Ensuring consistency in terminology across construction documents in DITA is essential for clarity and accuracy. Several strategies are employed to achieve this goal:

Custom Glossaries

Construction companies create custom glossaries in DITA to define industry-specific terms and abbreviations. These glossaries serve as a centralized reference for authors to ensure they use consistent terminology. By providing clear definitions and examples, custom glossaries help authors understand and apply the correct terms in their documents.

Terminology Topics

In DITA, terminology topics are used to encapsulate definitions and explanations of construction-specific terms. These topics can be linked from within DITA documents, allowing authors to reference them when using specialized terminology. Terminology topics provide a single source of truth for terminology, ensuring that everyone in the organization adheres to the same standards.

Example:

Here’s an example of how construction companies maintain terminology consistency in DITA:

<glossary>
  <title>Construction Glossary</title>
  <topic id="foundation">
    <title>Foundation</title>
    <definition>The base on which a building or structure rests.</definition>
  </topic>
  <topic id="HVAC">
    <title>HVAC</title>
    <definition>Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning systems.</definition>
  </topic>

In this example, the construction glossary includes terminology topics for “Foundation” and “HVAC,” ensuring that these terms are consistently defined and used throughout construction documentation.