"Reference" refers to the overall reference or reference to a book or a paper in the process of academic research. The cited documents have been noted in the notes and no longer appear in the following references.

Literally, a reference is a document cited in the writing process, such as an article or a book. However, according to the definition of "Rules for the Description of Information and Literature References", the reference after the text refers to: "the relevant literature information resources cited for writing or editing papers and works.

According to the requirements of "China Academic Journals (CD-ROM Edition) Retrieval and Evaluation Data Standard (Trial)" and "China Social Science Journals Arrangement Standard (Revised Edition)", many publications distinguish between references and annotations, and define annotations as "words that further explain or supplement a certain content in the text", which are listed at the end of the article, separated from references or placed in the footer.