How is the InterWATER thesaurus constructed?
Updated - Monday 23 October 2006
The InterWATER thesaurus is a standardised vocabulary for water and sanitation concepts that may be phrased in a variety of ways in sector literature. Each term appears in alphabetical order and full details are given of other terms related to it.
The InterWATER thesaurus makes clear what a term is meant to cover. It also helps to improve the quality of retrieval.
Topics of the InterWATER thesaurus
- Preferred terms (or descriptors)
- Non-preferred terms
- Hierarchical relations between terms
- Associative relations between terms and
- How to apply terms
1. Preferred terms
Preferred terms (also called descriptors) form the major part of vocabulary control. The InterWATER thesaurus indicates which water supply and sanitation terms indexers are allowed to use. Preferred terms restrict the vocabulary so that it is easier to predict what words might have been used to index a concept.
2. Non-preferred terms
The InterWATER thesaurus also indicates some terms that indexers are not to use. These terms are called non-preferred terms. The InterWATER thesaurus allows you to look up a non-preferred term and see what preferred term should be used instead. This helps to direct you to the right term. For example: “salt removal” is a non-preferred term. The preferred term appears to be “desalination”. It is also possible to go the other way around: look up a preferred term and see its non-preferred terms. This can give you a better idea of what the term is supposed to mean.
In the InterWATER thesaurus it looks like this:
| Salt removal |
|
| use Desalination |
|
| Desalination |
|
| uf Salt removal |
|
| uf Desalinization |
|
| ( uf = used for) |
|
3. Hierarchical relations
Hierarchical relations show the relations of a preferred term. For example: the broader term for “water related diseases” is “diseases”. One of the narrower terms is “fluorosis”.
4. Associative relations
Associative relations show the relations between different preferred terms. This can make the meaning of a term clearer. For example: one of the related terms for “water related diseases” is “water quality”.
In the InterWATER thesaurus it looks like this:
| Water related diseases |
|
| uf waterbased diseases |
|
| BT diseases (BT = broader term) |
|
| NT fluorosis (NT = narrower term) |
|
| rt water quality (rt = related term) |
|
5. How to apply terms
The InterWATER thesaurus also guides people in using the thesaurus by including so-called scope notes. A scope note defines, explains or limits the meaning of a preferred term. This is an important aspect of vocabulary control: terms need to be used consistently with the same meaning.
