Wikipedia:Use of 'refers to'

The phrase refers to is often found near the beginning of Wikipedia articles. For example, the article Computer architecture once began by saying "Computer architecture refers to the theory behind the design of a computer." But that is not literally true; it would be better to say, "Computer architecture is the theory behind the design of a computer", as the article now does. Note that it is the words computer architecture that refer to a certain theory; computer architecture itself does not refer to any theory, it is a theory.

Sometimes it may be appropriate to say, for example, "The term Great Schism refers to either one of two schisms in the history of Christianity", as the article Great Schism now does, but most often the simpler locution is better. If one mentions the phrase Great Schism, rather than using that phrase to refer to one of the Great Schisms, then one should use special markup to indicate that one is mentioning some words instead of referring to (in this case) a historical event. According to the current Manual of Style, this means setting the words in italics.

See also Use-mention distinction.