science

Section sign

Section sign is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Section sign rather than just read about it. In short: The section sign (§) is a typographical symbol for referencing individually numbered sections of a document; it is frequently used when citing sections of a legal code. It is also known as the section symbol, section mark, double-s, or silcrow.

Key takeaways

Section sign belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Section sign to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Section sign from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The section sign (§) is a typographical symbol for referencing individually numbered sections of a document; it is frequently used when citing sections of a legal code. It is also known as the section symbol, section mark, double-s, or silcrow. The section sign typically appears akin to a letter S stacked on top of another S.

Use The section sign is often used when referring to a specific section of a legal code. For example, in Bluebook style, "Title 16 of the United States Code Section 580p" becomes "16 U.S.C. § 580p". The section sign is frequently used along with the pilcrow (or paragraph sign), ¶, to reference a specific paragraph within a section of a document. However, some jurisdictions prefer the sign be avoided, and rather that the word "section" be written out in full. While § is usually read in spoken English as the word section, many other languages use the word paragraph exclusively to refer to a section of a document (especially of legal text), and use other words to describe a paragraph in the English sense. Consequently, in those cases "§" may be read as "paragraph", and may occasionally also be described as a "paragraph sign", but this is a description of its usage, not a formal name. When duplicated, as §§, it is read as the plural "sections". For example, "§§ 13–21" would be read as "sections 13 through 21", much as pp. (pages) is the plural of p., meaning page. It may also be used with footnotes when asterisk *, dagger †, and double dagger ‡ have already been used on a given page. It is common practice to follow the section sign with a non-breaking space so that the symbol is kept with the section number being cited. This is also used in German language (German: Paragraf). For example, "§ 242 im deutschen Strafgesetzbuch" (article 242 of the German Criminal Code).

Unicode

The section sign appeared in several early computer text encodings. It was placed at 0xA7 (167) in ISO-8859-1, a position that was inherited by Unicode as code point U+00A7 § SECTION SIGN. Representation of the sign is an artistic decision within the overall design language of the typeface (or computer font): the two more commonly seen forms are shown here. In all cases, the sign is encoded by U+00A7.

Origin Two possible origins are often posited for the section sign: most probably, that it is a ligature formed by the combination of two S glyphs (from the Latin signum sectiōnis). Some scholars, however, are skeptical of this explanation. Others have theorized that it is an adaptation of the Ancient Greek παράγραφος (paragraphos), a catch-all term for a class of punctuation marks used by scribes with diverse shapes and intended uses. The modern form of the sign, with its modern meaning, has been in use since the 15th century.

Other usages for the symbol In Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk, the § symbol is used repeatedly to mean "bureaucracy"; Paul Selver translated it as "red tape" in his 1930 English translation. In The Sims and SimCity video game franchises, the § symbol represents the fictional "Simoleon" in-game currency.

See also Pilcrow (¶), the historic indicator of an (un-numbered) new paragraph in English Scilicet ("it may be known") is sometimes rendered using a § mark instead of "viz."

References

External links Media related to Section signs at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of Section signs at Wiktionary

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Section sign

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Section sign claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Section sign before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Section sign ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Section sign

In research: Section sign appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Section sign in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Section sign is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Latin-script ligatures, Punctuation, Typographical symbols, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Section sign outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Section sign in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Section sign means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Section sign out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Section sign in simple terms?

Why does Section sign matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Section sign?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Section sign.