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A word count is the number of words that a document contains. Knowing the number of words in a document is vital, since authors may have to write their work within certain minimum or maximum bounds. This is usually the case in academia and legal proceedings. Word counts are important in defining typing and reading speeds, which are usually given in words per minute. They are also important in defining different categories of writing, particularly prose writing, for judgment in various literary contests. For the similarly-named Surrealist journal, see Documents (journal). ...
Academia is a collective term for the scientific and cultural community engaged in higher education and research, taken as a whole. ...
Word counts are also important for spoken pieces. Formal speaking in English is usually around 100 to 120 words per minute. Thus, for example, an eight minute speech 800 to 960 words. Words per minute, commonly abbreviated wpm, is a measure of input or output speed. ...
The program wc in Unix/Linux can do word counts, as can many word processors. Different word counting programs may give unequal results for the same document; for example, different text segmentation algorithms may be used, and footnotes may or may not be counted. wc (short for word count) is a command in Unix-like operating systems. ...
Written text segmentation is the process of dividing written text into words or other similar meaningful units. ...
In mathematics, computing, linguistics, and related disciplines, an algorithm is a finite list of well-defined instructions for accomplishing some task that, given an initial state, will terminate in a defined end-state. ...
A footnote is a note of text placed at the bottom of a page in a book or document. ...
Word Counts & Publishing
Most books are between 50,000 to 100,000 words long.[citation needed] However, publishers estimate book size by pages rather than words, including white space. In professional publishing, 250 words per page is generally considered to be standard. This standard was set in earlier times, when most manuscripts (MS) were prepared on typewriters with fixed pitch fonts. Most publishers these days will accept manuscripts in any clear, easily readable font, but the old guideline of 250 words per page is still the norm.[citation needed] Look up white space, whitespace in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Mechanical desktop typewriters, such as this Underwood Five, were long time standards of government agencies, newsrooms, and sales offices. ...
In typography, a typeface is a co-ordinated set of character designs, which usually comprises an alphabet of letters, a set of numerals and a set of punctuation marks. ...
The following table is a guide to manuscript word count, based on pages, which is the standard used by editors:
Page count - Word count
- 100 pages - 25,000 words
- 200 pages - 50,000 words
- 300 pages - 75,000 words
- 400 pages - 100,000 words
- 500 pages - 125,000 words
A computer count of 50,000 words may be 65,000 in publishers' terms, so submitted manuscripts using a computer word count should note that fact on the front of the manuscript.[citation needed]
Document types defined by word counts For many kinds of prose or poetry writing, a word count helps determine the classification of the piece of writing: - Epic: A work of 200,000 words or more. (100,000 by some definitions)
- Novel: A work of 60,000 words or more. (50,000 by some definitions)
- Novella: A work of at least 17,500 words but under 60,000 words. (50,000 maximum by some definitions)
- Novelette: A work of at least 7,500 words but under 17,500 words.
- Short story: A work of at least 2,000 words but under 7,500 words. (1,000 words minimum by some definitions)
- Flash fiction: A work of less than 2,000 words. (1,000 by some definitions)
These are the lengths SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America) uses for determining categories for Nebula awards. The epic is a broadly defined genre of narrative poetry, characterized by great length, multiple settings, large numbers of characters, or long span of time involved. ...
This article is about the literary concept. ...
A novella is a narrative work of prose fiction somewhat longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. ...
A novelette (or novelet) is a piece of short prose fiction. ...
This article is in need of attention. ...
// Flash fiction is fiction characterized by its extreme brevity, as measured by its length in words. ...
The acceptable length of a thesis varies greatly, dependent predominantly on the subject. Griffith University gives the following maximums (not including appendices or footnotes): This article is about the thesis in academia. ...
Griffith University is an Australian public university with five campuses in Queensland between Brisbane and the Gold Coast. ...
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated Ph. ...
In the usage of the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, New Zealand and some other countries, the Master of Philosophy (M.Phil. ...
The Doctor of Education degree (Ed. ...
External links
References - DeRocher, James E.; Miron, Murray S. & Patten, Sam M. et al. (1973), The Counting of Words: A Review of the History, Techniques and Theory of Word Counts with Annotated Bibliography, Syracuse University Research Corporation.
- Rothman, Chuck (2005), Word Counts: What Is a Word?, Science Fiction Writers of America, <http://www.sfwa.org/writing/wordcount.htm>. An article on various word count methods in fiction publishing.
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