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procedure

 
Dictionary: pro·ce·dure   (prə-sē'jər) pronunciation
n.
  1. A manner of proceeding; a way of performing or effecting something: standard procedure.
  2. A series of steps taken to accomplish an end: a medical procedure; evacuation procedures.
  3. A set of established forms or methods for conducting the affairs of an organized body such as a business, club, or government.
  4. Computer Science. A set of instructions that performs a specific task; a subroutine or function.

[French procédure, from Old French, from proceder, to proceed. See proceed.]


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(1) Manual procedures are human tasks.

(2) Machine procedures are lists of programs or operating system functions to be executed. A mainframe uses job control language (JCL). Unix systems use shell scripts. Windows machines use DOS batch files.

(3) In programming, a procedure is another term for a subroutine or function.

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Thesaurus: procedure
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noun

  1. A method used in dealing with something: approach, attack, course, line, modus operandi, plan, tack, technique. See means.
  2. An action calculated to achieve an end: maneuver, measure (often used in plural), move, step, tactic. See action/inaction.
  3. An official or prescribed plan or course of action: line, policy, program. See planned/unplanned.

Dental Dictionary: procedure
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(prō-sē′jur)
n

A series of steps followed in a regular, orderly, definite way, by which a desired result is accomplished.

Spotlight: procedure
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From our Archives: Today's Highlights, May 2, 2006

In committee meetings across the US, when a question on procedure arises, members call for Robert's Rules of Order. General Henry Martyn Robert, born on this date in 1837, wrote his handbook on parliamentary procedure after he was embarrassed to realize that he could not run a simple church meeting. He based his rules loosely on the debate rules used in the US House of Representatives. Robert was an army engineer who designed the defenses for Washington, DC, during the US Civil War.
 
Columbia Encyclopedia: procedure
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procedure, in law, the rules that govern the obtaining of legal redress. This article deals only with civil procedure in Anglo-American law (for criminal procedure, see criminal law). Except for evidence, procedure conventionally embraces all matters concerning legal actions that come to trial; thus, procedure is the means for enforcing the rights guaranteed by the substantive law.

Current Civil Procedure

A legal action, in its simplest form, is a proceeding of a plaintiff against a defendant from whom redress is sought. The plaintiff begins a lawsuit by filing a complaint, a written statement of his or her claim and the relief desired, with a court that has jurisdiction (authority to hear the case). The defendant is served a process (e.g., a summons) that notifies him or her of the suit and usually responds with an answer. Failure to respond ordinarily entitles the plaintiff to a judgment by default.

Today, liberal rules of pretrial discovery allow parties to a civil action to obtain information from other parties and their witnesses through depositions and other devices. Discovery (i.e., disclosure) is now used to ascertain the facts believed by the other side to exist, and to narrow the issues to be tried. At common law, pleadings performed this function, and they were continued beyond the complaint and answer until an issue was agreed upon.

The issue is one of law if the defendant denies that the alleged acts are a violation of substantive law entitling the plaintiff to relief; it is one of fact if the defendant denies committing any of the alleged acts. The judge rules on an issue of law, and if the judge upholds the defendant the suit is dismissed. An issue of fact is resolved by the presentation of evidence to the jury, or, in cases tried without a jury, by the judge. After the jury has delivered a verdict on the factual issue, the judge renders a judgment, which in most (but by no means all) instances upholds the verdict. At this point the case is closed (unless the losing party prosecutes an appeal), and the plaintiff, if having won, proceeds to execution of the judgment.

Evolution of Procedural Law

Current procedural law has had a long historical evolution. The early common law allowed an action to be brought only if it closely conformed to a writ. Rigorous enforcement of the rule "no writ, no right," and the small number of available writs acted to deny relief even in meritorious cases and stimulated the growth of equity, which, in its early days, gave redress generously.

By the 19th cent., however, the technical intricacy of equity and law procedure and the tendency to make cases hinge on procedural details rather than on substantive rights made reform imperative. The way was led by the New York code of civil procedure of 1848 (largely the work of David Dudley Field), which abolished the distinction between law and equity (thereby effecting great simplification) and established the cause of action as the procedural cornerstone. A similar reform was accomplished in Great Britain by the Judicature Acts of 1875. Today the procedure of most American jurisdictions is based on codes (like that of New York) rather than on common law and equity, although the influence of these separate categories is still frequently discernible.

Bibliography

See J. Michael, The Elements of Legal Controversy (1948); P. Carrington, Civil Procedure (1969).


Law Encyclopedia: Procedure
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This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.

The methods by which legal rights are enforced; the specific machinery for carrying on a lawsuit, including process, the pleadings, rules of evidence, and rules of civil procedure or criminal procedure.

The form, manner, and order of steps taken in conducting a lawsuit are all regulated by procedural law, which regulates how the law will be administered. Substantive law creates and defines rights that exist under the law.

See: civil procedure.

Military Dictionary: procedure
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(DOD) A procedure begins with a specific, documentable event that causes an activity to occur. The activity must produce a product that normally affects another external organization. Frequently, that product will be the event that causes another procedure to occur. It is important to recognize that a procedure determines "what" an organization must do at critical periods but does not direct "how" it will be done.

Word Tutor: procedure
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pronunciation

IN BRIEF: A way or method of doing something.

pronunciation Treating people the way that they would like to be treated should be a standard operating procedure for all of us in business. — Dan Brent Burt

Wikipedia: Procedure (term)
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A procedure is a specified series of actions or operations which have to be executed in the same manner in order to always obtain the same result under the same circumstances (for example, emergency procedures). Less precisely speaking, this word can indicate a sequence of activities, tasks, steps, decisions, calculations and processes, that when undertaken in the sequence laid down produces the described result, product or outcome. A procedure usually induces a change. It is in the scientific method.


Misspellings: procedure
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Common misspelling(s) of procedure

  • proceedure
  • procedger

Translations: Procedure
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Dansk (Danish)
n. - fremgangsmåde, forretningsgang

Nederlands (Dutch)
procedure, werkwijze, deel van computerprogramma

Français (French)
n. - (gén) procédure, (Comput) procédure

Deutsch (German)
n. - Prozedur, Verfahren

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - διαδικασία, μέθοδος, (νομ.) δικονομία, (Η/Υ) υπορουτίνα

Italiano (Italian)
procedura, prassi

Português (Portuguese)
n. - procedimento (m)

Русский (Russian)
процедура, метод, процесс

Español (Spanish)
n. - procedimiento, trámites, reglamento

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - procedur, förfarande, tillvägagångssätt, metod, åtgärd

中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
程序, 手续, 过程

中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 程式, 手續, 過程

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 순서, 절차, 조건

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 進行, 手順, 処置, 手続き, 行為

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) إجراء‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮הליך, נוהל, פרוצדורה‬


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