Glossary

Encyclopedia article: An article, at least a paragraph in length, that offer a general, wide-ranging discussion of both the meaning and the main characteristics of something. Generally. they are introductory: they are written to introduce neophytes to the topic, but academic encyclopedia articles tend, instead, to document what is known or theorized. In either case, the article may be said to characterize the topic as such, in generalities, rather than making specific, specialized claims about it. Such articles are often contained in things called encyclopedias (encyclopædias, encyclopaedias, cyclopedias) both digital and printed. Some articles in things called dictionaries, handbooks, companions, or compendiums are also encyclopedia articles. To complicate the matter, not all reference works called "encyclopedias"contain any encyclopedia articles at all. Websites and print publications that are not generally encyclopedias,, dictionaries, handbooks, companions, etc., may contain writing that may serve as encyclopedia articles. Encyclopedia articles are generally distinguished from a rather long list of related things, which are not "encyclopedic": dictionary definitions, which document a term's meaning; academic papers, which provide original research on a topic without saying much by way of general characterization; statistical handbook entries, which contain tables of information usually without explaining it; "how-to" articles, which explain the procedures for doing something, often in a very introductory way, but which usually leave core concepts (or people and places, etc.) unexplained; and so forth.