Proceedings Citation Guide

Glossary of Proceedings and Citation Terms

Short definitions of the terms that appear in guides to proceedings, publishing and citation. Entries are short summaries based on the organisations' own documentation.

Last updated 6 November 2026

On this page
  1. Terms A–C
  2. Terms D–H
  3. Terms I–N
  4. Terms O–R
  5. Terms S–Z
  6. Frequently asked questions
  7. Sources and further reading
  8. Related topics

In brief

  • Terms are listed A to Z in five sections.
  • Definitions are general; styles and publishers can use terms slightly differently.
  • Identifier terms follow the documentation of the DOI Foundation, ISSN Centre and ORCID.
  • This site is independent of the organisations named.

Terms A–C

These definitions are short and general. For details, see the linked guides, including identifiers, versions and open access.

Accepted manuscript
The author's version of a paper accepted for publication after peer review, before the publisher's typesetting and proofing. NISO uses this term; it is often abbreviated AM.
Accessed date
The day a reader last opened an online source. Some styles, such as many Harvard variants, ask for it when the page may change.
Article number
An identifier assigned by a publisher to a paper in place of page numbers, used where papers are published online individually.
Author-date
A citation system that places the author's surname and year in the text and lists full entries alphabetically. APA, Harvard and Chicago author-date work this way.
BibLaTeX
A LaTeX package for bibliographies with more fields and styles than classic BibTeX, such as eventtitle and venue.
Bibliography
A list of sources on a topic or those consulted for a work. Some styles use the term for the list at the end instead of 'reference list'.
BibTeX
A reference-management tool and file format for LaTeX. Entries are typed records such as @inproceedings with named fields.
Camera-ready
The final, correctly formatted version of a paper that authors submit for printing or online publication.
CC BY
A Creative Commons licence that lets others share and adapt a work, including commercially, if they credit the creator, link to the licence and indicate changes. The current version is 4.0.
Chicago style
A citation style from The Chicago Manual of Style, offered in notes-bibliography and author-date forms.
Citation
A short reference in the text pointing to a source, or the full description of a source in a reference list.
Citation chaining
Finding related work by following the references in a paper (backward) or the papers that cite it (forward).
Citation key
The unique label used to refer to a bibliography entry in BibTeX or a reference manager.
Citation Style Language (CSL)
An open XML-based language for describing citation styles, used by tools such as Zotero and Mendeley.
Concept DOI
In Zenodo, a DOI that always resolves to the latest version of a record, as opposed to the DOI of a specific version.
Conference paper
A paper presented at a conference and usually published in its proceedings.
Container
In MLA style, the larger work that holds the source, such as a proceedings volume.
COPE
The Committee on Publication Ethics, an organisation that publishes guidance on publication ethics for editors and publishers.
An agreement in which authors assign copyright to the publisher, as opposed to granting only a licence to publish.
Corrigendum
A notice that corrects an error made by the authors in a published paper; usage varies, and some publishers use the terms interchangeably. See also erratum.
Creative Commons (CC)
A non-profit organisation that provides standard public copyright licences, such as CC BY.
Crossref
A DOI registration agency whose members register metadata for their publications; the metadata is available through search and a public API.

Terms D–H

DataCite
A DOI registration agency focused on research outputs such as datasets, software and other materials.
DBLP
A free online bibliography of computer science publications, listing authors, venues and proceedings volumes.
Diamond open access
Open access publishing without fees for either authors or readers.
DOI (Digital Object Identifier)
A persistent identifier for a digital object. It has a prefix starting with 10. and a suffix, separated by a slash, and resolves through doi.org.
DOI prefix
The first part of a DOI, such as 10.1234, assigned through a registration agency to the organisation (registrant) that registers DOIs.
Double-blind review
Peer review in which neither the reviewers nor the authors know each other's identities.
Editor
A person who selects, organises and oversees the papers in a proceedings volume; named on the volume's title page.
Embargo
A period set by a publisher after publication during which authors may not make a version of the paper openly available, for example in a repository.
Erratum
A notice correcting an error introduced during publication, often by the publisher; usage varies. See also corrigendum.
Et al.
Latin for 'and others'. It shortens long author lists, in the way and after the number of authors that each style specifies.
Event title
The name of the workshop or conference, which may differ from the title of its published proceedings.
Gold open access
Open access in which the published version is freely available from the publisher, sometimes funded by an author-paid fee.
Green open access
Open access achieved by depositing a version of the paper in a repository.
Hallucinated reference
A citation produced by an AI tool that looks plausible but points to a paper that does not exist or has altered details.
Harvard referencing
A family of author-date styles with no single official version; universities publish their own variants.
Hybrid journal
A subscription journal that offers authors the option to make single articles open access.

Terms I–N

In-text citation
A brief mention of a source inside the body of a document, linking to an entry in the reference list.
Indexing
The inclusion of a source in a database, which can then be searched. Being indexed says nothing by itself about quality.
Internet Archive
A non-profit digital library that runs the Wayback Machine and other web archives.
ISBN
International Standard Book Number, which identifies a specific edition and format of a book. Numbers issued since 2007 have 13 digits, the last being a check digit.
ISSN
International Standard Serial Number, an eight-character code (the last may be X, a check character) that identifies a serial such as a journal or a proceedings series.
ISSN-L
A linking ISSN that groups the different media versions of one serial under a single number.
Landing page
The web page that describes a paper and links to its full text.
The gradual failure of links as web pages move or disappear.
Metadata
Structured data describing a paper, such as authors, title, year, venue and identifiers.
NISO
The National Information Standards Organization, which with ALPSP published recommended terms for journal article versions (RP-8-2008).
Numbered citation
A system in which sources are cited by number in the text, as in IEEE style.

Terms O–R

Open access (OA)
Free online access to research outputs, usually with some rights of reuse.
ORCID
A persistent identifier for researchers, formed of 16 characters in four groups, the last of which may be X as a check character. It distinguishes people with similar names.
Page range
The first and last pages of a paper within its volume.
Peer review
Evaluation of a submission by experts in the field before it is accepted.
A link intended to stay valid over time.
Persistent identifier
A long-lasting reference to a digital object that remains stable even if its location changes, such as a DOI.
Poster
A presentation format in which results are shown on a single display; posters may or may not appear in the proceedings.
Preprint
A version of a paper shared before peer review, often on a server such as arXiv. NISO calls such versions Author's Original or Submitted Manuscript Under Review.
Proceedings
The published collection of papers presented at a conference or workshop.
Program committee
The group of experts who review submissions and select the papers for a workshop or conference.
Publisher
The organisation responsible for issuing a work, which may differ from the event organiser.
Reference list
The list at the end of a document that gives full details of every source cited.
Reference manager
Software that stores sources and formats citations, such as Zotero, Mendeley or EndNote.
Resolver
A service that converts an identifier, such as a DOI, into the current location of the object.
Retraction
A formal withdrawal of a published paper because of serious problems in it.
RIS
A tagged text format used to exchange bibliographic records between databases and reference managers.

Terms S–Z

Scopus
An abstract and citation database from Elsevier that indexes sources selected under its content policy.
Self-archiving
The act of authors depositing a version of their own paper in a repository or on a personal site.
Sentence case
A capitalisation style in which only the first word and proper nouns start with capital letters.
Series
A group of volumes published under one title, sometimes with an ISSN.
Single-blind review
Peer review in which reviewers know the authors' identities but the authors do not know the reviewers.
Title case
A capitalisation style in which the main words of a title start with capital letters.
Track
A themed strand within a conference with its own call for papers and reviewers.
URN
Uniform Resource Name, a persistent, location-independent name for a resource, written as urn: followed by a namespace and a name.
Version of record (VoR)
The final version declared published by the publisher; it is the one normally cited. Abbreviated VoR in the NISO terms.
Volume
A single book or numbered unit within a series; for proceedings, the collection from one event.
Wayback Machine
The Internet Archive service that stores snapshots of web pages.
Web of Science
A citation database from Clarivate; its Core Collection covers titles and proceedings selected through Clarivate's editorial process.
Workshop
A smaller meeting, often attached to a conference, devoted to a narrow topic, which may publish its own proceedings.
Zenodo
A general-purpose research repository operated by CERN that assigns DOIs to deposits.

Frequently asked questions

Are the definitions official?

No. They are our own short summaries based on the organisations' documentation. Check the relevant body for the formal wording.

Why do some terms differ between fields?

Fields use words such as workshop, track or volume differently. Follow the usage of your venue.

Where can I check an identifier term?

Use the owner of each identifier, such as doi.org, issn.org or orcid.org. See the sources page for links.

Does the glossary cover every term?

No. It covers terms that appear in this site's guides. Tell us if an important one is missing through the contact details on the site.

Sources and further reading

  1. DOI Foundation — What is a DOI?
  2. ISSN International Centre — ISSN Portal
  3. ORCID — ORCID
  4. Crossref — Crossref documentation
  5. DataCite — DataCite Support
  6. Creative Commons — CC BY 4.0 deed (2013)
  7. CSL project — Citation Style Language
  8. NISO and ALPSP — NISO RP-8-2008, Journal Article Versions (JAV) (2008)