HK Britannica Micropedia Ready Reference Index 1-7

The 12-volume ''Micropædia'' is one of the three parts of the 15th edition of ''

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 being the one-volume '' Propædia'' and the 17-volume '' Macropædia''. The name ''Micropædia'' 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 "small" and "instruction"; the best English translation is perhaps "brief lessons". The ''Micropædia'' was introduced in 1974 with 10 volumes having 102,214 short articles, all of which were strictly fewer than 750 words. This limit was relaxed in the major re-organization of the 15th edition; many articles were condensed together, resulting in roughly 65,000 articles in 12 volumes. In general, the 750-word limit is still respected and most articles are only 1-2 paragraphs; however, a few longer articles can be found in the 2007 ''Micropædia'', such as the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

entry, which takes up a full page. With rare exceptions (<3%), the ~65,000 articles of the ''Micropædia'' have no bibliographies and no named contributors. The ''Micropædia'' is intended primarily 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 ...

and as a guide to the 700 longer articles of the ''Macropædia'', which do have identified authors and bibliographies.

References

Encyclopædia Britannica {{encyclopedia-stub he:המהדורה החמש-עשרה של האנציקלופדיה בריטניקה

See also

References