The Micropædia was introduced in 1974 with 10 volumes having 102,214 short articles, all of which were strictly fewer than 750 words. This limit was relaxed in the major re-organization of the 15th edition; many articles were condensed together, resulting in roughly 65,000 articles in 12 volumes. In general, the 750-word limit is still respected and most articles are only 1-2 paragraphs; however, a few longer articles can be found in the 2007 Micropædia, such as the Internet entry, which takes up a full page.
With rare exceptions (<3%), the ~65,000 articles of the Micropædia have no bibliographies and no named contributors. The Micropædia is intended primarily for quick fact-checking and as a guide to the 700 longer articles of the Macropædia,[2] which do have identified authors and bibliographies.