Encyclopedia
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An Encyclopedia is a comprehensive set of Encyclopedic Articles on a wide variety of concepts from within one or more Knowledge Branches.
- AKA: Encyclopædia.
- Context:
- It can range from being a Printed Encyclopedia to being an Digital Encyclopedia.
- It can range from being a General Encyclopedia to being a Domain-Specific Encyclopedia.
- …
- Example(s):
- 1997 Encyclopedia Britannica or the 1997 Oxford English Dictionary.
- Wikipedia.
- DBpedia.
- The Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 2013
- Encyclopedia of Machine Learning, v.1.
- …
- Counter-Example(s):
- a Dictionary.
- a Glossary.
- a Textbook.
- See: Corpus.
References
2013
- (Wikipedia, 2013) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/encyclopedia#Characteristics Retrieved:2013-12-15.
- The modern encyclopedia was developed from the dictionary in the 18th century. Historically, both encyclopedias and dictionaries have been researched and written by well-educated, well-informed content experts, but they are significantly different in structure. A dictionary is a linguistic work which primarily focuses on alphabetical listing of words and their definitions. Synonymous words and those related by the subject matter are to be found scattered around the dictionary, giving no obvious place for in-depth treatment. Thus, a dictionary typically provides limited information, analysis or background for the word defined. While it may offer a definition, it may leave the reader lacking in understanding the meaning, significance or limitations of a term, and how the term relates to a broader field of knowledge. An encyclopedia is, allegedly, not written in order to convince, although one of its goals is indeed to convince its reader about its own veracity. In the terms of Aristotle's Modes of persuasion, a dictionary should persuade the reader through logos (conveying only appropriate emotions); it will be expected to have a lack of pathos (it should not stir up irrelevant emotions), and to have little ethos except that of the dictionary itself.
To address those needs, an encyclopedia article is typically non linguistic, and covers not a word, but a subject or discipline. As well as defining and listing synonymous terms for the topic, the article is able to treat it in more depth and convey the most relevant accumulated knowledge on that subject. An encyclopedia article also often includes many maps and illustrations, as well as bibliography and statistics.
- The modern encyclopedia was developed from the dictionary in the 18th century. Historically, both encyclopedias and dictionaries have been researched and written by well-educated, well-informed content experts, but they are significantly different in structure. A dictionary is a linguistic work which primarily focuses on alphabetical listing of words and their definitions. Synonymous words and those related by the subject matter are to be found scattered around the dictionary, giving no obvious place for in-depth treatment. Thus, a dictionary typically provides limited information, analysis or background for the word defined. While it may offer a definition, it may leave the reader lacking in understanding the meaning, significance or limitations of a term, and how the term relates to a broader field of knowledge. An encyclopedia is, allegedly, not written in order to convince, although one of its goals is indeed to convince its reader about its own veracity. In the terms of Aristotle's Modes of persuasion, a dictionary should persuade the reader through logos (conveying only appropriate emotions); it will be expected to have a lack of pathos (it should not stir up irrelevant emotions), and to have little ethos except that of the dictionary itself.
- (Wikipedia, 2013) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/encyclopedia Retrieved:2013-12-15.
- An encyclopedia (also spelled encyclopaedia or encyclopædia)[1] is a type of reference work – a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge. [2] Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries, which are usually accessed alphabetically by article name.[3] Encyclopedia entries are longer and more detailed than those in most dictionaries. Generally speaking, unlike dictionary entries, which focus on linguistic information about words, encyclopedia articles focus on factual information to cover the thing or concept for which the article name stands.[4] [5] [6] [7] Encyclopedias have existed for around 2,000 years; the oldest still in existence, Naturalis Historia, was written in ca. AD 77 by Pliny the Elder. The modern encyclopedia evolved out of dictionaries around the 17th century. Historically, some encyclopedias were contained in one volume, but some, such as the Encyclopædia Britannica or the world's largest Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana, became huge multi-volume works. Some modern encyclopedias, such as Wikipedia, are electronic and are often freely available. The word encyclopedia comes from the Koine Greek [8] transliterated enkyklios paideia, meaning "general education": enkyklios (ἐγκύκλιος), meaning "circular, recurrent, required regularly, general" [9] + paideia (παιδεία), meaning "education, rearing of a child"; [10] it was reduced to a single word due to an error [11] by copyists of Latin manuscripts. Together, the phrase literally translates as "complete instruction" or "complete knowledge".
- ↑ "encyclopaedia" (online). Oxford English Dictionary (OED.com), Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/search?q=encyclopaedia. Retrieved 2012-02-18.
- ↑ Glossary of Library Terms. Riverside City College, Digital Library/Learning Resource Center. Retrieved on: November 17, 2007.
- ↑ Hartmann, R. R. K.; James, Gregory; Gregory James (1998). Dictionary of Lexicography. Routledge. p. 48. ISBN 0-415-14143-5. http://books.google.com/?id=49NZ12icE-QC&pg=PA49&dq=%22encyclopedic+dictionary%22%2Bencyclopedia&q=%22encyclopedic%20dictionary%22%2Bencyclopedia. Retrieved July 27, 2010.
- ↑ Béjoint, Henri (2000). Modern Lexicography, pp. 30–31. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-829951-6
- ↑ "Encyclopaedia". Encyclopædia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/186603/encyclopaedia. Retrieved July 27, 2010. "An English lexicographer, H.W. Fowler, wrote in the preface to the first edition (1911) of The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English that a dictionary is concerned with the uses of words and phrases and with giving information about the things for which they stand only so far as current use of the words depends upon knowledge of those things. The emphasis in an encyclopedia is much more on the nature of the things for which the words and phrases stand."
- ↑ Hartmann, R. R. K.; Gregory James (1998). Dictionary of Lexicography. Routledge. p. 49. ISBN 0-415-14143-5. http://books.google.com/?id=49NZ12icE-QC&pg=PA49&dq=%22encyclopedic+dictionary%22%2Bencyclopedia&q=%22encyclopedic%20dictionary%22%2Bencyclopedia. Retrieved July 27, 2010. "In contrast with linguistic information, encyclopedia material is more concerned with the description of objective realities than the words or phrases that refer to them. In practice, however, there is no hard and fast boundary between factual and lexical knowledge."
- ↑ Cowie, Anthony Paul (2009). The Oxford History of English Lexicography, Volume I. Oxford University Press. p. 22. ISBN 0-415-14143-5. http://books.google.com/?id=nhnVF9Or_wMC&printsec=frontcover&q. Retrieved August 17, 2010. "An 'encyclopedia' (encyclopaedia) usually gives more information than a dictionary; it explains not only the words but also the things and concepts referred to by the words."
- ↑ Ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία, Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 1.10.1, at Perseus project
- ↑ Ἐγκύκλιος, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon, at Perseus project
- ↑ Παιδεία, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon, at Perseus project
- ↑ According to some accounts, such as the American Heritage Dictionary, copyists of Latin manuscripts took this phrase to be a single Greek word, enkyklopaidia.