Credit (creative arts)

In general, the term credit in the artistic or intellectual sense refers to an acknowledgement of those who contributed to a work, whether through ideas or in a more direct sense.

Credit in the arts

In the creative arts, credits are an acknowledgement of those who participated in the production. They are often shown at the end of movies and on CD jackets. In film, video, television, theater, etc., credits means the list of actors and behind-the-scenes staff who contributed to the production.

Credit in writing

Non-fiction

In non-fiction writing, especially academic works, it is generally considered important to give credit to sources of information and ideas. Failure to do so often gives rise to charges of plagiarism, and "piracy" of intellectual rights such as the right to receive a royalty for having written. In this sense the financial and individual meanings are linked.

Academic papers generally contain a lengthy section of footnotes or citations. Such detailed crediting of sources provides readers with an opportunity to discover more about the cited material. It also provides a check against misquotation, as it's easy for an attributed quote to be checked when the reference is available. All of this is thought to improve integrity of the instructional capital conveyed, which may be quite fragile, and easy to misinterpret or to misapply.

Fictional currency

A fictional currency is some form of defined or alluded currency in works of fiction. The names of such units of currency are sometimes based on extant or historic currencies (e.g. "Altairian dollars" or "Earth yen") while others, such as "Kalganids" in Asimov's Foundation series, may be wholly invented. A particularly common type, especially in science fiction, is electronically managed "credits". In some works of fiction, exchange media other than money are used. These are not currency as such, but rather nonstandard media of exchange used to avoid the difficulties of ensuring "double coincidence of wants" in a barter system.

Concept and creation

Authors have to take care when naming fictional currencies because of the associations between currency names and countries; recognizable names for currencies of the future (e.g. dollar or yen) may be used to imply how history has progressed, but would appear out of place in an entirely alien civilization. Historical fiction may need research. Writers need not explain the exact value of their fictional currencies or provide an exchange rate to modern money; they may rely on the intuitive grasp of their readers, for instance that one currency unit is probably of little value, but that millions of units will be worth a lot.