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A preface (/ ˈ p r ɛ f ə s /) or proem (/ ˈ p r oʊ ɛ m /) is an introduction to a book or other literary work written by the work's author. An introductory essay written by a different person is a foreword [contradictory] and precedes an author's preface. The preface often closes with acknowledgments of those who assisted in the literary ...
For example, the American Journal of Physics (AJP) specifically advises authors that an introduction “need not summarize”. Instead, the introduction can provide “background and context”, and/or indicate “purpose and importance”, and/or describe the raison d'être for an article (i.e. motivation) in a way that is “informative and ...
Executive summaries are important as a communication tool in both academia and business. For example, members of Texas A&M University's Department of Agricultural Economics observe that "An executive summary is an initial interaction between the writers of the report and their target readers: decision makers, potential customers, and/or peers ...
An unusual example is The Stand wherein he uses lyrics from certain songs to express the metaphor used in a particular part. Epigraph, consisting of an excerpt from the book itself, William Morris's The House of the Wolfings. Jack London uses the first stanza of John Myers O'Hara's poem "Atavism" as the epigraph to The Call of the Wild.
Information essential to the main text is generally placed in a set of explanatory notes, or perhaps in an introduction, rather than in the foreword or like preface. The pages containing the foreword and preface (and other front matter) are typically not numbered as part of the main work, which usually uses Arabic numerals.
Literary theorist Gérard Genette defines paratext as those things in a published work that accompany the text, things such as the author's name, the title, preface or introduction, or illustrations. He states, "More than a boundary or a sealed border, the paratext is, rather, a threshold."
A postface is the opposite of a preface, a brief article or explanatory information placed at the end of a book. [1] Postfaces are quite often used in books so that the non-pertinent information will appear at the end of the literary work, and not confuse the reader.
Some genres, for example television programs and video games, call the epilogue an "outro" patterned on the use of "intro" for "introduction". Epilogues are usually set in the future, after the main story is completed. Within some genres it can be used to hint at the next installment in a series of work.