Special terms
- Special terms are italicized, attributed, and defined at first mention, and ONLY at first mention. Do not italicize, attribute, or define special terms after first use. The author/theorist who coined the term is always noted in the text at first mention.
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- If you are unsure if a term is special, search for it on Dictionary by Merriam-Webster. If the term has a definition, it is most likely not a special term; if no definition is found, it likely is. However, some terms coined by authors do not mean what the dictionary definition states.
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- If a term has multiple words, check to see if each word is easily definable. Also, check that the coiner's meaning matches the dictionary definition. If each word is not easily definable, or the meaning of the term does not match the dictionary meaning, it should be a special term.
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- Use common sense – would a lay reader likely understand a word or term? If not, it should be made clear what they are reading.
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- The reasoning behind this rule is that we want our work to be understandable to as many people as possible. If they only need to look at a dictionary for a few seconds, a term does not need definition. If they need to spend several minutes looking through internet searches or journals/textbooks, a term should be singled out with italics, given a definition, and given credit to the person who created the term. Special terms are not italicized more than once to increase readability—special formatting can be confusing and distracting to readers.