Editing Book of Documents (section)

===Nature of the chapters===
With the exception of a few chapters of late date, the chapters are represented as records of formal speeches by kings or other important figures.{{sfnp|Allan|2011|p=3}}{{sfnp|Allan|2012|p=552}}
Most of these speeches are of one of five types, indicated by their titles:{{sfnp|Shaughnessy|1993|p=377}}
* Consultations ({{lang|zh|謨}} {{tlit|zh|mó}}) between the king and his ministers (2 chapters),
* Instructions ({{lang|zh|訓}} {{tlit|zh|xùn}}) to the king from his ministers (1 chapter),
* Announcements ({{lang|zh|誥}} {{tlit|zh|gào}}) by the king to his people (8 chapters),
* Declarations ({{lang|zh|誓}} {{tlit|zh|shì}}) by a ruler on the occasion of a battle (6 chapters), and
* Commands ({{lang|zh|命}} {{tlit|zh|mìng}}) by the king to a specific vassal (7 chapters).

Classical Chinese tradition lists six types of ''Shu'', beginning with ''dian'' {{lang|zh|典}}, Canons (2 chapters in the Modern corpus).

According to [[Su Shi]] (1037–1101), it is possible to single out Eight Announcements of the early Zhou, directed to the Shang people. Their titles only partially correspond to the modern chapters marked as ''gao'' (apart from the nos. 13, 14, 15, 17, 18 that mention the genre, Su Shi names nos. 16 "Zi cai", 19 "Duo shi" and 22 "Duo fang").

As pointed out by [[Chen Mengjia]] (1911–1966), announcements and commands are similar, but differ in that commands usually include granting of valuable objects, land or servants to their recipients.

Guo Changbao {{lang|zh|过常宝}} claims that the graph for announcement ({{lang|zh|誥}}), known since the [[Oracle bone script]], also appears on two bronze vessels (''[[He zun]]'' and ''Shi Zhi gui'' {{lang|zh|史[臣+舌]簋}}), as well as in the "six genres" {{lang|zh|六辞}} of the ''[[Zhou li]]''<ref>{{lang|zh|论5尚书6诰体的文化背景}}</ref>{{clarify|date=February 2014}}

In many cases a speech is introduced with the phrase {{tlit|zh|Wáng ruò yuē}} ({{lang|zh|王若曰}} 'The king seemingly said'), which also appears on commemorative [[Chinese bronze inscriptions|bronze inscriptions]] from the Western Zhou period, but not in other received texts.
Scholars interpret this as meaning that the original documents were prepared scripts of speeches, to be read out by an official on behalf of the king.{{sfnp|Allan|2011|pp=3–5}}{{sfnp|Allan|2012|pp=552–556}}