Tutorial:Glossary

Statistics Explained contains an extensive glossary of statistical and other terms used in the articles. This tutorial presents the overall structure of the glossary and the logic behind it, and also describes the non-English glossaries and how these are linked to the 'mother' English glossary (see also the Tutorial:How to create an article - enter glossary items).

Overall glossary and subglossaries

All glossary items, including the abbreviations, can be found in the overall Statistics Explained glossary, but also in one or several subglossaries. Three different subglossary types can be distinguished (see Thematic glossaries for a clickable overview):

• abbreviations;
• thematic glossaries by statistical (sub)theme;
• special-topic glossaries, including subglossaries of non-statistical items and by type of content.

Thematic glossaries

A set of subglossaries, one for every Eurostat statistical subtheme and one for the theme 'Economy and finance' as a whole; in alphabetical order:

• Agriculture glossary
• Balance of payments glossary
• Consumer prices glossary
• Crime glossary
• Distributive trade glossary
• Economy and finance glossary
• Education and training glossary
• Energy glossary
• Environment glossary
• Exchange and interest rates glossary
• Fisheries glossary
• Forestry glossary
• Government finance statistics glossary
• Health glossary
• Industry and construction glossary
• Digital economy and society glossary
• International trade glossary
• Labour market glossary
• Living conditions glossary
• Monetary and other financial statistics glossary
• National accounts glossary
• Population glossary
• Postal statistics glossary
• Regions and cities glossary
• Science and technology glossary
• Services glossary
• Short-term business statistics glossary
• Structural business statistics glossary
• Tourism glossary
• Transport glossary

Special-topic glossaries

A limited number of subglossaries grouping different types of non-statistical items were created:

• EU institutions glossary;
• Geography glossary;
• International organisations glossary.

Finally, five different types of content can be distinguished and used for grouping glossary items; many but not all glossary items fit into one of these categories:

• Classification
• Statistical concept
• Statistical indicator
• Statistical method
• Survey (including other data collection methods or repostitories)

Other-language glossaries

Besides the English-language glossary of approximately 1800 items, more limited glossaries in some other languages are also available; at present:

• French (français);
• German (Deutsch);
• Greek (Ελληνικά);
• Icelandic (íslenska);
• Polish (polski);
• Swedish (svenska).

Both the number of languages and the items each one contains are likely to expand.

In the same way as for other-language articles, other-language glossary pages can only be created if the English version already exists, they have the same url as the English glossary page with the addition of '/language_code' (e.g. Glossary:European Union (EU)/nl) and all other existing language versions are visible and can be accessed via 'In other languages' in the navigation zone on the bottom left of any page. How other-language glossary pages are created in practice, is described in the ESS glossary tutorial.

Due to software limitations, some features in other-language glossaries behave differently from the English version. This should not be visible to outside users, but it necessitates some work-around solutions in redirect glossary items (editing aspects of this are explained in the Tutorial:Redirect page).

Across statistical domains

Similar terms used in different statistical domains and defined differently, are disambiguated by adding ' - domain name or abbreviation' at the end. Examples of such terms are:

• household, used in national accounts and social statistics (Household - social statistics);
• employee, used in the Labour force survey (Employee - LFS) and in structural business statistics (Employee - SBS);
• turnover: used in structural business statistics (Turnover - SBS), short-term business statistics, national accounts.

Abbreviations

Similar abbreviations which refer to more than one term or concept, are disambiguated according to the following rules and procedures:

• the abbreviation to be disambiguated is created as a glossary page explaining and redirecting to the different Glossary pages containing the full description, in alphabetical order; e.g. Glossary:EEA; this disambiguation glossary page is placed only in one category: Disambiguation;
• numbered abbreviation glossary pages are created, with the numbering after the abbreviation, between brackets, in the same alphabetical order (e.g. Glossary:EEA (1), Glossary:EEA (2)); these abbreviations redirect to the glossary pages they stand for (e.g. Glossary:EEA (1) to Glossary:European Economic Area (EEA); they are placed in the category Abbreviations and in the thematic or similar categories of the item they refer to, but not in the overall Glossary;
• in the glossary pages with acronyms also used for other glossary items, a line on top is inserted, in italic: See XXX disambiguation page for other meanings of XXX. (e.g. See EEA disambiguation page for other meanings of EEA.).

As a result:

• the list of abbreviations contains multiple acronyms distinguished by (1), (2) behind them, leading to the appropriate glossary page;
• the thematic and similar categories contain the appropriate acronym (including the numbering);
• the glossary pages with duplicated acronyms contain a reference to the disambiguation page.

See also

• Tutorial:How to create an article - enter glossary items