Is It a Manuscript, a Blog or a Book?

byRAFStuart

4.9K followers

4 years ago

Introduction

Good Evening to you all at the WA Family, a title to set you all wondering. It was brought about by a comment made to me by Linda, who asked me if a manuscript of over one hundred pages was a book.

Various dialogue passed between us, blog was mentioned, and various other thoughts were aired.

This set me thinking, just what are a manuscript, a blog and a book? To this I would like to add a booklet, a manual and an article.

These are some of my thoughts, with the basic dictionary definitions:

A Manuscript

This is defined as:

"a book or document, written by hand or typed, but not printed, before the invention of printing"

Think that point here is that you could say that any document that you put on the computer is a manuscript as it is typed, you could also say that it is a book!

A Blog

The definition on the world wide web is

1. A blog is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries. Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page.

Thought that I would leave in the actual wording as it explains it rather well. However, it is definitely an item or term used in the magic world of the internet.

A Book

The basic definition makes for interesting reading;

" A collection of sheets of paper"

Reverting back to the definition of a manuscript, you could note that the number of pages is immaterial, for it to qualify as a book.

A Booklet

This is not defined independently, may I suggest;

" A small book"

Will leave that there, as I feel total confusion could reign at any moment.

A Manual

The dictionary states:

"A handbook or a handy compendium of a large subject"

This is one definition that I think is pretty clear to us all, always believed that a manual was a book to teach you about a particular topic or subject.

An Article

The Dictionary says amongst other things:

"The treating of a subject distinctly and independently, also a literary composition in a newspaper, periodical or encyclopedia"

Will not pass comment on an article being a literary compostion in a newspaper, will leave that to your imagination. However it does make it clear I feel, that it is about one subject, it could be argued that so can a book be, but would suggest that a book would have a number of chapters, therefore these would be a number of articles.

General Thoughts

The idea of this blog was to have a general discussion on the various types of "publications" that we can come across in our general line of work on the internet.

Is there any defined number of words for example for a particular type of publication? or a number of pages? Would suggest that possibly an article might be the only one that has any form of defined definition, having just re-read that, a manual of course is also clearly defined, as is a blog.

Conclusion

Just occasionally like to throw in the odd blog, or article, to set you thinking and also to provoke some friendly discussion or debate.

Having just had another look at this, not sure it should even be posted, but have spent an hour or so on it so will press send in a minute.

Am aware that your comments could slaughter me, but I am old enough, daft enough and possibly big enough to take it.

If you think that this twaddle, fine, but thought it would make a change for me to discuss a topic, rather than what I have or have not been doing.

Do please remain safe.

God Bless,

Be Happy, Healthy and Wealthy.

Stuart