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• What is a Glossary? | Definition, Templates, & Examples

What Is a Glossary? | Definition, Templates, & Examples

Published on May 24, 2022 by Tegan George . Revised on July 18, 2023.

A glossary is a collection of words pertaining to a specific topic. In your thesis or dissertation , it’s a list of all terms you used that may not immediately be obvious to your reader.

Your glossary only needs to include terms that your reader may not be familiar with, and it’s intended to enhance their understanding of your work. Glossaries are not mandatory, but if you use a lot of technical or field-specific terms, it may improve readability to add one.

If you do choose to include a glossary, it should go at the beginning of your document, just after the table of contents and (if applicable) list of tables and figures or list of abbreviations . It’s helpful to place your glossary at the beginning, so your readers can familiarize themselves with key terms relevant to your thesis or dissertation topic prior to reading your work. Remember that glossaries are always in alphabetical order.

To help you get started, download our glossary template in the format of your choice below.

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• Table of contents

Example of a glossary

Citing sources for your glossary, additional lists to include in your dissertation, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about glossaries.

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Glossaries and definitions often fall into the category of common knowledge , meaning that they don’t necessarily have to be cited.

However, it’s always better to be safe than sorry when it comes to citing your sources , in order to avoid accidental plagiarism .

If you’d prefer to cite just in case, you can follow guidance for citing dictionary entries in MLA or APA Style for citations in your glossary. Remember that direct quotes should always be accompanied by a citation.

In addition to the glossary, you can also include a list of tables and figures and a list of abbreviations in your thesis or dissertation if you choose.

Include your lists in the following order:

• List of figures and tables
• List of abbreviations

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A glossary is a collection of words pertaining to a specific topic. In your thesis or dissertation, it’s a list of all terms you used that may not immediately be obvious to your reader. In contrast, dictionaries are more general collections of words.

A glossary or “glossary of terms” is a collection of words pertaining to a specific topic. In your thesis or dissertation, it’s a list of all terms you used that may not immediately be obvious to your reader. Your glossary only needs to include terms that your reader may not be familiar with, and is intended to enhance their understanding of your work.

Glossaries are not mandatory, but if you use a lot of technical or field-specific terms, it may improve readability to add one to your thesis or dissertation. Your educational institution may also require them, so be sure to check their specific guidelines.

A glossary is a collection of words pertaining to a specific topic. In your thesis or dissertation, it’s a list of all terms you used that may not immediately be obvious to your reader. In contrast, an index is a list of the contents of your work organized by page number.

Definitional terms often fall into the category of common knowledge , meaning that they don’t necessarily have to be cited. This guidance can apply to your thesis or dissertation glossary as well.

However, if you’d prefer to cite your sources , you can follow guidance for citing dictionary entries in MLA or APA style for your glossary.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

George, T. (2023, July 18). What Is a Glossary? | Definition, Templates, & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved July 2, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/glossary-of-a-dissertation/

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Thesis Definition of Terms

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Krome Taylor

A posteriori knowledge: Knowledge posterior to human experience of it and dependent on human awareness (e.g. being stuck with a pin and feeling pain). A priori knowledge: Truth that some thinkers claim is built into the very fabric of reality. Independent of human knowers and always true (whether/not humans accept it). It exists prior to human experience and is independent of human awareness (relationship between diameter and circumference of a circle [pi]). We may become acquainted with a priori truths through experience, but experience is not what justifies them. Abiogenesis: The supposed development of living organisms from nonliving matter. Absolute Truth: The truth that is eternally and universally true irrespective of time or space. Acceptability: The degree to which observations and experiments can be reproduced (validity). Aesthetics: The realm of value that searches for the principles governing the creation and appreciation of beauty and art. What is beautiful? Agnostic – One who believes that there is no proof of the existence of God but does not deny the possibility that God exists. Agnosticism: A profession of ignorance, especially in reference to the existence or nonexistence of God, rather than a positive denial of any valid knowledge. Analysis: The separation of a whole into its constituent parts to determine either their nature (qualitative analysis) or their proportions (quantitative analysis). It involves focusing on human language or use of it in an attempt to clarify our understanding of problems and how they might be solved. Analytic Truth: A statement true in virtue of the meanings of the words alone: For example, " all bachelors are unmarried males ". Analytic statements can be known a priori. Anthropology: The scientific study of the origin, the behaviour, and the physical, social, and cultural development of human beings. Authority: Knowledge accepted as true because it comes from experts or has been sanctified over time as tradition-Classroom-textbooks, teacher or reference work. Axiology: The study of the nature of values and value judgments. The branch of philosophy that seeks to answer the question, "What is of value?" Axiom: An established rule, principle, or law. A principle that is accepted as true without proof as the basis of argument; a postulate. Biogenesis: The principle that living organisms develop only from other living organisms and not from nonliving matter. Generation of living organisms from other living organisms. Biology [Greek: bios-life + logos – reason/word]: The science of life and of living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution. The life processes or characteristic phenomena of a group or category of organisms. Boundary Conditions: A description of the relevant factors which together with the law result in the Explanandum-event. Certain explanations do not contain boundary/initial conditions—they contain other laws, which work together to explain why this one obtains. Example: PV=nRT or E=mc 2. Casual thought: Thought that involves use of basic information (Where did I leave my watch? What time is it? Did I lock my door? What am I going to do today?) Causation: The relation between events, states, processes in the universe which science sets out to uncover, which its explanations report and which its predictions about provide tests of its explanations. Chemistry: The science of the composition, structure, properties, and reactions of matter, especially of atomic and molecular systems. The composition, structure, properties, and reactions of a substance. Coherence Theory: States that a judgment is true if it is consistent with other judgments that have previously been accepted as true. (Critics state that false and true systems can be consistent). Comprehensiveness: inclination toward collecting as much relevant data on a subject as possible from a wide spectrum of sources rather than being satisfied with a narrow sample. WHOLENESS! Conceived values: Verbalized but not actualized values-"Bag of mouth" Contingent Truth: A statement whose truth is dependent on the way things actually are in nature, and not dependent on purely logical or other grounds we could know about without experience. Example: normal humans have 46 chromosomes (they could have had 48 or 44)

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The study is intended to describe the methods of defining terms found in the theses of the English Foreign Language (EFL) students of IAIN Palangka Raya. The method to be used is a mixed method, qualitative and quantitative. Quantitative approach was used to identify, describe the frequencies, and classify the methods of defining terms. In interpreting and explaining the types of method to be used, the writer used qualitative approach. In qualitative approach, data were described in the form of words and explanation. The findings show that there were two methods of defining terms, dictionary approach and athoritative reference.

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This study focuses on terminological problems, which students encounter in academic writing. In the academic writing course Academic Writing in Finnish (5 ECTS), students perform an argumentation analysis, which is reported by writing a short academic text, called a mini-thesis. For the argumentation analysis, students analyse a Master's thesis written by some other student based on the theoretical background given during the course. In this paper I will describe terminological problems encountered by ten students in this task. The aim is to illustrate that students may have a conceptual understanding of the concepts (argument, main claim, claim, reason, background assumption) required for the assignment but still resort to using term-like words vaguely, ambiguously or sometimes even wrongly. The results of a genre and discourse analysis show that this is the case in some respects. Terminological problems illustrate how the termino-logical chain from the sources of the assignment to the assignment and further to the mini-thesis might be broken, and as a consequence, the intelligibility of the mini-thesis can be put at risk. However, some students use the term-like words consistently and even show some development if compared with the terms given in the theoretical background. The results may have pedagogical use in shedding light on how consistent use of terms strengthens intelligibility.

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