When an author cites another study, but prefaces the citation with c.f., what does that mean?
I have heard two opinions. The first is that it is for citing a conflicting opinion “Most scholars believe the world is flat (c.f. Columbus, 1492)…”
The second is that it is for citing only one of many studies providing the same information “There are many accounts of travel in the 1400s (c.f. Columbus, 1492) …”
Are either of these correct? The sources I have checked explain it means “confer” or “compare,” but that doesn’t really make the usage clear to me.
In either case, the author (or editor or whoever) is telling you to compare the current statement, thought, concept, whatever, with one found in the cited source. The cited source may confirm, contradict, or merely add a different point of view to that being discussed.
FWIW, my personal copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey is riddled with cf notations in the margins from when I once read it and 2010 back to back over the course of about 2 days and couldn’t help but notice places Clarke had echoed, contradicted, and/or simply repeated himself. Of course, that’s back when I thought I might teach those books in class one day and I didn’t want to forget.
It does come from “confer” and it does mean “compare.”
Essentially, cf. is intended to point the reader in the direction of information that is intended to augment the writer’s argument or point. It’s just a fancy way of saying “see also”.
As everyone has noted, it stands for Latin confer, meaning “compare,” and is used to refer the reader to a source with a supportive but different perspective than what is annotated with the Cf. (For a disjunctive perspective, you sometimes see “But Cf. othersource.”)
One point to note is that like etc. but unlike i.e., e.g., and op. cit., it’s an abbreviation of a single word, and so does not take the interior period shown in the OP. Cf. not c.f.
