Document

A Document is a written information resource that contains a discourse.

• AKA: Documentation, Information Resource.
• Context:
  • It can (typically) have Document Components like authors and metadata.
  • It can (typically) contain Document Body with document sections.
  • It can (typically) be created by Document Creation Tasks.
  • It can (often) contain Visual Elements like figures and illustrations.
  • It can (often) include References to other documents.
  • It can (often) have Document Titles and author names.
  • ...
  • It can range from being an Unstructured Document to being a Structured Document, depending on its organization type.
  • It can range from being a Physical Document to being an Electronic Document, depending on its medium.
  • It can range from being a Fiction Document to being a Non-Fiction Document, depending on its content type.
  • It can range from being an Unpublished Document to being a Published Document, depending on its publication status.
  • It can range from being a Small Document to being a Large-sized Document, depending on its size.
  • It can range from being a Text-Only Document to begin a Rich-Text Document to being a Image-Including Document.
  • ...
  • It can have Document Metadata.
  • It can belong to Document Sets (e.g. corpus).
  • It can be an output of Document Retrieval Tasks.
  • It can be an input to Document Processing Tasks, such as document editing and document indexing.
  • ...
• Example(s):
  • Professional Documents:
    • Academic Documents, such as research papers (for scientific communication) and dissertations (for academic qualification).
    • Business Documents, such as business plans (for strategic planning) and annual reports (for corporate reporting).
    • Legal Documents, such as contracts (for legal agreements) and patents (for intellectual property protection).
    • Technical Documents, such as user manuals (for product instruction) and api documentation (for software interface description).
    • Medical Documents, such as patient records (for healthcare tracking) and clinical protocols (for medical procedure guidance).
  • Educational Documents and Reference Documents:
    • Educational Documents, such as textbooks (for structured learning) and curriculum guides (for educational planning).
    • Reference Documents, such as dictionarys (for word definition) and encyclopedias (for knowledge compilation).
    • Training Documents, such as workshop manuals (for skill development) and tutorial guides (for learning support).
    • Study Guides, such as course outlines (for learning organization) and exam preparation materials (for test preparation).
  • Creative Documents and Cultural Documents:
    • Creative Documents, such as novels (for narrative storytelling) and screenplays (for dramatic presentation).
    • Cultural Documents, such as folklore collections (for cultural preservation) and ritual texts (for ceremonial guidance).
    • Entertainment Documents, such as magazines (for leisure reading) and comic books (for visual storytelling).
    • Art Documents, such as exhibition catalogs (for art presentation) and performance scripts (for artistic direction).
  • Institutional Documents:
    • Government Documents, such as policy papers (for public administration) and legislation (for law establishment).
    • Organizational Documents, such as procedure manuals (for process standardization) and employee handbooks (for workplace guidance).
    • Administrative Documents, such as meeting minutes (for discussion recording) and office memos (for internal communication).
    • Regulatory Documents, such as compliance reports (for regulation adherence) and audit documents (for verification purposes).
  • Personal Documents and Social Documents:
    • Personal Documents, such as diarys (for personal recording) and resumes (for professional presentation).
    • Social Documents, such as letters (for personal communication) and greeting cards (for social expression).
    • Identity Documents, such as passports (for travel authorization) and driver licenses (for driving permission).
    • Financial Documents, such as bank statements (for transaction recording) and tax returns (for tax reporting).
  • Digital Documents:
    • Digital Documents, such as blog posts (for web publishing) and wiki pages (for collaborative documentation).
    • Electronic Forms, such as online applications (for data collection) and digital surveys (for feedback gathering).
    • Web Documents, such as landing pages (for web presentation) and help documents (for online assistance).
    • Social Media Documents, such as social posts (for social sharing) and profile pages (for online presence).
  • Archival Documents:
    • Historical Documents, such as manuscripts (for historical preservation) and archive records (for historical documentation).
    • Archaeological Documents, such as site reports (for excavation documentation) and artifact catalogs (for finding registration).
    • Heritage Documents, such as family trees (for genealogical recording) and cultural inventorys (for heritage preservation).
    • Museum Documents, such as collection catalogs (for artifact documentation) and conservation reports (for preservation recording).
  • ...
• Counter-Examples:
  • Linguistic Sentence, which lacks complete discourse.
  • Text Item, which doesn't require discourse.
  • Business Brochure, which focuses on promotion.
  • Spreadsheet File, which organizes data.
  • Visual Items such as photograph, painting, or map.
  • Audio Items such as recorded speech.
  • Data Record, which stores structured information.
• See: Document Engineering, Documentation Science.

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References

2015

• (Wikipedia, 2015) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/document Retrieved:2015-1-16.
  • A document is a written, drawn, presented or recorded representation of thoughts. Originating from the Latin Documentum meaning lesson - the verb doceō means to teach, and is pronounced similarly, in the past it was usually used as a term for a written proof used as evidence. In the computer age, a document is usually used to describe a primarily textual file, along with its structure and design, such as fonts, colors and additional images.

    The modern term 'document' can no longer be defined by its transmission medium (such as paper), following the existence of electronic documents. 'Documentation' has more meanings than a written or drawn presentation of thoughts.

    The formal term 'document' is defined in Library and information science and in documentation science, as a basic theoretical construct. It is everything which may be preserved or represented in order to serve as evidence for some purpose. The classical example provided by Suzanne Briet is an antelope: "An antelope running wild on the plains of Africa should not be considered a document, she rules. But if it were to be captured, taken to a zoo and made an object of study, it has been made into a document. It has become physical evidence being used by those who study it. Indeed, scholarly articles written about the antelope are secondary documents, since the antelope itself is the primary document." (Quoted from Buckland, 1998 ). (This view has been seen as an early expression of what now is known as actor–network theory).

2009

• http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/document
  • An original or official paper relied upon as the basis, proof, or support of anything else, including any writing, book, or other instrument conveying information pertinent to such proof or support. Any material substance on which the thoughts of men are represented by any species of conventional mark or symbol.

2009

• (Wikipedia, 2009) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document
  • … Colloquial usage is revealed by the connotations and denotations that appear in a Web search for document. From these usages, one can infer the following typical connotations:
    • Writing that provides information person's thinking by means of symbolic marks.
    • A written account of ownership or obligation.
    • To record in detail; "The parents documented every step of their child's development".
    • A digital file in a particular format.
    • To support or supply with references; "Can you document your claims?".
    • An artifact that meets a legal notion of document for purposes of discovery in litigation.
  • The variety of usage reveals that the notion of document has rich social and cultural aspects besides the physical, functional and operational aspects.
  • Empirical characterization
  • In light of the polysemy of the core concept of document, it is useful to note a number of examples ranging from instances commonly understood as prototypical documents, to instances that are understood as documents only in specialized or rare situations.
    • Prototypical Documents: Letters, memos, legal forms, Instruction manual
    • Documents of Record: Newspapers and magazines
    • Books: Text book, Novels, Recipe books, Encyclopedia, Comic books
    • Canonical Documents: The Bible,Iliad and Odyssey,Vedas, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Quran, Code of Hammurabi,Tao Te Ching
    • Transactional Documents: Cheque, Contracts, Prescription, Receipt, Form (document), Postage Stamp
    • Functional Documents: PDF files, PostScript files, XML files, Email
    • Non-Prototypical Documents: Post-it notes, Fortune cookie strips, Maps, Paintings, milk cartons, cereal boxes
    • Non-Classical Digital Documents: Web Page, Weblog, Wiki
    • Boundary Examples: The plaque on the Pioneer 11 spacecraft, designed by astronomer Carl Sagan, and using information assumed to be universal is an extreme example of a document that is intended to communicate with aliens. Conversely, the recorded and printed signals of the SETI project would constitute documents if they were discovered to contain alien communication.

2008

• (Dextre Clarke et al., 2008) ⇒ Stella Dextre Clarke, Alan Gilchrist, Ron Davies and Leonard Will. (2008). “Glossary of Terms Relating to Thesauri and Other Forms of Structured Vocabulary for Information Retrieval." Willpower Information
  • document
    • (use for information resource)
    • item that can be classified or indexed in order that it may be retrieved
    • This definition refers not only to written and printed materials in paper or microform versions (for example, books, journals, diagrams, maps), but also to non-printed media, machine-readable and digitized records, Internet and intranet resources, films, sound recordings, people and organizations as knowledge resources, buildings, sites, monuments, three-dimensional objects or realia; and to collections of such items or parts of such items.----

2005

• (ANSI Z39.19, 2005) ⇒ ANSI. (2005). “ANSI/NISO Z39.19 - Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Controlled Vocabularies." ANSI.
  • QUOTE: "document Any item, printed or otherwise, that is amenable to cataloging and indexing. The term applies not only to written and printed materials in paper or microform versions (e.g., books, journals, maps, diagrams), but also to non-print media (e.g., machine-readable records, transparencies, audiotapes, videotapes) and, by extension, to three-dimensional objects or realia (e.g., museum objects and specimens). A document is a content object. drop-down menu See pick list.

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