Manuscript

A handwritten or typewritten text that is the original or revised material written by an author prior to publication. The term typescript specifically refers to a typed draft, though manuscript is often used to describe any unpublished draft material. In magazine, newspaper, academic journal, and book publishing, a manuscript is submitted to an editor for consideration, and in the scholarly journal publication process, it may be reviewed by a small group of anonymous peers. Most publications stipulate that potential authors follow a specific set of style guidelines when preparing their manuscripts, such as for line spacing, margin width, and citations. While the term literally and historically refers to a text that is handwritten, in most cases only typewritten manuscripts are accepted for consideration.

In general, original manuscripts are discarded or simply filed away as the text moves along in the publication process. With the ubiquity of computers, editors may make notes on a hard-copy printout of the manuscript or using a word-processing editing tool. Therefore, the original manuscript may cease to exist, as changes can be made directly to the digital text, which in turn evolves into the finished product. Quite often, an unpublished manuscript will survive the process and, if considered valuable for research purposes due to the author's renown, become part of a body of work that is collected by a library, museum, or other historical archive. The manuscript may be the original version of a famous novel, letter, or diary penned by the author. In this context, the meaning broadens to include almost any historical document relating to the author's life.

A related use of the term, manuscript method of speaking, refers to the direct reading of a speech that has been written out word for word.