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How to Create Glossaries Using TermWiki
Creating glossaries (either monolingual—with only one language—or multilingual)
is a widely recognized best practice for individual content developers and
companies alike. On an enterprise level, glossaries validated by subject-matter
experts help improve the consistency of your documentation, thereby improving
customer experience and even helping you save costs on translation later on down
the road (if your company actively engages in localization to drive global
market share). Similarly, freelance content developers and translators alike can
significantly reduce their workload by importing glossaries into content
management systems and computer-aided translation (CAT) tools.
TermWiki.com is a free social learning network built around the concept
of industry-specific, terminology-driven knowledge sharing in 75 languages.
Through the site’s free My Glossary portal, registered members of the TermWiki
community can develop, maintain, edit and store their personal glossaries in a
centralized and secure online environment. Through this portal, users can even
share their glossaries with peers and colleagues, seek their input, discuss
terminology-related issues in dedicated discussion forums, and also keep track
of any changes made to glossaries all throughout this collaborative process. The
site also supports import and export functions, so that fully developed
glossaries can be integrated with a variety of content management systems for
live use on writing and translation projects.
The following article is a
concise, step-by-step tutorial of how you can sign up for your own free account
at TermWiki.com and use the site’s My Glossary function to its fullest potential
for your personal and professional benefit.
Step One: Sign Up for Your
Free TermWiki Account
Visit www.TermWiki.com and click Sign up for a free
account, then follow the instructions that follow. Registration is completely
free and only takes a few moments.
Step Two: Start a New
Glossary
After logging in, find and click on the My Glossary link that is
located in the navigation menu on the left-hand side of the page. On the My
Glossary page, click Add your glossary now to start developing your new
glossary.
You will be directed to the New Glossary page, which contains
multiple data fields that are essential to properly labeling and categorizing
your new glossary in the system. All fields marked with a red asterisk (*) are
mandatory, so fill them out to the best of your ability in order to identify the
industry or domain to which your glossary is most applicable.
Under
Target Languages you can also specify if your glossary will be in English only
or multilingual. Users who would like to create a multilingual glossary will
need to check off their target languages in the available field. If you would
like to receive automatic notifications whenever the terms in your glossary are
edited by other community members, check the Notify Me box towards the bottom of
the screen. When all of the data fields are accurately filled, click Submit to
create your new glossary, which now needs to be filled with terms.
Step
Three: Add Terms to Your New Glossary
Your new glossary homepage contains
two different functions for populating the glossary with data: Add a new Term
manually and Import Terms. If you have more than ten terms, it is recommended
that you use the Import Terms function to upload your terms in bulk via a
tailored Excel file.
To manually add a new term to your glossary, click
the Add a new Term button, then in the form that appears enter the name of the
term and its part of speech. You may notice that the information in the Industry
and Product Category fields is locked. This is to ensure that these tags are
consistent within your glossary. After entering the term name and its part of
speech, click Add or edit term to continue.
The following page has more
data fields for you to enter detailed information about the term. You will need
to enter the definition of the term, which must be at least one sentence to
ensure the consistency and quality of term entries throughout the system. You
also have the option of entering synonyms, uploading illustrative images and
sound files, as well as any company or product name to which the term is
relevant.
After entering data for all required fields (which are marked
with an asterisk [*]), click Save to add the new term to your
glossary.
Step Four: Import Terms in Bulk (if applicable)
To
import terms in bulk, click the Import terms button on your glossary’s homepage.
The page that follows contains a downloadable Excel template, which you will
need to download and complete. In the Excel file, make sure to enter a
definition, part of speech, and industry/product fields that already exist as
standards in the system. The usage status for each term should be entered as
“New” or be left empty.
When importing terms in bulk via TermWiki’s
import feature, you can import English source terms alone or in multiple
languages at once. If you are importing a monolingual glossary, make sure to add
your terms into the worksheet named “EN,” which is a tab that you can select at
the bottom of the spreadsheet in Excel. EN is the two letter ISO code for
English.
If you want to import a bilingual (or multilingual) glossary,
then you will need to fill in all the data fields in the spreadsheet named after
your target language. For example, term translations in English-to-Italian
glossaries should be entered in the “IT” tab that can be found at the bottom of
your spreadsheet.
After saving the completed Excel file to your local
hard drive, you can directly upload your terms to My Glossary by clicking Choose
File on the Import Page, selecting the correct file on your hard drive, clicking
Open in the dialogue box, and then clicking Import on the main page.
Please note that it may take some time before imported terms show up in
your glossary. This is because, in order to promote quality and consistency in
the system, all terms imported en masse must first be reviewed by system
administrators for quality.
Step Five: Translate Your Terms
If you
imported your terms in bulk, you can also upload their translations in the same
file. Alternatively, you can also translate individual terms in your glossary
right within your browser.
To translate a term in your glossary, click
the “T” button next to the term that you would like to translate. Note that in
glossaries with more than one target language, you will need to click the “T”
button in the specified column of the language into which you would like to
translate.
Alternatively, to translate all terms at the same time, click
the “Ta” bottom at the top of the column, which will take you to the TermWiki
Workbench. While translating terms in the TermWiki termbench, you can click the
“G” button to see machine translation suggestions. Review the machine translated
output as needed, and then click Save to add the translations of the terms to
your glossary.
Step Six: Share Your Glossary with Peers and
Colleagues
TermWiki was designed to facilitate collaborative content
development workflows. Terms and glossaries can be shared, reviewed and
commented on by multiple parties at the same time. Glossary owners can also
invite colleagues to add translations in their own language.
On your
glossary’s homepage, clicking the Share button provides others with a pathway to
view and amend your glossary. After receiving your invitation, they are able to
make comments and review your terms. All you need do is to provide your name (as
you would like it to appear in the email invitation that TermWiki sends), the
name of the person whom you’d like to invite, and their email address. Those you
invite to view and edit your glossary will be sent an invitation e-mail from
TermWiki that links them to your glossary. If they are already members of the
TermWiki community, they can start reviewing your glossary immediately. If the
person you invite does not have a TermWiki account, they will need to sign up
first (it’s free!) before contributing.
To invite other users to
translate your terms, click Invite. In addition to the required details
described above, you will also need to indicate the target language into which
you would like them to translate your terms.
Step Seven: Exporting Your
Completed Glossaries
If you would like to integrate your glossaries with
content management systems (CMS) or computer-aided translation (CAT) tools, you
can export them whenever needed your My Glossary portal on TermWiki. To export a
glossary, select the glossary that you would like to export on your glossary
homepage. Next, click Export terms to Excel. Choose the target languages that
you would like to export, as well as any relevant data fields, then click Submit
to export your glossary.
The exported Excel file will be split into
different spreadsheets by language. You can use the tabs at the bottom of the
spreadsheet to navigate between languages.
Changing Glossary
Settings
When viewing a glossary page, you can update the glossary’s
settings—e.g. change the industry or target languages, etc.—by clicking the Edit
button that can be found along the top navigation bar. Make sure to save all
changes before leaving the page.
For more information about creating a
glossary in TermWiki, go to www.termwiki.com/About_My_Glossary.
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