Updated June 2025
Let's be honest, not all glossaries are as helpful as we need them to be. Writing a helpful glossary of terms requires keen focus on the readers' needs and a deft hand at plain language.
3 reasons to create a glossary
Glossaries are excellent "big rock" content marketing assets that are worth the effort because they:
- Provide legit value to your audience by increasing understanding and helping them feel smart
- Drive loyalty and trust by meeting needs and providing useful insight
- Encourage sharing with others, extending your marketing reach
6 ways to write an effective glossary
After looking over a lot of glossaries and writing a bunch, too, I came up with this list of 5 tips for writing ones that are truly useful:
1. Meet your audiences' needs.
The entries in a glossary aren't for you, they're for the reader. It's vital to consider their need for understanding rather than your need to complete the task. Think about why readers reference glossaries. They come for clarification ("I think I know what this means"), validation ("Ha! I was right. I'm so smart.") or elucidation ("So that's what this means"). Keep the audience's needs in mind as you create your definitions. Get more tips on anticipating audience needs.
2. Use plain language.
There's a feeling that plain language is boring or dumbed down. That's simply not true. Plain language is crystal clear. And that's why it's crucial for glossary writing. Don't describe anemia as "having a low hematocrit" because you probably need to explain hematocrit, too. Instead: Anemia: A condition in which the body doesn't have enough red blood cells. Often detected with a hematocrit, a blood test measuring the percentage whole blood that consists of red blood cells. When writing a glossary for a highly technical audience, it's OK to use jargon, but keep it to a minimum. Read more about the value of plain language.
3. Don't use the word in the definition.
If you've ever looked up a word and found that term in the definition, you know how frustrating this feels. So don't do it to your readers. Here's an example from real life: Agile modeling session: A modeling session that follows the principles and applies the practices of Agile modeling. This is crappy writing even if I do know something about Agile. If I don't know much about it or what goes on in an agile modeling session, I sure as shootin' couldn't figure it out from this. More than making me feel dumb, which it might, it makes me not like whoever wrote this, which is never a good outcome.
4. Include examples, synonyms and antonyms.
Examples increase understanding and relatability. The best examples track back, by link or explicit reference, to content on your site. This not only establishes the term in the context of your organization, but it reinforces your authority and improves time on site. Sometimes we can get all the information we need to understand a term by looking at its synonyms and antonyms. Include one or two of each in your glossary entry. Don't believe me? It's how Merriam-Webster does it. Check out some other 'nyms.
See the full entry https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/antonym
Get more insight into the importance of word choice.
5. Provide pronunciation tips.
It really helps to know how to say the word correctly. It gives us confidence that we can use it in conversation and not embarrass ourselves. This is especially true for technical language, terms of art and for abbreviations that aren't spelled out. For example, everyone knows it's N-C-A-A or N-C-DoubleA. But what about a term like SPUG? That's our shorthand for spelling, punctuation, usage and grammar. But nobody here would say it 'S-P-U-G'. We call it 'SPUG', like pug or spud.
6. Don't rely solely on AI.
Look, AI is a fast and easy way to create a glossary. But it's not enough to let it do all the work. That's in large part because much of the nuance you need to win at items 1-5 above require human oversight and intervention. And AI will undoubtedly return entries you don't need while missing ones you do. Also, anyone using AI for this purpose will produce glossaries that aren't sufficiently differentiated, diminishing your authority and credibility. Use AI to create a draft, then invest staff time and intelligence to polish up and make it truly valuable and unique.
Try these tips the next time you have to define a term in your content or write an entire glossary. It's a little more work, but the pay-off comes in the form of an educated and appreciative audience.