book in a section marked "Bibliography" or "Ref-

erences". A bibliographical section often contains works

In terms of mental processing, a self-reference is used in

not cited by the author, but used as background reading

psychology to establish identification with a mental state

or listed as potentially useful to the reader. A reference

during self-analysis. This seeks to allow the individual to

section contains all of the works and only those works

develop own frames of reference in a greater state of im-

cited by the author(s) in the main text.

mediate awareness. However, it can laso lead to circular

reasoning, preventing evolution of thought.[3]

Law

Humankind In law, references are documents or people providing wit-

ness to character. This connotation is also used in employ-

Logic ment.



Religion Patent law

In patent law, a reference is a document that can be

used to show the state of knowledge at a given time and

Social Sciences that therefore may make a claimed invention obvious or

anticipated. Examples of references are patents of any

Social Processes country, magazine articles, Ph.D. theses that are indexed

and thus accessible to those interested in finding infor-

Culture and Institutions mation about the subject matter, and to some extent In-

ternet material that is similarly accessible.

Economics

In the labour market, potential employers often ask job Canadian law

applicants for references or recommendations, so that Main article: Reference question

their suitability can be verified independently. The ref- A reference question is a procedure through which the

erences can be a written letter, but are often just a con- government of Canada can submit legal questions to the

tact telephone number. Employers can ask for profes- Supreme Court of Canada and provincial governments to

sional references, which are from former employers, or the provincial courts of appeal.

for character references, which are from people of dis-

tinction such as doctors or teachers. The source of the

reference must be well known to the applicant and able

to vouch for their abilities during employment.





Education

In academics and scholarship, an author-title-date infor-

mation in bibliographies and footnotes, specifying com-

plete works of other people. Copying of material by an-

other author without proper citation or without required

permissions is plagiarism.

Keeping a diary allows an individual to use references

for personal organization, whether or not anyone else

understands the systems of reference used. However,

scholars have studied methods of reference because of





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Mythology divine. To avoid this problem, the signifier G-d is some-

times used, though this could be seen as a sign that refers

Political science to another sign with an absent referent.



Linguistic sign

Policy analysis

Certain parts of speech exist only to express reference,

viz. anaphora, i.e., typically pronouns. The subset of re-

International Relations

flexives expresses co-reference of agent (actor) and pa-

tient (acted on), as in "The man washed himself".

Public administration



Military History and Science Natural sciences and mathe-

matics

Language Astronomy

Semantics Mathematics

In semantics, reference is generally construed as the re-

In mathematics, the absent referent can be seen with the

lationships between nouns or pronouns and objects that

symbol for zero, "0" or the empty set, "{ }".

are named by them. Hence, the word "John" refers to

A reference point in Geometry is a location used to

John. The word "it" refers to some previously specified

describe another point, by giving the relative position.

object. The object referred to is called the "referent" of

Similarly there is the concept of frame of reference (both

the word.[5] Sometimes the word-object relation is called

in physics and figuratively) and benchmark (in surveying

"denotation"; the word denotes the object. The converse

and figuratively).

relation, the relation from object to word, is called "ex-

emplification"; the object exemplifies what the word de-

notes. In syntactic analysis, if a word refers to a previous Technology (Applied Sciences)

word, the previous word is called the "antecedent".

Agriculture

Meaning

Gottlob Frege argued that reference cannot be treated Business

as identical with meaning: "Hesperus" (an ancient Greek

In business administration terms of reference describe

name for the evening star) and "Phosphorus" (an ancient

the purpose and structure of a project, committee, meet-

Greek name for the morning star) both refer to Venus,

ing, negotiation, or any similar collection of people who

but the astronomical fact that ’"Hesperus" is "Phospho-

have agreed to work together to accomplish a shared

rus"’ can still be informative, even if the "meanings" of

goal. The terms of reference of a project are often re-

"Hesperus" and "Phosphorus" are already known. This

ferred to as the project charter.

problem led Frege to distinguish between the sense and

reference of a word. Some cases seem to be too compli-

cated to be classified within this framework; the accep-

Construction

tance of the notion of secondary reference may be neces-

sary to fill the gap.

Engineering

In engineering a reference design is often used during

Absent referent the pre-production phase of design development to test

Main article: Absent referent design features against original specifications.

Words can often be meaningful without having a con-

crete here-and-now referent. Fictional and mythological

names such as "Bo-Peep" and "Hercules" illustrate this

possibility. Sign links with absent referents also allow for

discussing abstract ideas ("love," "peace") as well as peo-

ple and events of the past and future.

For those who argue that one cannot directly expe-

rience the divine (e.g. God), the sign "God" can serve as

an example of a reference with an absent referent. Addi-

tionally, certain sects of Judaism and other religions con-

sider it sinful to write, discard, or deface the name of the



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Animal training Drama

Cooking Science fiction

Health and medicine Geography

Environmental engineering

Surveying

Robotics

History

Risk management

See also

The Arts • Antecedent (grammar)

In Art, a reference is an item from which a work is based. • Exemplification

This may include: • Generic antecedent

• an existing artwork, • Hyperlink

• a reproduction (i.e., photo), • ISO 690

• directly observed object (i.e., person), or

• the artist’s memory.

Another example of reference is samples of various mu-

References

sical works being incorporated into a new one. [1] Klein, Ernest, A comprehensive etymological dictionary

of the English language, Vol II, Elsevier publishing

Literature and rhetoric [2]

company, Amsterdam, 1969, p.1317

Treanor, Brian, Aspects of alterity: Levinas, Marcel, and

In academic literature, a reference is a previously pub- the contemporary debate, Fordham University Press,

lished written work within academic publishing that has 2006, p.41

been used as a source for theory or claims referred to [3] Engle, Eric, Lex Naturalis, Ius Naturalis: Law as Positive

that are used in the text. References contain complete Reasoning & Natural Rationality, The Rlias Clark

bibliographic information so the interested reader can Group, Melbourne, 2010, p.75

find them in a library. References can be added either at [4] Reimer, Marga (2009). "Reference". Stanford

the end of the publication or as footnotes. Encyclopedia of Philosophy

In publishing, a reference is citation of a work, in a [5] Saeed, John, Semantics, Blackwell, p. 12,

footnote, from which an idea was taken. ISBN 0631226931





External links

• Reference.com – a multi-source encyclopedia search

service, and language reference products provider

• References.net – a directory of multidisciplinary

reference resources on the web

• Reference Resources – reference related websites in

the Yahoo! Directory

• Refmuseum.com - The online museum of references









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Categories:

• Reference

• Semantics

• Philosophical logic

• Concepts in logic

• Syntactic relationships



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