microsoft excel - how to pass a string value into COUNTIF?

For this formula:

=COUNTIF(A1:A10,"jim") 

how can I pass in a variable? That is, let's say that cell C11 has the value "jim"; can I then do something like:

=COUNTIF(A1:A10,TEXT_VALUE_OF_CELL(C11)) 

for the same result?

Answer

The cell reference acts as a variable: =COUNTIF(A1:A10,C11)