Word Usage – What is an Umbrella Term for Academic Articles, Theses, and Reports?

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If I want to refer to all the different articles, theses, essays, books, etc. – published as well as unpublished/not yet published – that a scholar has produced, what word should I use? Can I use "academic works"? Or is there a better word here?

Best Answer

Scholarly Publications and Manuscripts.

Scholarly: involving or relating to serious academic study

Manuscript: an author's text that has not yet been published

It's perhaps better to distinguish between the published and non-published work. And you can't go wrong with "scholarly publications" and "manuscripts".

However, if you want to put them all in under one term, then go with —

Research Works or Scholarly Works.

Both "research works" and "scholarly works" are more common (and perhaps even better sounding) than "academic works". They are also broadly applied, meaning that they include work that hasn't been formally published yet.

Here is one definition of "scholarly work":

Scholarly work means all literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works, software, sound recordings, films or communication works produced by a Staff member and includes in relation to a Staff member’s research activities, any scholarly publications including books, text books, articles in scholarly journals research reports or conference proceedings.

While many of the other suggested alternatives in this thread are correct, it is perhaps best to go with a term that is commonly used for the intended purpose. This Google Ngram plot is quite informative:

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