Manuscript

A manuscript (Latin manu scriptus, "written by hand"), strictly speaking, is any written document that is put down by hand, in contrast to being printed or reproduced some other way. Information may be hand-recorded in other ways than in manuscripts, as inscriptions that are chiselled upon a hard material or scratched (the original meaning of graffiti) as with a knife point in plaster or with a stylus on a waxed tablet, (the way Romans made notes), or are in cuneiform writing, impressed with a pointed stylus in a flat tablet of unbaked clay.

Manuscripts today

According to Library and Information Science, a manuscript is defined as any hand-written item in the collections of a library or an archive; for example, a library's collection of the letters or a diary that some historical personage wrote.

Related Topics:
Library and Information Science - Library - Archive - Letter - Diary

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In other contexts, however, the use of the term "manuscript" no longer necessarily means something that is hand-written. By analogy a "typescript" has been produced on a typewriter.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In book, magazine, and music publishing, a manuscript is an original copy of a work written by an author or composer, which generally follows standardized typographic and formatting rules. In film and theatre, a manuscript, or script for short, is an author's or dramatist's text, used by a theater company or film crew during the production of the work's performance or filming. More specifically, a motion picture manuscript is called a screenplay, a television manuscript is called a teleplay, and a manuscript for the theater is called a stage play.

Related Topics:
Author - Composer - Dramatist - Theater company - Film crew - Performance - Film - Screenplay - Teleplay - Stage play

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In insurance, a manuscript policy is one that is negotiated between the insurer and the policyholder, as opposed to an off-the-shelf form supplied by the insurer.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~