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Defining Glossaries

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 APPLIED RESEARCH
Defining Glossaries
MICHELLE KIDD TACKABERY
INTRODUCTION
T
echnical documentation often employs terminol-
ogy that would be unfamiliar to most nontechni-
cal readers. During new product development,
words and terms are created or re-created to
describe and define new products and procedures. It falls
on the technical communicator to explain these new terms
to a wide variety of audiences: marketing communicators,
code developers, information designers, software testers,
sales people, and of course, the new product user. To
define new terms for nontechnical users, technical commu-
nicators can use glossaries to compile lists of specialized
word definitions as a reference for users unfamiliar with the
new terminology, while allowing technical users to use
those same documents without interrupting their reading.
These "mini-dictionaries," found in many different places
in documentation, are more than convenient help files.
They not only provide an opportunity for technical com-
municators to standardize terminology across disciplines,
discourse communities, and users, but also mold the very
ways in which users think about and use technical prod-
ucts. Just as dictionaries help define and situate language
across generations, glossaries help define and situate lan-
guage within technical documentation, and can aid com-
municators with important translation and localization ef-
forts. Glossaries, just like dictionaries, define what things
are, as specific audiences see them.
In this article, I provide a brief overview of the history
of glossaries, explore the rhetorical technique of formal
definition as the preferred method of writing glossary en-
tries, and explain the guidelines for writing glossary defi-
nitions provided in technical writing textbooks. I also com-
pare professional guidelines for writing glossaries and
terminology lists, and explain the heightened importance
of well-written glossary definitions for controlling word
usage, localization, and translation of user documentation.
THE HISTORY OF GLOSSARIES
Caruso (1986) defines a glossary as "a mini-dictionary lo-
cated at the beginning or end of a technical document"
(264). Glossaries pre-date dictionaries and are the first
examples of definitions in written texts. A dictionary is
SUMMARY
• Explores the history, guidelines for writing, and
rhetorical techniques of glossaries
• Finds tiiat glossaries are an opportunity to
outline and protect the parameters of technical
discourse between a company and its customers
primarily a work for reference; it is "in the first place, a
source of information that answers all kinds of questions
from users on words" (van Sterkenberg 2003, 6). The first
known glossaries were those of the Akkadians or Babylo-
nians; from about 2,600 BCE, these glossaries were written
to make the Sumerian language accessible for its speakers.
These early tablets took the form of thesauri, with words
grouped together based on their meaning.
Early glossaries in ancient Greece and China had sim-
ilar thesauri structures. While we think of dictionaries today
as lexicons of language, style, and meaning, the earliest
examples of what became dictionaries were specialized
lists that defined words found in certain texts. Religious
forces were responsible for the creation of these word
definition lists: these were specialized texts compiled for
the benefit of religious students so that they could under-
stand the texts with which they struggled.
In his brief history of dictionaries, van Sterkenberg
explains that the word clerk derives from the Latin clericus,
or clergyman; a clerk was a clergyman who spoke the
vernacular and had to learn Latin and Greek to understand
the religious texts he studied and "translated" for his illit-
erate audience in the pew. To assist clergymen, copyists
began to write explanations, sometimes but not always in
the vernacular, for difficult passages in the Bible, the
Qur'an, the writings of Confucius, and other religious texts.
These "glosses" were found in the margins or between the
lines of documents. They did not interrupt the original
running text, so that an experienced user of the document
could study it without being interrupted by the glosses.
Glosses soon were grouped into collections published sep-
arately from the texts to which they referred. One of the most
famous early glossaries, compiled by Reichenau in the 8th cen-
tury, contained about a thousand difficult words from the Vul-
gate Bible translated into easier Latin or Romance language
words. During the Middle Ages, larger monolingual dictionaries
meant to instruct students in Latin and Greek were compiled. As
education began to be more widely accepted during the 12th
Manuscript received 30 December 2004; revised 20 June 2005;
accepted 5 July 2005.
Volume 52, Number 4, November 2005 • TechnicalCOMMUNCATION 427
 APPUED RESEARCH
Defining Glossaries
and 13th centuries, and was focused on the teaching of "useful
things" (van Sterkenberg 2003, 10), a great demand arose for
these kinds of tools to assist in the learning of grammar and
vocabulary in the vernacular. Larger and larger lexicons were
published, especially in German and Dutch. Grammaticus pub-
lished the first comprehensive English-Latin bilingual dictionary,
called the Promptorium parvuhrum sive clericorum, about
1440. During the l6th and 17th centuries, as both England and
Erance made the writing of dictionaries of central importance in
the preservation and dissemination of their languages, dictionar-
ies became the large alphabetized word collections that we are
familiar with today.
Today glossaries still serve the same function that they
did for medieval monks struggling to understand St. Paul,
Lao Tzu, or the Sahifa: they are lists of terms found in texts
that make "key definitions available to nontechnical read-
ers without interrupting technical readers" (Lannon 1997,
383). Glossaries may be found in front matter, back matter,
and sidebars, or in the case of hypertext, they may be
linked to documents through keyword hyperlinks so that
glossary definitions may be accessed, or not, by users if
they so desire.
DEFINITION
Definition as rhetorical situation
As Zimmerman and Clark (1987) note.
Too often, we use technical and scientific terms without
considering whether our audiences will use them in
exactly the same way. If they do not, we lose ground in
the struggle to communicate. (223)
Sides (1999) defines rhetoric as that body of techniques
"by which we explain our knowledge of a subject to an
audience" (38). Defining and categorizing terms are impor-
tant rhetorical techniques in technical writing situations
that usually require a high degree of precision (White
1996). In the strictest sense, a definition does not concern
a thing but rather a word or term that represents a thing. In
a glossary, a definition also serves to limit that word or term
by its usage in a specific rhetorical situation, such as a
software user guide or an online help file. In all sorts of
technical documentation, the kind of definition a technical
communicator may employ will depend on the needs of
the reader, the complexity of the term to be defined, and
the purpose of the communication.
Eor instance, the term window as used in a technical
glossary may not refer to "an opening constructed in a wall
or roof that functions to admit light or air to an enclosure,"
but instead to that area of a computer screen that "displays
its own file or message independently of the other areas of
the screen" (^American Heritage dictionary 2000, 1384). A
glossary definition is always defined by the rhetorical situ-
428 TechnicalCOMMUNCATION • Volume 52, Number 4, November 2005
Tackabery
ation (that is, the singular document or group of docu-
ments) in which it is found.
Some technical writing handbooks and textbooks sug-
gest formal lexical style for definitions (see Hacker 1991;
White 1996; Mills and Walter 1986; Sides 1999; Whitburn
1999). Taking their cues from classic lexicography, which
relies on Aristotelian rhetoric, these texts explain formal
definitions in terms of three basic elements:
• The term to be defined (the species or definienduni)
• The general category of which the term is a part (the
genus)
• The specific characteristics that distinguish the term
from any other examples existing in the general cat-
egory (the differentiae)
In formal definition, the three elements can be under-
stood as a logically dictated formula, such that
definition (species) = genus + differentia
In this formula, the " = " is some form of the verb "to
be" and the differentia the information following the word
"that," as in the following example:
Artificial intelligence is a complex aspect of computer
programming that strives to model human intelligence.
(Sides 1999, 39)
Glossary definition is a special variation of the rhetor-
ical process of classification, in that it sets its subject, the
term to-be-defined, in a rigidly limited scheme of classifi-
cation. While in a dictionary we probably seek to make a
definition a general statement that will be "applicable to all
members of the class tagged by the word being defined,"
(Brooks and Warren 1972, 85), a glossary definition seeks
the narrowest class possible sufficient to define a term as it
is used. Precision, or the tight identification of a species to
a class, is the key here and the reason why the formal
definition structure is described in technical writing text-
books as the preferred, or most common, method of defi-
nition for writers of glossaries (see Niedvlander and col-
leagues 1986; Mills and Walter 1986; White 1996).
Other types of formal definitions
Sides also identifies two narrower categories of formal
rhetorical definition applicable to glossary definitions: con-
textual definition and stipulative definition. Contextual def-
inition, which he describes as "truncated formal definition"
(40), depends on the context in which a term is used, such
as in compare/contrast situations, to disallow a previous
word association in the context of the new learning situation.
Sides uses the word bond as an example of a term that has
several definitions, depending on the context in which it is
found: in psychology, bond has to do with relationships; in
 APPLIED RESEARCH
Tackabery
mechanical engineering, a bond is a fixative, and in finance, a
bond is a type of investment. Contextual definition as used in
glossaries depends on an audience's sophistication and the
writer's understanding of that level of sophistication.
Stipulative definition narrows contextual definition
even further by suggesting the definition of a term based
solely on its use within a single document or set of related
documents. Stipulative definitions are found often at the
beginning of texts to establish a common language for the
document, as in the following example:
In this report, the term chip will always refer to a silicon
wafer on which integrated circuits have been printed.
Sides defines any "alphabetical list of stipulative defi-
nitions" as a glossary (1999, 42).
White indicates that other types of definitions—cate-
gorical and operational—may be employed in glossaries. A
categorical definition places a term into a genus and uses its
component parts as differentia or separates a whole into its
parts (Whitburn 1999). Eor example:
Air is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, gaseous mixture
containing nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, neon,
and helium. (Whitburn 1999, 115)
An operational definition explains a term's differentia by
means of its procedural steps, such as in repairing machines
with moving parts or refers to a situation in which a phenom-
enon would iDe observed, as in the following example:
If you are driving south along a highway, you will
experience the Doppler Effect if you listen to the sound of
a car heading north that approaches and then passes
you. (Whitburn 1999, 116)
WRITING GLOSSARY DEFINITIONS
Textbook guidelines for technical communicators
Making a glossary begins with understanding the reader's needs.
The best way to approach [the task ofglossary making] is
to read the manual again, asking yourself, "Would I
(the reader) understand this word orphrase?" (Thirlway
1994, 77)
According to the Random House guide to technical
and scientific communication, a good definition "creates
new meaning from known meaning" (Zimmerman and
Clark 1997, 223). What Brooks and Warren call "the prin-
ciple of common ground" implies that a definition is not
only "of some term, but is/or 5omefoo^_);" (authors' empha-
sis). A good definition works by reference to what the
document's audience already knows or "is willing to learn
Defining Glossaries
for the purpose at hand" (87). Technical writing textbooks
that cover definition usually urge technical communicators
to make both parts of a formal definition structure work
equally hard to define the term, while cautioning that there
is no single correct classification for most technical terms.
A genus must be "familiar to the reader . . . and neither
too large nor too narrow" (Hacker 1991, 54) yet must "limit
the meaning of the species and give as much information as
possible" (Mills and Walter 1986, 86). Eear (1981) defines
the purpose of classifying a term as "twofold: to give the
reader a quick general notion, a starting place, and to cut
down on the amount of detail it is necessary to present"
(47). If a class is too broad, the reader will have difficulty
separating the term from the other members of the class; if
too narrow, the reader may not understand the term at all
because he has no context in which to place it.
Differentiating characteristics should be listed to de-
fine the term in relation to other terms in the same class.
If differentia are explained "precisely and well," they
will "apply only to what is being defined and not to
anything else" (Niedvlander and colleagues 1986, 405).
Technical communicators are urged to examine their
definitions critically so that the differentia they use can-
not be applicable to another term; if the differentia is
also applicable to another term, the definition is not
going to be "sufficiently precise" (Mills and Walter 1986,
87). After giving enough distinguishing details to differ-
entiate the term from other members of its class, writers
are told to "supply whatever additional details you be-
lieve are necessary to give the reader a good, usable
understanding" (Eear 1981, A€).
Technical writing textbooks rarely give a specific list of
terms to include in glossaries. Even in those works that give
glossaries more than a cursory glance, there are few text-
book guidelines that do more than suggest where a glos-
sary should be located in a technical document and what
form it should take. John M. Lannon, however, includes
this list of items as a sort of checklist when determining
what words to include in a glossary:
• Define all terms unfamiliar to a general reader;
• Define all terms that bave a special meaning in
your document; and
• Define only terms tbat need explanation. (384)
Professional guidelines for glossary writers
Handbooks and style guides for technical communication
practitioners also tend to suggest beginning work on a
glossary by focusing on the users' needs.
If you are documenting new technology, a glossary is
almost mandatory. An audience that is unfamiliar with
Volume 52, Number 4, November 2005 • TechnicaiCOMMUNCATION 429
 APPUED RESEARCH
Defining Glossaries Tackabery

the topic can probably benefit from a major set of defi- entitled "Glossary guidelines" that dedicates four pages to
nitions. (Sun Technical Publications 2003, 234) instructing writers on when a glossary should be included
and which terms to include. The style guide explains that
Companies that produce large amounts of technical terms included in a glossary must be "important to the
and help documentation understand that a glossary is more subject, with simple and concise definitions that are appro-
than a convenient reference work for nontechnical readers priate for the context" (231). Glossaries should always be
to learn the meaning of the terms used in their documents. included in new product documentation or texts undergo-
They understand that glossary definitions are opportunities ing "major revisions" (234). The simplest way to determine
to define their products in definitive ways that can stan- what terms need to be defined is to do so when they are
dardize not only how people think and use documentation, newly introduced in a text. Sun recommends that writers
but how they think of the companies' products as well. produce glossary terms as they are writing the text contain-
Nevertheless, despite a clear emphasis on writing for au- ing the new terms, so that their definitions will be accurate
dience and document usability, glossary-writing guidelines and in context.
for professional technical communicators emphasize form, The remainder of Sun's glossary chapter is dedicated to
style, and standardization over substance. Without fail, they form; what parts of speech to include (nouns usually, but
instruct writers to cross-reference their glossary items and the part of speech of the term in the document indicates
even index them if they are found more than once inside what part of speech should be defined), defining the term's
documentation, and they give specific stylistic guidelines, other parts of speech (yes), whether to define acronyms
such as alphabetization, capitalization, italicization and em- (yes), creating cross-references, and alphabetizing terms. It
phasis, and the like. While they go into detail about what gives no clues as to how to write a definition but does
items to include in glossaries, when glossaries should be provide some caution as to what constitutes a "bad" defi-
included, how they should be formatted, and why they are nition: any definition that restates the term (238).
necessary, these guidelines rarely explain how to write a The SAS Publications Division (2004) includes informa-
good glossary definition beyond these issues. tion on the glossary-writing process for documentation
Among its appendixes, the Apple publications style developers that provides specific instructions on what
guide provides a 4-page guideline, "How to write a glos- terms should be included in glossaries and when a glossary
sary." This section of the Apple style manual recommends should begin. Documentation developers are cautioned to
determining what terms to include in a glossary based on consider their audience first, and then identify a "core
audience considerations. For example, it instructs writers technical vocabulary" (2) of which they can reasonably
that documents for first-time users should probably include expect users of their documents to be familiar. This core
terms they may feel are "'obvious' . . . such as window, vocabulary does not need to be included in a glossary
screen, menu, start up, and command." While documen- unless documentation terms are used in a new way. What
tation for intermediate users will not need to include most should be included are any terms that are defined within the
of those simpler terms, writers should "err on the side of document and any SAS programming element that is not
including terms that most readers might actually know"; identified as being a part of the core technical vocabulary.
documents for experienced developers will need to in- SAS maintains a database of terminology called GLOSS
clude only Apple-specific words and terms in glossaries to which documentation developers must refer before
(167). compiling their glossary. Terms already included in GLOSS
Apple goes on to urge glossary writers to include in that are defined suitably for the writer's use must be added
their glossary entries examples and context that are specific to the glossary verbatim as they are defined in GLOSS, but
to the product about which they are writing, use ordinary writers have the option to request or make edits to existing
terms to connect them to technical meanings to aid in GLOSS entries if those entries do not meet the needs of
comprehension, and above all emphasize conciseness and their document. SAS points writers to an internal training
clarity. Most of the appendix, however, is dedicated to handout on how to write glossary definitions that includes
matters of form: whether to include part of speech (only if an extensive list of examples of problematic definitions,
the term is used in the document in more than one part of but SAS provides no guidelines that follow the rhetorical
speech); how to alphabetize terms, especially those with technique of formal definition.
numbers, capitalization and grammatical issues such as sen- The notable exception I found of technical documen-
tence fragments (acceptable); whether to use gerunds (unac- tation instructions employing formal definition was from
ceptable when defining verbs); and whether to include pro- the IBM Corporation. In a white paper on terminology that
nunciation guidelines (almost always acceptable). includes clear instructions on writing definitions that follow
Sun Technical Publications' well-known style guide for classic rhetorical and lexical technique, IBM's Mary
the computer industry. Read me first!, includes a chapter Sturgeon (2004) defines a glossary succinctly as a "selected
430 TechnicalCOMMUNCATKM • Volume 52, Number 4, November 2005
 APPLIED RESEARCH
Tackabery
list of terms defined and explained for a particular field of
knowledge" (1).
Sturgeon divides the words used in any kind of tech-
nical documentation into four categories:
• Familiar words for familiar concepts
• Familiar words for unfamiliar concepts
• Unfamiliar words for familiar concepts
• Unfamiliar words for unfamiliar concepts
According to Sturgeon, unless terms in technical documen-
tation are familiar words for familiar concepts, they should
be defined in a glossary. Sturgeon explains how to write a
definition by using the rhetorical technique of formal def-
inition: "to define a term, you place it in a category (classify
it) and show how it differs from other things in that cate-
gory" (2). Sturgeon identifies the formal definition formula
(species = genus + differentia) and cautions that the more
specific a genus a writer can find for a term, the easier it will
be to define. Sturgeon's guidelines caution stating the context
of a term and avoiding repetition of the term in the definition.
"Make sure that the genus and differentiae are expressed in
terms that the reader can understand," the writer is instructed,
and "include some concrete examples (4)."
GLOSSARY AS RHETORICAL OPPORTUNITY
Glossaries can also provide an opportunity for translators
and localizers.
A glossary is a list of words in the source language which
includes explanations of difficult or technical and
product-specific terms. The glossary, developed by the
technical writer of the source document, is used to de-
velop the terminology list in the target language.
(Muhlhaus-Moyer 2004, 24)
The humble glossary takes on grander proportions when
it is understood as a keeper of technical terminology. Just as
a dictionary preserves language, a glossary can help preserve
meaning across multiple instances of translations of a single
document. IBM's style guidelines note the need for consis-
tency in technical, marketing, and user interfaces to avoid
misunderstanding and misuse of technical terminology, espe-
cially when many of those terms have usages outside of the
rhetorical situation of the documentation, such as the word
unndow. Sturgeon cautions writers to maintain a word-usage
list to prevent misuse of key technical terms and to be certain
to provide a glossary entry for each term. A glossary can help
ensure consistency and accuracy across a development
project, ensuring that everyone is essentially speaking the
same language. A glossary developed in step with new tech-
nical products will also ensure that all users comprehend
unfamiliar terms in the same way.
This issue becomes clear when we consider the need to
translate and localize technical documentation. In some lan-
Defining Glossaries
guages, technical terms might vary depending on their usage
in hardware or software documentation; other terms may be
untranslatable, or worse, translatable in more than one way,
multiplying the possibilities for misuse and miscomprehen-
sion (Muhlhaus-Moyer 2004). A clearly defined glossary item,
however, can help translators and localizers with their work
by refiecting a company's understanding of the meaning of
technical terms. The glossary can then become a crucial
source document for translators; in this context, a glossary is
a miniature multilingual dictionary that can point users to the
correct context and usage of technical terms.
CONCLUSION
Dictionaries teach people their own language and situate
terms in the historical progression of communication itself.
Glossaries, as mini-dictionaries, contextualize terms in a
specific technical situation. Because glossaries can help
define the very parameters of a rhetorical situation—can,
in fact, succinctly make the connection between a term and
how that term should be understood in a technical con-
text—they provide much more than an opportunity to help
a user understand what a word means. For technical com-
municators, writing a glossary should not be an after-
thought to assist in making a document usable or user-
friendly but a part of the entire communication process
between a company and its customers.
As new products go to market, they introduce new
terminology into the conversational vernacular between
the company and customers and between products and
users. Defining what something is and what something
does is considered by lexicographers to be a noble profes-
sion, a way to get close to the ever-elusive truth as we
know it today. It is unfortunate that technical communica-
tion textbooks and professional writing guidelines devote
such little space and effort to the art of writing glossary
definitions. Perhaps it is time to make an explicit connec-
tion between the rhetorical technique of formal definition
and the writing of definitions for glossaries. TC
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Defining Glossaries
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The following technical communication textbooks and guides
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432 TechnicalCOmUIUNCATION • Volume 52, Number 4, November 2005
Tackabery
not a complete list, but I believe it illustrates how little attention
glossaries, and the rhetorical art of definition, are given in the
field of technical communications training. An asterisk (*) at the
beginning of an entry indicates a textbook that mentions glos-
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Barker, Thomas T. 1998. Writing Software documentation: A
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*Barnum, Carol M., and Saul Garliner. 1993. Techniques for
technicai communicators. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing
Company.
Bell, Arthur H. 1998. Toois for technical and professional com-
municators. Lincolnwood, IL: NTG Publishing Group.
Borowick, Jerome N. 2000. Technical communication and its
appiications. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall,
Inc.
Brereton, John G., and Margaret A. Mansfield. 2000. Writing on
the job: A quick reference guide to writing in the workplace.
New York, NY: Norton.
Burnett, Rebecca E. 2001. Technicai communication. 5th ed.
Orlando, FL: Harcourt Gollege Publishers.
Eisenberg, Anne. 1992. Effective technicai communication. 2nd
ed. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, Inc.
Emerson, Frances B. 1987. Technical writing. Dallas, TX:
Houghton Mifflin Company.
Fowler, H. Ramsey. 1980. The Littie, Brown handbook. Boston,
MA: Little, Brown and Company.
Fox, Roy F. 1994. Technical communication: Problems and
solutions. New York, NY: Harper Collins Gollege Publishers.
 APPUED RESEARCH
Tackabery Defining Glossaries

*Gerson, Sharon J., and Steven M. Gerson. 2000. Technical Information in action: A guide to technical communication. 2nd
writing: Process and product. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: ed. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
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Green, Michael, and Jonathan G. Ripley. 1993. Writing by writing. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press.
design: A handbook for professionals. Englewood Gliffs, NJ:
Regents/Prentice Hall, Inc. *Lay, Mary M., Billie J. Wahlstrom, Garolyn Rude, Gindy Selfe,
and Jack Selzer. 2000. Technical communication. 2nd ed. Bos-
Hargis, Gretchen, Michelle Garey, Ann Kiity Hernandez, Polly ton, MA: Irwin/McGraw Hill.
Hughes, Deirdre Longo, Shannon Rouiller, and Elizabeth Wilde.
2004. Developing quality technical information: A handbook for *Rude, Garolyn D. 1991. Technical editing. Belmont, GA:
writers and editors. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice- Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Hall, Inc./IBM Press.
Weisman, Herman M. 1992. Basic technical editing. 6th ed.
Jones, Don, and Karen Lane. 2002. Technics^ communication: Strat-New York, NY: Merrill.
egies for coiiege and the workpiace. New York, NY: Longmans.
Writing in the disciplines. 3rd ed. 1995. Griando, FL: Harcourt
Keene, Michael L. 1996. Effective professionai and technical Brace and Gompany.
writing. 2nd ed. Lexington, MA: D.G. Heath and Company.
MICHELLE KIDD TACKABERY is a student in the MS in
Kent-Paxton, Laura. 1993. Writing power: Elements of effective technical communication program at North Carolina State Uni-
writing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. versity. She has been employed in marketing communication
since 2000 and is a 1987 graduate of Belmont Abbey College in
Kiilingsworth, M. Jimmie, and Jacqueline S. Palmer. 1999. Belmont, NC. Contact: mmkidd@nc.rr.com.

Volume 52, Number 4, November 2005 • TechnicalCOMMUMCATION 433

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