Editing Encyclopedia (section)

=== Differences between encyclopedias and dictionaries ===

There are some broad differences between encyclopedias and dictionaries. Most noticeably, encyclopedia articles are longer, fuller and more thorough than entries in most general-purpose dictionaries.<ref name="DOLencyclopedia" /><ref name="DOLencyclopedicdefinition" /> There are differences in content as well. Generally speaking, dictionaries provide [[linguistics|linguistic]] information about words themselves, while encyclopedias focus more on the things for which those words stand.<ref name="bejoint" /><ref name="EB" /><ref name="DOLei" /><ref name="OHEL22" /> Thus, while dictionary entries are inextricably fixed to the word described, encyclopedia articles can be given a different entry name. As such, dictionary entries are not fully translatable into other languages, but encyclopedia articles can be.<ref name="bejoint" />

In practice, however, the distinction is not concrete, as there is no clear-cut difference between factual, "encyclopedic" information and linguistic information such as appear in dictionaries.<ref name="DOLei" /><ref name="DOLencyclopedicdefinition">{{cite book |last1=Hartmann |first1=R. R. K. |last2=James |first2=Gregory |year=1998 |title=Dictionary of Lexicography |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-14143-7 |pages=48–49 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=49NZ12icE-QC&q=%22encyclopedic%20dictionary%22%2Bencyclopedia&pg=PA49 |access-date=July 27, 2010 |quote=Usually these two aspects overlap – encyclopedic information being difficult to distinguish from linguistic information – and dictionaries attempt to capture both in the explanation of a meaning{{nbsp}}... |archive-date=January 14, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114034551/https://books.google.com/books?id=49NZ12icE-QC&q=%22encyclopedic%20dictionary%22%2Bencyclopedia&pg=PA49 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Bejoint31">{{cite book |last=Béjoint |first=Henri |year=2000 |title=Modern Lexicography |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-829951-6 |page=31 |quote=The two types, as we have seen, are not easily differentiated; encyclopedias contain information that is also to be found in dictionaries, and vice versa.}}</ref> Thus encyclopedias may contain material that is also found in dictionaries, and vice versa.<ref name="Bejoint31" /> In particular, dictionary entries often contain factual information about the thing named by the word.<ref name="DOLencyclopedicdefinition" /><ref name="Bejoint31" />