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Dissertation Information for Susan Monica Bonzi

NAME:
- Susan Monica Bonzi
- (Alias) Susan Bonzi

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science

SCHOOL:
- University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (USA) (1983)

ADVISORS:
- Linda C. Smith

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Charles Davis
- Herbert Goldhor
- Chin-Chuan Cheng
- Frederick Wilfrid Lancaster

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: TERMINOLOGICAL CONSISTENCY IN ABSTRACT AND CONCRETE DISCIPLINES

Abstract: This study tested the hypothesis that the vocabulary of a discipline whose major emphasis is on concrete phenomena will, on the average, have fewer synonyms per concept than will the vocabulary of a discipline whose major emphasis is on abstract phenomena.

The subject terms from fifty author-written abstracts in each of two concrete disciplines and two abstract disciplines were placed into concept groups and verified by five subject experts in each of the disciplines. After verification or modification by the subject experts, a measure of terminological consistency, the number of terms representing each concept, was determined for each concept and then for each discipline as a whole.

Analysis of the data showed that there was a significant difference at the .05 level between concrete and abstract disciplines but that the significant difference was attributable to only one of the abstract disciplines. The other abstract discipline was not significantly different from the two concrete disciplines except in an analysis of one sample of the data. The two abstract disciplines were significantly different from each other in all tests.

It was concluded that there is some support for the hypothesis that concrete disciplines are terminologically more consistent than abstract disciplines but that a least one other factor has a stronger influence on terminological consistency than the phenomena with which the discipline deals. It was suggested that the other factor influencing terminological consistency is the structure of the methodology of the discipline.

MPACT Scores for Susan Monica Bonzi

A = 2
C = 9
A+C = 11
T = 2
G = 1
W = 2
TD = 2
TA = 0
calculated 2009-06-25 04:07:25

Advisors and Advisees Graph