Before starting to write the novel of the century orsimple story, you should find out what an epigraph is. This word is a short text, an utterance or a quotation that precedes the work or a part of it.
Usually the epigraph expresses the essence of the creative ideawriter, the main idea of the work and, of course, informs the reader of the main theme of the author's work, as well as his mood. Knowing what an epigraph is, the creator has an excellent opportunity to tune the reader to the right mood right away, only the first page of his work opens.
Sometimes an epigraph characterizes the characters of the text or gives an overall picture of the storyline. There are epigraphs to the whole work, and there are to one separately taken chapter.
Some on the question of what an epigraph is,they will say that this is a quatrain. However, today some authors use for this not only poems, but also short anecdotes "in the subject". This plays the role of a small respite in modern tutorials, textbooks, encyclopedias, where the reader is offered a rather difficult material for perception.
For example, in the self-instruction manual for beginnersusers of a personal computer in front of the head of the drive placed an anecdote about a blonde who calls the customer service with a complaint that she broke the "stand for coffee" - not nominated. He on the one hand gives a mood on the topic of the chapter, and on the other - slightly dilutes the humor of the seriousness of the material. Just like good teachers in lectures!
To gain a deeper understanding of what an epigraph is,look into the "past life" of the word. It turns out that it had an interesting story. After all, its first meaning was the "tombstone". Hence the related word "epitaph" was born.
Probably the main feature of the epigraph is thatthe fact that a short phrase should contain a maximum of meaning and content, just as in the epitaph a very deep thought is expressed in just a few words.
The first epigraphs appeared in the Renaissance, however, they were firmly rooted only in the period of Romanticism. Today it is difficult to find a work of art wherever they are used.
The design of the epigraph has its own rules, whichshould be known to all who decided to use it in his work. As a rule, it is drawn without the quotes on the right side of the sheet. Do not put in parentheses the name and the name of the author, the point after them is also missing.
Type it in several smaller font sizesthe main text, sometimes italicized in italics. Making it the same in a foreign language, next to which is his translation, differs from the usual. After all, you need to type the text of the original and the translation in different outlines of the same font and size. It is also important to separate them among themselves by a blank.
In the epigraph, the quoted quotation must be exactlyreproduce the quoted text, unchanged. Punctuation marks in the quote should be placed in the same way as in the author's text. If only a fragment of the passage is cited, then the ellipsis is placed according to the rules at the place of the pass. Also in the phrase, which is not written from the beginning, an ellipsis is put.
All lines must be about onelength. Very often in art texts with good design, the epigraph to the entire book is placed on a separate odd page, following the title page. When using the same for each chapter, they are placed after their name or number.
One should also remember some of the axioms of using epigraphs.
1. The poetic text should never be re-told in your own words!
2. As for punctuation rules in prose works, it should completely coincide with punctuation marks in direct speech.
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