The Freedom of Word Processing for Terminology Work

In addition to the convenience of using a software program that you already know well, using your word processing software opens up some very interesting possibilities and offers you a fair amount of leeway. If you are accustomed to working with the monolithic, unforgiving approach of a conventional database, where the software controls every step, it may not be immediately evident to you how to make the most of using a word processor for terminology work. Here are a few observations that will help you adjust to this freer approach.

Please take note that the following suggestions only apply to MS Word –format records. LogiTerm Web not only offers MS Word-format records creation but also Web-format records. The Web format offers huge advantages over MS Word-format records regarding the management and centralization of records in a shared environment.

You don't need to finalize your terminology records right away

When you create a number of terminology records from a list of terms, it often happens that some terms raise questions that are not immediately answered, such that complete terminology records cannot be created for each term in the list. Don't let it bother you! With LogiTerm, you simply leave the terms in question in your document, as they are, wherever they are, and come back to them later. Your terminology records document can still be indexed and consulted, and the unresolved terms are clearly evident when you scan through the document.

Suppose, for example, that your subcontractor sends you an e-mail message with a list of urgent terminology questions.

You copy the list from the message and paste it in a new Word document. You then add the equivalents that you can track down immediately and formalize them as terminology records by putting, for example, an equal sign between the source and target language terms and clicking Create a record from term on the toolbar.

You now send this document to the subcontractor, even though it contains a mixture of properly prepared terminology records and unresolved terms. You can even include your comments if you like. Already at this point you can index this document by including it in your terminology database.

At the same time, you send the same document to your resource person who then deals with the unresolved questions. This person does not need any special software (apart from MS Word) and can enter equivalents, comments, etc., directly into the document. You can set it up so that certain colours or highlights draw attention to terms needing more thought, useful or questionable concepts, comments, and so forth.

When you get the document back from your resource person, you can now create new records for the now resolved terminology questions by using Create a record from term on the toolbar. It may be noted that this macro has the useful feature of removing formatting, which could otherwise be a tedious operation.

This definitive version of the document you now send to the subcontractor, and you reindex the document, in its definitive form, in your terminology database.

You follow a similar process when creating terminology records from a scanned list of terms. You first move all the suggested terms to a separate document, where you can sort them, delete unwanted ones, and create more or less complete terminology records that you finalize when you can. At all times you can move around the document as you wish, group various terms that can have an influence on each other, change some terminology records, do global search and replaces, etc. This approach is much more dynamic and handy than an environment that obliges you to work on, and then save, one terminology record at a time, and then lose sight of it when you go on to the next.

You can group your terminology records by document

Unlike a database environment, it is easy and helpful to group terminology records for whatever reason you like, simply by putting them in a separate document. For example, you may have scanned the documents of a translation job for terms and would put these terminology records in one file. You may also want to group terms approved by your terminologist.

You can add some comments at the very start of the document and give it a descriptive file name, such that it is clear why and when you created these terminology records, the name of the subcontractor who handled the project, difficulties encountered, degree of reliability or relevance, and so forth. In this way each group of terminology records can indefinitely contain a self-description that you can consult at any time.

Grouping terminology can also prove useful for projects handled by a team. In translation firms, for example, all translators can have a document with their name in the filename, and they add their own terminology records to this document. Management can then easily see who produces how much and at what level of quality. In this scenario, we suggest that the onsite terminologist transfer the content of all the individual documents to a collective storage document at regular intervals, and proceed from there to validate the terminology. In this way, even draft terminology records can be consulted once created, and the fact that they are retrieved from an individual's record creation file indicates they are not yet validated.

Although this is useful method, it is rather difficult to implement and manage in a shared environment. For that reason, we suggest to use the Web-format records.

You can organize your terminology records within a given document

The relative position of terminology records within a document could also be exploited: you can simply group together the terminology records that cover related notions, such as, for example, product features, administrative organization, etc. In this way, whoever consults the document for a given term may find it helpful to look through the adjacent terminology records.

You could also just as easily create a document in which the records are organized as in a lexicon.

The Remarks field: like a candy store for a sweet tooth

Your imagination is the limit when it comes to what you can put in the Remarks field of a LogiTerm terminology record. You can paste in bits of contexts from Web sites, or you can paste in relatively voluminous or structured content so as to have a thorough presentation, such as a several-page encyclopaedic-style article on some product or technology, a reference table for product codes or conversion factors, telephone numbers of resource persons, etc.

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