ARCHIVED 2.3.5. Selection and Evaluation of Documentation

 

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As a general rule, documents to be used in terminology research are selected based on the following criteria:

• Relevance of the terminology (precision, homogeneity, coherence) and number of defining elements in textual supports, from the point of view of the real or potential target users.
• Extent to which the contents to be analyzed correspond to the communication needs and expectations of the target audience (the documents may be specialized or educational; official or informal; comprehensive, such as a monograph; topic-centered, such as an article in a periodical, an encyclopedia, a promotional brochure, etc.).
• Extent to which information is organized, taking into account peer evaluation; reputation of the author, the series or the editor in the targeted milieu; as well as the presence of glossaries and indexes of concepts and official titles appearing in the document.
• Timeliness and completeness of the contents relative to the evolution of specialized knowledge in the subject field in question (copyright date, objectives stated in the document, up-to-date bibliography, recommendation by a recognized organization).
• Linguistic quality of the documentation (grammar, vocabulary, style of an original-language text or of a translation).

If your research is going to be recorded in a terminology database, the documents selected as sources for future work are processed so that they meet the management requirements of that database:

• Source codes may be created according to source coding rules that apply to the entire database (alternatively, source titles can be recorded in full in such a way that they can still be recognized and processed by the software application).
• Source information is entered into the sources field of the terminology record according to the established record completion rules.
• Source references are given for any quotation or any document consulted, in conformance with copyright laws.
• Texts must be available for electronic processing or consultation in hardcopy form.

Exercise

Read the following question and select the correct answer.

Question

If you had to manage a terminology database, what would be your most important data management requirement concerning sources?

  A means for the electronic processing of documents. A system for assigning source codes to your documentation. A mechanism for registering sources.

   Answers