Bibliographic description

Documents differ in format, structure, purpose, and mode of use.

There are different kinds of documents: books, book chapters, journal articles, web sites.

A journal article is shorter than a book, covers usually only one very specific topic, and focuses on a single, well-defined aspect. It takes a lot less time than a book to be published and it can be easily spread into the scientific community, and for that reason it is the most widespread form of document for presenting new discoveries.

Therefore, journal articles are the preferred publishing form in the STEM areas (sciences, technology, medicine), while book s are still the usual format for humanities and social sciences.

You can recognize them from the bibliographic description in databases or catalogues.

IdeaTo be able to distinguish different kinds of documents helps you also in writing your final bibliography.

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