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A Complete Book

 




The core content of a book is just one aspect of a book. Most people don’t give much thought to the other parts contained in a book. A complete book is made up of three main sections; the front matter, body matter, and end matter.

Let's look at these sections in detail although the outline used here shares a common structure and each subsection appears in a similar setting in every book. Some of the subsections may not appear in some books but if they do, they’ll be placed in the same setting.

Front Matter

All information that appears at the beginning of a book before the main text. This includes title, author, publisher, copyright, table of contents, and so on. It often has page numbers written in Roman numerals.

 A typical font matter includes the following:

  • Half-title:  This is the title of the book.
  • Frontispiece:  It is an illustration found on the left side page also known as “verso” following the half-title.
  • Title page: The title page is the page that contains the title of the book, subtitles, the author or authors, and the publisher.  It is often printed on the right-hand page facing the frontispiece.
  • Copyright page: This page contains the declaration of the copyright, which means the person who has legal rights to the information in the book, and it gives credits to the illustrator, editorial staff, and indexer. The number of editions is also found on this page, the year of publication, publisher’s address, ISBN, and information about the printer and translations.
  • Dedication: This page is sometimes optional, the author may list the persons to whom the book is dedicated.
  • Acknowledgments: On this page persons or organizations that supported with their time and resources or inspired the work are listed and appreciated.
  • Table of contents: This page outlines what is included in the book.
  • Foreward: A page that contains an introduction written by someone else other than the author.
  • Preface or Introduction: This page is written by the author, it is an additional context for the book. The source of inspiration or the creation of the book.


A Book’s Body Matter

This is the core content of the book, the main reason you got the book anyway. It is usually written in parts that are divided into chapters, it is otherwise known as the story.


End Matter

This could be optional, it contains the information at the end of the book. It includes;

  • Index: This is like a map that includes the references to the major topics and people throughout the book, it indicates the specific page numbers where they appear. This is an element, especially for nonfiction books. An index is arranged in alphabetical order.
  • Glossary: The glossary is a list of terms and definitions that the reader might find unfamiliar.
  • Bibliography: It is the list of all the references and sources used in the research work for the book.


I hope this fosters your learning experience and help you better understand information that you’ve been missing as a reader. A complete book is from front cover to back cover.

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