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The Objects To Which We Refer
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ntil just a few decades ago, it was commonplace to see expressions like the following in footnotes (and sometimes the list of bibliographic references) in newly-published scholarly papers:
et. seq. •
ibid. •
loc. cit. •
op. cit.
And, of course, this type of expression is ubiquitous in the
older literature.
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Why it is Important to Recognize these Expressions
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hese expressions typically occur in a footnote in an article (or monograph), although they are sometimes found in the bibliography at the end of the document.
If you do not recognize the significance of these expressions, you may end up believing that one of these expressions (like ibid) is actually part of a journal name or book name. If this happens, then you will have difficulty identifying the item that is being cited.
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Geographical Considerations
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t appears that Latin expressions are favoured in scholarly literature written in
English and
Romance languages (e.g. French, Italian, Spanish). On the other hand., at least some of the
older literature in German has its own expressions - and
similarly for Dutch literature. As it happens, we have found
nothing similar for Scandinavian languages.
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iven that much of the older scholarly literature is written in either English or one of the Romance Languages (like French, Italian or Spanish), it is relatively easy to find information of the type found in the table below. One of the more complete listings for the Latin expresions is found in the following Wikipedia article:
inding similar literary expression in German was rather more challenging. Here is another Wikipedia article that was helpful:
ecause there is a significant amount of important scholarly literature written in Dutch prior to 1850, the Editor (who can read Dutch) decided to attempt to find equivalent expressions in Dutch. This proved even more arduous than the exercise of doing so with German expressions.
Occasionally the Editor had to enlist assistance from his husband (whose first language is Dutch) to find equivalent Dutch expressions. A fair amount of guessing and speculation was also indispensible.