cf.

"Confer" redirects here. For the computer conferencing program, see CONFER (software).

For other uses, see Cf (disambiguation).

cf., an abbreviation for the Latin word confer (the imperative singular form of conferre), literally meaning "bring together", is used to refer to other material or ideas which may provide similar or different information or arguments. It is mainly used in scholarly contexts, such as in academic (mainly humanities, physics, chemistry, and biology) or legal texts. It is translated, and can be read aloud, as "compare".

Use

cf. is used in essays,^[1] theses,^[2] technical books^[3] and legal opinions.^[4] Its purpose is to compare (or contrast) the immediately preceding statement with another statement in the same work or, more commonly, a statement in another work.^[2] A fabricated example of its use in legal writing:

While cars are required by law to stop at all stop signs (Vehicle Code section 1234 ("Cars must stop at stop signs")), pedestrians are not (cf. Vehicle Code section 4321 ("Pedestrians need not stop at stop signs")).

Another use of "cf." appears in the "formatting" section of this article.

cf. is sometimes used in place of "see", as in:

The Australian language Dyirbal has a remarkable gender system; cf. Dixon (1972).^[5]

and

That which is animal, therefore, does not perceive the things that are of God cf. 1 Cor 2:14.^[6]

Note: While the use of cf. for "see" is widespread, usage guides consider it incorrect^[7]. Nevertheless, it is common, especially when used for Biblical citations.

In biology, the abbreviation has one additional use in open nomenclature: it denotes specimens or populations that resemble a known taxon, but differ in details; they thus may or may not refer to an undescribed taxon. For example, a cory catfish was known as Corydoras cf. reynoldsi, meaning that it resembles but is not identical to typical Corydoras reynoldsi. In this particular case, it indeed turned out to be a new species, later described as Corydoras tukano. Related and often interchangeable is the abbreviation aff. (for affinis, "related to").^[8]

Formatting

Formatted properly, the abbreviation has a single period after it ("cf.", not "c.f.") because it represents a shortening of the single word confer, not two words as in "quod vide" (cf. "q.v."). Use of italics for abbreviations of foreign words and phrases has become less common in modern usage, especially for such common abbreviations as cf., e.g., i.e., and viz.

See also

• Citation signal
• List of Latin abbreviations

References

1. ^ Peter Redman, Good essay writing: a social sciences guide, p. 114.
2. ^ ^{a b} William Giles Campbell, Form and style in thesis writing, p. 41.
3. ^ Dan Richard Jones, Technical writing style, p. 101.
4. ^ Joyce J. George, Judicial opinion writing handbook , p. 358.
5. ^ "Abbreviations". Informatics.sussex.ac.uk. http://www.informatics.sussex.ac.uk/department/docs/punctuation/node28.html. Retrieved 2010-07-14. 
6. ^ Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, Selected spiritual writings, ed. H. Lawrence Bond, pp. 183, 315
7. ^ "Abbreviations". Informatics.sussex.ac.uk. http://www.informatics.sussex.ac.uk/department/docs/punctuation/node28.html. Retrieved 2011-06-4. 
8. ^ http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1679-62252003000200002