Introductory Signals
Small words placed before a citation that tell the reader what the cited source is doing — supporting, contradicting, or merely comparing.
Introductory signals are the short prefaces — 'see', 'see also', 'accord', 'cf.', 'contra', 'but see' — that legal and academic writers place in front of citations to indicate the relationship between the cited source and the sentence it follows. Each signal has a fixed meaning: 'see' means the source directly supports the point but is not the point's own statement; 'accord' means the source agrees with a source just cited; 'cf.' means the source supports by analogy; 'contra' means it takes the opposite view.
The system compresses a great deal of argumentative structure into very little space. A footnote reading 'See Smith, at 30; accord Jones, at 45; but see Lee, at 12' tells the reader in ten words that Smith is the direct authority, Jones agrees, and Lee disagrees — a paragraph's worth of scholarly framing packed into three signals.
The Bluebook, ALWD Guide, and OSCOLA all standardise the signals and their order, though they differ in detail. Writers moving between citation systems should check which signals are recognised in the target style; a signal used in one system may be treated as an error in another.
Common mistake: using 'see' when the citation is the direct statement of the point. If the sentence says exactly what the source says, the citation stands alone; 'see' implies that the reader will have to do a small bit of inferential work to get from the source to the sentence, and misusing it wastes the signal's precision.
“The rule permits recovery for purely economic loss in limited circumstances. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 552 (1977); accord Onita Pac. Corp. v. Trs. of Bronson, 843 P.2d 890, 896 (Or. 1992); but see East River S.S. Corp. v. Transamerica Delaval, Inc., 476 U.S. 858, 871 (1986).”
Keep reading the glossary
A formal reference that lets a reader locate the source of a quote.
A citation that points to the exact page, paragraph, or section where a quoted or paraphrased passage appears.
The introductory clause — 'as Orwell writes' — that flags a quotation and identifies its source in running prose.
A citation that stacks multiple sources in a single note to support one proposition.