"A set of rules that determines the result when character strings are compared." (Peter Gulutzan & Trudy Pelzer, "SQL Performance Tuning", 2002)
"A set of rules that determines how data is compared, ordered, and presented. Character data is sorted using collation information, including locale, sort order, and case-sensitivity." (Anthony Sequeira & Brian Alderman, "The SQL Server 2000 Book", 2003)
"A set of rules that determines how data is compared, ordered, and presented. Character data is sorted using collation information, including locale, sort order, and case sensitivity." (Thomas Moore, "EXAM CRAM™ 2: Designing and Implementing Databases with SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition", 2005)
"Collations represent different types of character sets as case sensitive/case insensitive but also are used to represent non-ASCII character sets." (Joseph L Jorden & Dandy Weyn, "MCTS Microsoft SQL Server 2005: Implementation and Maintenance Study Guide - Exam 70-431", 2006)
"Identifies how data is stored, sorted, compared, and presented. A collation is a set of rules and can be set at the database and column levels. It includes locale, sort order, and case sensitivity." (Darril Gibson, "MCITP SQL Server 2005 Database Developer All-in-One Exam Guide", 2008)
"A set of rules that determine how strings of character data are compared, ordered, and presented. Character data is sorted using collation information, including locale, sort order, and case sensitivity." (Jim Joseph, "Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Unleashed", 2009)
"The assembly of documents or data entities or attributes into a standard order, such as alphabetical." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)
"A set of rules that determines how data is compared, ordered, and presented." (Microsoft, "SQL Server 2012 Glossary", 2012)
