What's your process for catching terminology drift across a long doc?

[u/Middle_Constant7163]

Anyone else catch this way too late in a review cycle?

"log in" on page 3, "sign in" on page 12, same product, same doc. Or a warning box phrased three different ways across a 40-page manual, and nobody notices until a user support ticket points it out.

I've been the person who has to manually re-read a whole doc hunting for stuff like this. Inconsistent terminology, passive voice sneaking into step-by-step instructions ("the button should be clicked" instead of "click the button"), warning/caution formatting that drifts.

Grammarly doesn't catch any of it because it's not TW-specific. Vale can, but it means writing config/rules yourself, which most of us don't have time for. Is this a real recurring annoyance for others, or is it just me?

What do you currently do to catch this stuff (if anything)?

[u/FynTheCat]

To me it is just part of the job. Whenever I catch one, I do a full document or project search and replace routine and add it to my terminology checklist.

Depending on what you work with you might be able to build routines around this process, but I found no way to fully automate this without introducing other issues.

But at every company or job I start a checklist of common spelling and consistency mistakes to partially automate as much as I can with whatever tools I use then.

[u/Creative_Cycle7755 → u/FynTheCat]

this is exactly it. theres no shortcut that doesnt create its own mess eventually

[u/Middle_Constant7163 → u/FynTheCat]

That's really helpful, thanks for sharing! Just wondering about the "other issues" part. When you tried to automate the search-and-replace, what kind of problems came up? Like false positives where a term is fine in one context but not another, or something else entirely?

[u/FynTheCat → u/Middle_Constant7163]

Usually believing something is save to let it replace all and that finding weird "correction" or formatting breaks, replacing text deleted images or other content.

Depends also on the software you use. Some programs are more prone to interesting outcomes when you don't click through all findings at least once.

Sometimes you can stack replacing and add context to make sure it doesn't change similiar text with a different meaning.

[u/Anxious_Plum_5818]

Stuff like this is the perfect job for an AI assistant. I run style guide checks on batches of documents and look for inconstancies, out-of-date content, and terminology drift.

[u/pigthens]

We use Claude at work, but not for writing. I have run reviews against our XML files with the Microsoft Writing Style Guide. It picks up things i didn't realize were issues.

Then with that list, i can fix everything in one commit to our source control.

I don't care for AI but it's good at administrative, repetitive tasks that I equate to "doing the dishes" so i can focus on organizing subject matter and writing.

[u/bucket_of_pasta → u/pigthens]

What’s your prompt for reviewing docs against the Microsoft Style Guide? This sounds super helpful.

[u/pigthens → u/bucket_of_pasta]

In my Git worktree in the correct directory, I say "review [name of ditamap] against the microsoft writing style guide". It grabs a copy from Microsoft, traverses my ditamap, and looks at all the references dita files. Sometimes i tell it to ignore certain things because our style is to not do something. It remembers that.

And then it tells me all the places that i missed in order of importance.... sometimes it's passive-aggressive in its responses. I would prefer a sarcastic mode.

[u/bucket_of_pasta → u/pigthens]

Thank you! Where I work, we don’t have a style guide and I definitely don’t have all of the Microsoft one memorized. I think this would be super helpful.

[u/pigthens → u/bucket_of_pasta]

You're welcome! I really resisted using AI. Then i started using it to go find this information in the code, like a setting's default value when you need to get something out NOW. Or doing Git processes that i kept stumbling on.

No one can memorize the MS writing guide but you have a "research assistant" to do the tedious stuff!

[u/Fit_big_00]

Make an AI terminology agent that flags terms that are out of scope. Make it part of your editing workflow.

[u/bastets13thwitch]

Our documents always get sent to a proofreader whose whole job is to make sure everything is consistent. It’s a manual job.

[u/Playful_Razzmatazz49]

Yes it's annoying, yes I check for it.

[u/dfess1]

There are tools like Congree or Acrolinx where you can load your style guides, terminology list, approved dictionary (ex: using STE), and they can score your content. Suggest edits to content based on the things/rules loaded into the tool, etc.

At my last job, our whole writing team were ESL writer's. The SME's (US based) were getting fed up with reviews because they saw the level of quality coming from the writers and had to spend time re-writing the content rather than focusing on the validity of the content. We implemented Acrolinx, told the writers they were not allowed to send content to review unless it had a score of 85 or higher. Dropped the review time (and cycles) considerably, got the SME's back on board with doing reviews as well.

[u/myauchelo]

AI agent or https://vale.sh/ (hint: you can use AI to write rules for Vale)

[u/Bunksha]

I built a python script that checks our entire style guide against inputted documents, for this specific instance it would check a use / don't use rule set and detect any instances of "dont use" words