Representative means standing in for someone else or showing what something is typically like.

When your class chooses a representative for student council, that person speaks and votes on behalf of the whole class. They represent your class's interests and opinions to the school, the same way an ambassador represents their country in another nation. The United States has representatives in Congress who make laws on behalf of the people who elected them from their districts.

The word also describes something that shows the typical qualities of a larger group. If a teacher wants to see representative examples of your handwriting, she doesn't need every page you've ever written, just a few samples that show your normal style. A scientist might study a representative sample of pond water to understand what lives in the whole pond.

Something can also be representative of a time period or style. The Model T Ford is representative of early automobiles because it captures what cars were like in that era. If you're picking books that are representative of American literature, you'd choose ones that show important themes and styles that define it.

The key idea is showing or speaking for something larger, whether that's a person representing a group or an example representing a whole category.