Loc. cit.

A legacy citation shorthand directing the reader to the same work and page previously cited for the named author.

Version

v1 · 2026-09-08 · History

Domain-specific #

5369

Origin domain

citation practice

Subdomain

citation practice

Core Idea

Loco citato replaces a repeated bibliographic reference when an earlier citation to that work and exact location can be recovered unambiguously, contrasting with ibid for an immediately preceding source and op cit for a different location in a prior work. Author context plus citation history acts as a compressed pointer, trading typographic economy for dependence on stable nearby ordering and unambiguous prior references. The abstraction is therefore identified by a declared carrier, a transformation or constraint over that carrier, and an invariant that tells an analyst whether the named structure is genuinely present.

Scope of Application

Loc. cit. belongs to citation practice and is useful where the analyst can specify the typed citation practice carrier, defining objects and relations, parameters, conventions, evidence, boundary cases, and comparison targets, then evaluate one earlier citation uniquely supplies both work and location, the style permits the abbreviation, and the pointer remains resolvable after editing. The scope is broad within that domain but bounded by the need for one earlier citation uniquely supplies both work and location, the style permits the abbreviation, and the pointer remains resolvable after editing. The entry records a descriptive analytical identity; practical use requires the governing domain's evidence, standards, and safety obligations.

Clarity

The abstraction clarifies a crowded vocabulary by making one earlier citation uniquely supplies both work and location, the style permits the abbreviation, and the pointer remains resolvable after editing the center of the account. A claim should name the carrier, the governing operation or relation, the applicable assumptions, and the recognition test. A bare label is insufficient because the name Loc. cit. can be used for a formal identity, an implementation, or a neighboring result unless carrier and convention are stated.

Manages Complexity

Without the abstraction, an analyst must reason directly over many local details: the carrier roles, admissibility assumptions, competing conventions, derived invariants, boundary cases, and proof or validation obligations specific to Loc. cit.. Loc. cit. compresses them into the roles in the structural signature. That compression permits comparison across instances without erasing the variables that determine validity. It also exposes which details may be varied safely and which are constitutive.

Abstract Reasoning

1. Identify the carrier. State what the elements, states, objects, or observations are: the typed citation practice carrier, defining objects and relations, parameters, conventions, evidence, boundary cases, and comparison targets. Reject examples whose alleged carrier belongs to a different problem. 2. Lock the constitutive rule. Express one earlier citation uniquely supplies both work and location, the style permits the abbreviation, and the pointer remains resolvable after editing independently of one notation or implementation.

Knowledge Transfer

Knowledge transfers strongly among subfields of citation practice because they reuse the typed citation practice carrier, defining objects and relations, parameters, conventions, evidence, boundary cases, and comparison targets, Author context plus citation history acts as a compressed pointer, trading typographic economy for dependence on stable nearby ordering and unambiguous prior references., and type the carrier, state every parameter and convention in the definition, test that one earlier citation uniquely supplies both work and location, the style permits the abbreviation, and the pointer remains resolvable after editing, compare the nearest accepted identity, and report counterexamples, uncertainty, and limiting cases.

Relationships to Other Abstractions

Current abstraction Loc. cit. Domain-specific

Parents (1) — more general patterns this builds on

• Loc. cit. is a kind of Provenance Prime

  The proposed strict upward parent is prime:provenance.

Hierarchy paths (4) — routes to 4 parentless roots

• Loc. cit. → Provenance → Traceability → Observability

Show alternative paths (3)

Neighborhood in Abstraction Space

Loc. cit. sits in a moderately populated region (45^th percentile for distinctiveness): it has near-neighbors but no dense thicket of look-alikes.

Family — Media Production & Publicity (17 abstractions)

Nearest neighbors

• Paraphrasing of copyrighted material — 0.89
• H-index — 0.89
• Writing process — 0.89
• Standard page — 0.89
• Ellipsis — 0.89

Computed from structural-signature embeddings · 2026-09-08