Glossary, links, etc.

[Rich Morin]

Several folks have suggested, on- and off-list, that the book
should have a Glossary. I agree, but I'd like to explore a
few notions about the format before we dive in.

When writing for the web, it's quite common to use links as a
way to define terms. For example, in

http://book.merbist.com/front-matter/preface

I linked the term "Open Source" to the page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source

This saves the writer from having to create and maintain a
glossary, while providing the user with (presumably) an
authoritative reference for the term.

Unfortunately, this approach has a couple of problems:

* There may be several pages which could serve as the
target for the link. http://www.opensource.org/, for
example, might be a good one for "Open Source". The
reader might get to this link eventuallu (it's on the
Wikipedia page), but it's not at all certain that s/he
would. (It took me a bit of looking to find it :-).

* The Wikipedia page is in English, which may not be the
language used in the linking page. So, the reader may
get dumped out of his desired language into another,
less familiar language. Not good.

* Taking the reader to a corresponding page in the desired
language may not be an ideal solution, either. Even if
there is (say) a Wikipedia page in that language, it may
not be as complete or accurate as the English version.

I'm wondering about using the Glossary as a tool for getting
around these problems, at some cost in immediacy. If each
"definitional" link were to go to an appropriate point in
the Glossary page, the reader could be presented with:

* a short definition, in the desired language

* links to external (and perhaps internal) resources

Would this be a reasonable trade-off?

-r
--
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm Rich Morin
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume r...@cfcl.com
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog +1 650-873-7841

Technical editing and writing, programming, and web development

[Carlo Pecchia]

Maybe a sort of "deepening" section at the end of each chapter
(0-front-matter, 1-introduction, and so on..) when translation group
could insert some links for certain concept in its own tongue?

In that way information stay "near" the point they reference and,
maybe more important, it's up to translation group to
manage/improve/update it.

(my 2 cent) :)


2008/12/11 Rich Morin <r...@cfcl.com>:

--
Carlo Pecchia
email: c.pe...@gmail.com

[Khaled al Habache]

As for my understanding for the glossary, i think it's nothing more than a dictionary, and in our case it's a scientific dictionary, a term and it's closest meaning or expressive sentence considering the localization in this translation.
I don't c any use of having a wiki or any other reference, specially if we named it : "Book Glossary" , to mention that this is the our 'own' set of glossary used in this book.
___________________________
Eng Khaled alHabache
http://www.khelll.com

[Roy Wright]

Maybe use the footnote model.

The footnote would then include the short definition and an optional
list of references.

The same footnote could be included on multiple pages.

A glossary could then be just the collection of footnotes.

Then to get fancy, maybe some unobtrusive javascript to open the
footnote inplace for quick reference.

Just an idea.