Can “references” mean “citations”?

Question

I have a question about the meaning of “reference”. The text is as follows:

As mandated in paragraph 4 d) of Resolution Conf. 4.6 (Rev. CoP18) on Submission of draft resolutions and other documents for meetings of the Conference of the Parties, the Secretariat has gathered a list of reporting requirements that can be found in Annex 2 to this document. In the absence of a definition of “reporting requirements”, the Secretariat has included all references in the Convention, Resolutions and Decisions that request Parties to send reports or information to the Secretariat or other Parties. The list is divided into three categories: 1) reporting requirements and requests for information that can be found in the Convention; 2) reporting requirements and requests for information that can be found in Resolutions; and 3) reporting requirements and requests for information that can be found in Decisions.CITES

Here, does “included references” mean “included citations/quotations”?

Can I use references as the same meaning of citations/quotations?

When I searched Longman dictionary, it says it means “a book, article etc from which information has been obtained”, so I’m so confused. It looks like references just mean the whole source which I quote from according the the dictionary. Please help me.  Thank you very much.

Answer 1

I agree that the definition in dictionaries doesn't exactly match their own examples. Cambridge gives a similar definition "a writer or a book, article, etc. that is mentioned in a piece of writing", but gives the following example:

All references should be brought together at the end of the paper in alphabetical order of authors.

The example shows that "reference" can mean "bibliographical reference", a piece of information provided in a footnote or bibliography of a written work (Wikipedia).

I'm not certain of the meaning of "reference" in the text. It may be some technical legal term. However, "reference" can be that part of a citation that occurs in a bibliography. I suppose this is no different from having a "list of dogs: collie, rottweiler, alsatian" The list of dogs is actually a list of names of dogs. Similarly a list of references is a list of names,author,publisher,date. and doesn't contain the actual books and articles.

A quote isn't a reference. But a quote should have a citation that links to a reference item in the bibliography.