I can't find a clear definition that differentiates sequence assembly vs scaffolding.
From my understanding,
Assembly = joining reads into contigs
Scaffolding = joining contigs into scaffolds (using eg paired-end reads)
Does that sound right? It seems that assembly must be followed by scaffolding, but definitions of assembly don't even talk about scaffolding. Can you do assemble a whole genome with just "assembly"?
Assembly is not exactly "joining reads into contigs", but "creating contigs from reads", which is more general. Joining implies the reads are intact (which is sometimes true) but most modern assemblies break them into kmers first and don't actually join any reads.