Help:Style
From Thinkmath
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Technical jargon
Every technical field develops its own jargon. Some of that jargon is really necessary in order to communicate efficiently within the specialty field. Imagine what it would be like if plumbers or doctors or musicians had to communicate without special terms for the parts and tools and ideas they deal with. They could do it, using longer and more cumbersome phrases and examples, but it would be inconvenient and limiting.
But, to people outside a specialty area, jargon is exclusionary.
The same is true in education.
Words like manipulatives, compatible numbers, or rubric may seem so normal to educators that we don't realize that they may mean different things -- or nothing at all -- to people outside the field. Curricula also invent terms to describe formats or techniques that are unique to them. This helps teachers and students communicate inside the classroom, but it impedes communication with parents, teachers, and mathematicians who not familiar with the program.
If you need to use terms that are not everyday language, please surround those terms in double square-brackets, like this -- [[special terms]] -- so that they link to a page that will explain them. You might need this, for example, for essential mathematical vocabulary, or some pedagogical term, or the name of some material, game, or activity in the classroom.
Style issues that are still under discussion
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