The 17-volume ''Macropædia'' is the third part of the ''

Encyclopædia Britannica The is a general knowledge, general-knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, ...

''; the other two parts are the 12-volume '' Micropædia'' and the one-volume '' Propædia''. The name ''Macropædia'' is a

neologism In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...

coined by Mortimer J. Adler from the

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

words for 'large' and 'instruction'. Adler's intention was that the ''Macropædia'' serve students who wish to learn a field in depth; for comparison, the short articles of the ''Micropædia'' are intended for quick

fact-checking Fact-checking is the process of verifying the factual accuracy of questioned reporting and statements. Fact-checking can be conducted before or after the text or content is published or otherwise disseminated. Internal fact-checking is such che ...

. The ''Macropædia'' was introduced in the 15th edition (1974) with 19 volumes having 4,207 articles. In the drastic reorganization of that edition in 1985, these articles were combined and condensed into 17 volumes with roughly 700 articles, ranging in length from 2 to 310 pages. The longest article, on the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, resulted from the merging of the 50 articles on each state. The articles of the ''Macropædia'' are generally written by named contributors and have references, in contrast to the roughly 65,000 articles of the ''Micropædia'' that have no named contributor and no references. However, some parts of the ''Macropædia'' were written by the editorial staff of the ''Britannica''; such editorial articles are identified by the abbreviation "Ed." Since its reorganization, the ''Macropædia'' has not remained constant. New articles are constantly being added, whereas older articles are sometimes split, absorbed into other articles or drastically shortened or even deleted. An example of the latter is the 1989 article "

Adhesives Adhesive, also known as glue, cement, mucilage, or paste, is any non-metallic substance applied to one or both surfaces of two separate items that binds them together and resists their separation. The use of adhesives offers certain advantage ...

", which had its own article of seven pages in the 1989 ''Macropædia'' but was merely a page in a different article of the 1991 edition.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macropaedia Encyclopædia Britannica

See also

References