20:15 Nov 27, 2010 

Fundamental (fundamentally), basically, essential, vital, elementary, basal.

09:16 Nov 25, 2010 

I normally check with my author/client about style guides. They usually have been told what is required by the publisher in question. Otherwise, I just adopt a standard system - Harvard - and make sure I am consistent.

09:02 Nov 25, 2010 

Before I thank you all for your information so far, I should mention that my question should of course have read *vgl.* grundlegend.

I am wondering if it would be entirely wrong to use only cf. or see (or nothing at all).
Actually various style guides (Chicago, APA , MLA) use only the author name and year or page no. for in-text citations of books and articles.

http://library.osu.edu/help/research-strategies/cite-referen...

http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/citmanage/apa

http://library.osu.edu/help/research-strategies/cite-referen...

21:13 Nov 24, 2010 

I don't think this distinction exists in English - and I don't know what the difference is between "grundlegend" and " grundsätzlich". I'd just translate them all as "see".

18:33 Nov 24, 2010 

This is about indicating a key text on the subject in question. I tend to translate vgl. as 'see', which is what is commonly used in UK/US academia (at least in the humanities). So this would be something like 'See the seminal/key/essential text/article (on this subject)...'. Just an equivalent of 'grundsätzlich', I would have thought. With 'weiterführend', the equivalent would be something like 'See also....'