what is an x reference and does DS use them

Pardon the simple question but I am new to DS and basically self teaching. Having created a model in model space, I then created 2 paper space drawings. Trouble is, if I delete a line in either of the model or paper spaces, it disappears in the other ones as well. I am told that X references are the key to this , but I can find no reference to them in the DS help. Please advise. Also, how do you set the scale of a viewport? I do not know if the list of scales in Options > Drawing Settings > Drawing Scale List is relevant. I cannot figure this out.