The articles on this page reference controlled vocabularies. Controlled vocabularies provide a means for organizing information content by using one term to represent a concept or entity. According to ANSI/NISO Z39.19 - Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Controlled Vocabularies there are four principles of controlled vocabularies:

1. Eliminate ambiguity
2. Control synonyms
3. Establish relationships among terms where appropriate
4. Compensate for synonymity

There are four types of controlled vocabularies:

1. List - enumeration of accepted terms
2. Synonym ring - set of terms considered equivalent for purposes of retrieval
3. Taxonomy - preferred terms, all of which are connected in a hierarchy or polyhierarchy
4. Thesaurus - vocabulary arranged in known order and structured so that various relationships among terms are displayed clearly and identified by standard relationship indicators

Controlled vocabularies provide a basis for automatic machine-based processing and information linking and exchange between computer systems. Formal controlled vocabularies do this by specifying semantics: structured terms, definitions and relationships about a particular concept/entity.

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