About terms and abbreviations according to GOST
The requirements of GOSTs apply not only to the execution of documents, but also to their content. In particular, GOSTs determine the semantic content of all sections, as well as the requirements for the presentation of the text of the document.
As a rule, several specialists take part in the development of technical documentation, each of which expresses his part in his own manner, using his own terms. When forming the full text of the document, these features require uniformity.
Often, under the same term, different specialists mean completely different concepts, and therefore such texts resemble the funny fairy tale “Puski Byatye” by the wonderful writer L. S. Petrushevskaya:
Syapala Kalush with Kalushats on the fur. And she took Butyavka away, and will:
— Kalushata! Kalushatochki! Butyavka!
Kalushata sat down and Butyavka shook. And they sank.
And Kalusha wills:
— About her! About her! Butyavka is not good!
Kalushat Butyavka was extorted.
Butyavka twitched, snuggled up and fell off the fur.
And Kalusha tells the Kalushats:
— Kalushatochki! Do not shake butyavki, butyavki are any and zyumo-zyumo are not tart. From the bottles they puff.
And Butyavka will say for a pouffe:
— Kalushata poddonilis! Zyumo are ugly! Puski beaten!
Depending on the terminology adopted, a fairy tale can turn into a different genre. For example, if Kalusha and Butyavka are competing leaders or bandits, then you get a production or crime drama, and if you mean bloodthirsty monsters like Dracula or Alien, then you get a vampire or fantasy thriller :).
From a formal point of view, the best definition of the term is, of course, the definition given in GOSTs corresponding to the subject area. Unfortunately, not all terms are available in official standards. This is especially true for IT for two reasons.
IT is evolving so fast (for example, neural networks) that standardization organizations in this area do not have time to develop the appropriate terms in a timely manner. In the absence of standard definitions of terms, document developers often use their own.
Almost all terms in this area are in English, and the development of domestic analogues further exacerbates the time lag, and their Russian translation sometimes does not correspond to the essence at all. For example, the term “remote access” from the point of view of the Russian language is more correctly translated as “remote access”, but the generally accepted “remote access” has taken root, incl. and in GOSTs, however, in different wordings.
The table below shows examples of the wording of the term “remote access” from different GOSTs.
Name of the term and GOST | Wording |
Remote (remote) access GOST R 7.0.94-2015 System of standards for information, librarianship and publishing. Acquisition of the library documents. Terms and Definitions | Access to electronic resources hosted on a server accessible through information and telecommunication networks |
Remote [дистанционный] access (to electronic information) GOST R 7.0.107-2022 System of standards for information, librarianship and publishing. Library and information activities. Terms and Definitions | Use of electronic resources hosted on a server accessible through information and telecommunication networks |
Remote access GOST R 57429-2017 Forensic computer and technical expertise. Terms and Definitions | The process of gaining access to computer facilities through a computer network using another computer facility |
Remote access GOST R 57580.1-2017 Security of financial (banking) transactions. Protection of information of financial organizations. Basic composition of organizational and technical measures | Logical access of employees of financial organizations, implemented from outside the computer networks of financial organizations |
Remote access GOST R 57721-2017 Information and communication technologies in education. The experiment is virtual. General provisions | Using a computer system to remotely control another system in real time |
As can be seen from the table, the term “remote access” in different GOSTs has a different meaning: the technical process of obtaining a data transmission channel to information resources and / or their remote use. Of course, the definition of the term depends on the subject area of the document being developed, and specialists usually understand its essence from the context. However, the document should be understandable to any specialist, even those who do not have sufficient specialized knowledge.
On the other hand, the standard definition of a term may not correspond to the meaning given to it in a particular document. In order to properly define a term, a technical writer needs to have a sufficient understanding of the subject area and meaning of the text being presented, as well as to apply their own creative efforts.
The problem of terminology is further exacerbated by the complete absence of the desired term, for example, in a completely new field that is already quite popular and rapidly developing, but the terminology has not yet had time to settle down, and therefore each developer uses his own; or proprietary technology that uses terms coined by its creators. In this case, it is required to come up with a Russian-language name for the term itself and formulate its meaning. At the same time, the name of the term, oddly enough, may not reflect the essence of the embedded concept at all.
In this context, the example of a computer mouse is very indicative. Rhetorical question: is this computer device similar to a mouse?
If we consider the size and the wire that looks like a tail to be similar, then the mouse is not the only one with a tail. Why not called a mole, for example? Nevertheless, the name has taken root, modern wireless mice have no “tail” at all, and the mouse pad no longer evokes an associative analogy with a cockroach bed :).
Sometimes a term like “mouse” is unacceptable for various reasons, and it is often required to use a long and unreadable name, which itself consists of several terms, for example, “recurrent neural network implemented on a long short-term memory architecture,” or “privileged process user address space” . The obvious reasonable way out is to use abbreviations.
The requirements and rules for the abbreviation of words and phrases are well described in GOST 7.11-2004 (System of standards for information, librarianship and publishing. Bibliographic record. Abbreviation of words and phrases in foreign European languages) and GOST R 7.0.12-2011 (System of standards for information , librarianship and publishing. Bibliographic record. Abbreviations of words and phrases in Russian. General requirements and rules), which, strictly speaking, are not mandatory in the development of technical documentation, but are very useful for a general understanding of the rules for creating abbreviations.
Very often, in technical documentation, foreign and Russian-language common abbreviations of terms are used that do not need definitions, they only need to be deciphered. With abbreviations developed only for local use, the situation is more complicated due to the peculiarities of our language and possible negative associations. Here is an example of the unsuccessful use of the abbreviation of the name “All-Russian Scientific Research Geological Institute named after V.I. A.P. Karpinsky” (https://vsegei.ru/ru/) :):
This is where the aforementioned GOSTs and, especially, creativity come in handy 🙂
In this article, I tried to draw the attention of technical documentation developers to the importance of using the correct terms and abbreviations. Making text documents according to the requirements of GOSTs requires developers to have knowledge of the subject area and, despite the abundance of not always clear restrictions and requirements, creative efforts.
