Parts of a Book and their contents
Anatomy of a Book: Terms to Know
Although it seems simple, knowing the different parts of an academic book can help you navigate the information within a text more easily, and save you lots of precious study time. Below is a list of definitions for different sections of an academic book. They are organized by which part of the book they can be found in. Not every academic book will contain every component listed here, but it is always good to check any book you use for them. Think of them as tools you can use to locate the information you need from the book more quickly!
Front Matter
The front matter of a text (sometimes called prelims) is everything in a book that preceeds the main body of text. This includes things like the title page, copyright page, table of contents, and even the preface, foreward, or introduction of a work. The below definitions are all things that can be found in the Front Matter of a book.
Title: The name of the text. May include a subtitle or be shortened to an acronym Located on the front cover of the book or on the Title page, usually a page or two into the text.
Author/Editor: The creator of the work. This may mean that they wrote the text, or compiled works by other creators into a single edition, in which case they would be labeled the editor. The author is usually found under the title of a work, as is the editor. In an edited addition, the author of a chapter may be found on the front page of that chapter or in the table of contents.
Publisher: The company or entity that makes the text available in a certain format. To cite an item, you need to know the publisher and usually the place of publication, which can be found on the copyright page of a book.
Copyright Page: The page in a beginning of a book that includes the legal disclosure of the copyright owner over their work. It also includes all of the publication information for that work, including the location and year of publication that you need for most citations. It also includes information on the history of publication for the work, any disclaimers to the work, and other useful information.
Table of Contents: A section in the front of the book that gives the page numbers for all of the different sections of the book. Includes all chapter titles and sections of the Back matter of the book.
Epigraph: A phrase, quotation, or poem. The epigraph may serve as a preface, as a summary, as a counter-example, or to link the work to a wider literary canon, either to invite comparison, or to enlist a conventional context.
Foreward: Written by someone other than the author, a foreword will tell of some interaction between the writer of the foreword and the writer of the story, or a personal reaction and significance the story elicited. A foreword to later editions of a work often describes the work's historical context and explains in what respects the current edition differs from previous ones.
Preface: A preface is generally the author recounting the story of how the book came into being, or how the idea for the book was developed. This is often followed by thanks and acknowledgments to people who were helpful to the author during the time of writing.
Introduction: A beginning section where the author the purpose and goals of the following writing.
Body Matter
The body matter or body text of the book is the main text and largest component of a book. Essentially, it's what you came for when trying to find the book in the first place! Normally this section of the book is comprised of Parts, Chapters, and subsections. All of these sections are usually laid out in a table of contents in the Front matter, or can be located by utilizing the index of a book (see the back matter section below for a definition).
Footnotes: Footnotes are notes printed at the bottom of a page that refer to some part of the page above. You can tell what the footnote is referring to by the number or asterisks that is placed next to the note and the corresponding number placed somewhere in the text above. Footnotes can be used to give bibliographic information, like a citation for a quoted section. They can also be used by the author to provide a comment or further thought they do not wish to crowd the official text with.
End Matter
The end or back matter of a book is everything after the conclusion of the main text.
Endnotes: Notes placed at the end of the book that give bibliographic or commentary on the main text. They are usually organized by chapter and correspond to the text by number. Endnotes are used when authors or editors don't want to take up space in the main text by having a bunch of foot notes. Historically, they were a cost cutting measure - footnotes were very expensive to print before computerized printing.
Author's Note: Letter written from the author to the reader to give context to the book's context or explain how the book was made.
Afterword: An afterword generally covers the story of how the book came into being, or of how the idea for the book was developed. Can be written by the author or some other scholar.
Glossary: A list of technical terms and their definitions used within the main text. Usually a glossary is provided when there is a lot of discipline specific jargon used within the text, and is meant to increase the accessibility of the work to people outside of those disciplines. For example, this page of the guide is a glossary of terms about academic books.
Index: A list of key terms within the main text, arranged alphabetically, and their corresponding page numbers within the main body. This helps the reader identify where they can read about a specific concept within a text.
Appendix: A section of the book meant to give more information about a topic apart from the main text, including correction of errors, supplemental stories or information, or any information deemed helpful by the author that is not included in the main text. These often appear in subsequent print editions.
Bibliography: List of other works cited or consulted in the creation of the main body of work. Works in this section may be directly cited in the text at various points or have been a major influence on the author while creating the work and therefore deserving of credit. This section can help you find other sources about the main topic of the book and gives an idea of the history of scholarship around a certain topic.