4 Reasons Why All Companies Should Have Terminology Management

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What is Terminology Management?

Terminology Management is a vital technical communication function for all corporations. Larger the corporation, more urgent is the need to have a standard catalog of terms and concepts used consistently across all levels of the organization.

The goal of a terminology is to provide a set of terms that are well-defined, precise, and consistent. Terms should be used in a way that does not cause confusion.

Imagine the chaos that would ensue in a company like General Motors, which said to have a catalog of 165,000 service components labels, without managing terminology...

In most companies that I know of there is no terminology management process. If the company has a team of technical writers, “Occam’s Razor” principle is adopted as a substitute. That is, no new unnecessary concepts or terms are invented if one can still communicate efficiently without them. But that’s of course not the same thing as having an official terminology management policy and system in place.

There are Two Types of Terminology…

Standardized Terminology – developed by an organization to meet its specific needs.
Generalized Terminology – developed by an organization or individuals to meet general needs in a given field or discipline.

Here are some specific reasons why one should adopt a terminology management system, as formulated by tekom, the German professional association for technical communication and information development (which for some reason uses a lower-case “t” in its corporate name).

4 Reasons to Implement Terminology Management

(1) Prevent Internal Misunderstandings. The project management might order a set of design specs for the “panel” but if the developers think “panel” means only a “circuit board” they may not include the power source in their specs. The results are lost time, wasted project budget, and inefficient project management.

(2) Prevent wrong orders from customers. If you have three products named “Pro-Auto-Rotator”, “Pro-Auto-Revolver”, and “Pro-Auto-Recouper”, there is a high probability that the customers will end up placing orders for the wrong items, inadvertently.
If you have ever visited a residential neighborhood with street names like “Windham Terrace,” “Windham Court,” “Windham Lane,” “Windham Street”, you know the problem…

(3) Prevent wrong translations. Short and clear terms with no culturally-specific (or slang) connotations will always be translated more reliably than terms with such content.

(4) Prevent inappropriate product names for markets. True story: decades ago, General Motors tried to market a new automobile model in Latin America. The model’s name was “Nova.” The car did not sell. Months later someone in GM figured out why. “Nova” means “doesn’t run” in Spanish.

5 Principles of Terminology Management

(1) Base your terminology on concepts, not on specific words.

The terminology should be based on concepts and not words. The concepts should be defined as an abstraction of the meaning of the word or phrase.

For example, in math, it is common to use words like “equation”, “axiom” and “theorem” because they are related to math. The same principle applies to other subjects.

(2) Include only one piece of data in every concept category.

For example, for the name of individuals, use only the term “Name” and not various variations of it including terms like “Name and Last Name,” “Full Name,” etc.

(3) Define your data categories as granular as possible.

For example, use a “Street Name” term for street name instead of burying it inside the term “Address.”

(4) Provide synonyms and equivalents of all terms.

This is important especially for translation projects. Provide a map where various synonyms point at the same final term and translated in the same manner. For example, you can make sure that both a “ship” and a “vessel” are translated as “ship.”

(5) Do not define too many mandatory fields.

Mandatory fields reduce user participation. Too many of them create an inferior UX (User Experience). Collecting user data is fine but don’t go overboard with it and lose customers or potential users.

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