Amonograph is generally a long-form work on one (usuallyscholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, most often created by a single author or artist. Traditionally it is in written form and published as a book, but it may be an artwork,audiovisual work, or exhibition made up ofvisual artworks. Inlibrary cataloguing, the word has a specific and broader meaning, while in the United States, theFood and Drug Administration uses the term to mean a set of published standards as well as various guidelines.
The English termmonograph is derived from modernLatinmonographia, which has its root inGreek.[1] In the English word,mono- means'single' and-graph means'something written'.[2]
Unlike atextbook, which surveys the state of knowledge in a field, the main purpose of a monograph is to present primaryresearch and original scholarship. This research is presented at length, distinguishing a monograph from an article. For these reasons, publication of a monograph is commonly regarded as vital for career progression in many academic disciplines. Intended for other researchers and bought primarily by libraries, monographs are generally published as individual volumes in a shortprint run.[3] In Britain and the U.S., what differentiates a scholarly monograph from an academictrade title varies by publisher, though generally it is the assumption that the readership has not only specialised or sophisticated knowledge but also professional interest in the subject of the work.[4]
A written monograph is usually a specialist book on one topic, although the term is sometimes used loosely, with its meaning being broadened to include any works which are notreference works and which may be written by one or more authors, or an edited collection.[5]
This broadened use of the term, however, does not affect the essential difference in academic publishing and assessment between an authored academic book (i.e., a traditional academic monograph) and an edited volume (i.e., a non-authored book). In the case of an academic monograph, it is a "a focused work of scholarship pitched at a relatively high level of intellectual sophistication",[6] whose author (or authors) has carried out the research and written the text of the book.[7][8] By contrast, the editor of an edited volume owns the copyright to the concept, structure and organization of the book, as well as any text he or she has authored, while the authors of the individual chapters retain the copyright to the text and content of the chapters they authored.[9][10][11][12][13]
Inbiological taxonomy, a monograph is a comprehensive treatment of ataxon in written form. Monographs typically review all knownspecies within a group, add any newly discovered species, and collect and synthesize available information on the ecological associations, geographic distributions, and morphological variations within the group.
The first-ever monograph of a plant taxon wasRobert Morison's 1672Plantarum Umbelliferarum Distributio Nova, a treatment of theApiaceae.[16]
Book publishers use the term "artist monograph" or "art monograph" to indicate books dealing with a single artist, as opposed to broader surveys of art subjects.[17][18][19]
The term monograph is also used for audiovisual or film documentary-type representations of a subject,[20] often creatively expressed.[21] The term "monographic film" has also been used for short fiction or animated films.[22]
Video or film essays on a single topic are also referred to as monographs.[23][24][25]
IndyVinyl, by Scottish film academic Ian Garwood, is a monographic research project focused on "vinyl records in American independent cinema between 1987 and 2018". It includes an 8,000-word peer-reviewed academic book chapter; video compilations; "criticalmontages"; and a series of social media posts, all curated on a website.[26] Garwood has written that his project is "an attempt to produce a research output equivalent to an academic monograph, but incorporating video-based forms of criticism that have been popularised through online film culture".[27]
In the context ofFood and Drug Administration regulation, monographs represent published standards by which the use of one or more substances is automatically authorized. For example, the following is an excerpt from theFederal Register: "The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is issuing a final rule in the form of a final monograph establishing conditions under whichover-the-counter (OTC) sunscreen drug products aregenerally recognized as safe and effective and not misbranded as part of FDA's ongoing review of OTC drug products."[28] Such usage has given rise to the use of the word monograph as a verb, as in "this substance has been monographed by the FDA".
^Williams, Peter; Stevenson, Iain; Nicholas, David; Watkinson, Anthony; Rowlands, Ian (2009). "The role and future of the monograph in arts and humanities research".ASLIB Proceedings.61:67–82.doi:10.1108/00012530910932294.
^Campbell, Robert; Pentz, Ed; Borthwick, Ian (2012).Academic and Professional Publishing. Elsevier.ISBN978-1-78063-309-1.'[M]onograph' has become a generic term for a book that is not of a reference type, is of primary material and which may be multi-authored, single-authored, or an edited collection.
^Thompson, John B. (2005).Books in the Digital Age. Cambridge (UK): Polity. pp. 38,84–85.ISBN0-7456-3477-X.
^Swendsrud, Kristen, ed. (2024). "Books and Other Monographs: Definitions".The CSE Manual (9th ed.). University of Chicago Press.ISBN9780226683942. Retrieved26 June 2024.
^"DOCID:fr21my99-6",Federal Register, Rules and Regulations, vol. 64, no. 98, pp. 27666–27693, 21 May 1999, archived fromthe original(TXT) on 1 February 2017
_Paul_Dirac.jpg)
