A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, typically created by a single author or artist (or, sometimes, by two or more authors). Traditionally it is in written form and published as a book, but it may be an artwork, audiovisual work, or exhibition made up of . In library cataloguing, the word has a specific and broader meaning, while in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration uses the term to mean a set of published standards.
Unlike a textbook, which surveys the state of knowledge in a field, the main purpose of a monograph is to present primary research 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 short print run. In Britain and the U.S., what differentiates a scholarly monograph from an academic Trade magazine 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.
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 not and which may be written by one or more authors, or an edited collection.
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",
The first-ever monograph of a plant taxon was Robert Morison's 1672 Plantarum Umbelliferarum Distributio Nova, a treatment of the Apiaceae.
Video or film essays on a single topic are also referred to as monographs.
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; "critical montages"; and a series of social media posts, all curated on a website. 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".
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