References

This section lists commonly used units of measure, acronyms and writing issues.

For a list of the preferred style choices of terms commonly used in Agora technical documentation, refer to the Word list.

Commonly used units of measure and their abbreviated form

Unit	Unit Symbol or Abbreviation
bits per second	bps
byte	B
decibel	dB
Frames per second	fps
gigabit	Gbit
gigabyte	GB
hertz	Hz
kilobit	kbit
kilobit per second	Kbps
kilobyte	KB
kilohertz	kHz
megabit	Mbit
megabyte	MB
megahertz	MHz
minute	min.
second	s

Common phrasing issues

Not Preferred	Preferred
Agora SDK…	The Agora SDK…
at most	maximum
audiences	audience (when referring to the role) audience member (when referring to individuals)
call the [methodname] method to	call [methodname] to
check whether the function is enabled or not	check whether the function is enabled
choose either of the following three formats	choose one of the following formats
for more information, refer to…	see…
on Electron	in Electron (Electron is a framework)
in various dimensions	across various dimensions
introduces how to use	describes how to use
in the team	on the team
is released	was released
issues fixed	fixed issues
it indicates…	(delete “it indicates…”)
listen to callback events	listen for callback events
on the user interface	in the user interface
open the camera	turn the camera on
pass in an object as an argument	pass an object as an argument
reserved parameter	reserved for future use
sample codes	sample code
save the bandwidth	reduce the bandwidth
secret	encryption password
the attributes for a channel	the attributes of a channel
the saving directory	the directory to save
this method must be called	you must call this method
this method only works when	this method works only if
we recommend	Agora recommends
WeChat Miniprogram, WeChat Mini Program	WeChat Mini-program
web (when referring to the platform/World Wide Web)	Web
webpage, Web page	web page

Commonly used acronyms

Examples of commonly used acronyms that do not need to be spelled out, along with their expanded form and a description of their meaning for reference:

Acronym	Expanded Form	Description
3G	Third Generation	A telecommunication standard.
4G	Fourth Generation	A telecommunication standard.
5G	Fifth Generation	A telecommunication standard.
API	Application Programming Interface	A computing interface to a software component or system.
AVI	Audio Video Interleave	A multimedia container format and file type.
CDN	Content Delivery Network	The process of publishing streams into the Content Delivery Networkis called CDN live streaming.
CSS	Cascading Style Sheets	Used to describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language like HTML.
DLL	Dynamic Link Library	Contains a library of functions and other information that can be accessed by a Windows program.
HTML	Hypertext Markup Language	The standard markup language for Web pages.
JPG	Joint Photographic Experts Group	The name of the group that devised this commonly-used lossy compression format for digital images. Now used to refer to the file format rather than the group.
JSON	JavaScript Object Notation	A stateless data interchange format used primarly on the Web.
M3U8	Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer 3 Uniform Resource Locator	A common computer file format used for creating a multimedia playlist. The “8” means that the file is encoded in UTF-8.
MP4	MPEG-4 Part 14	A digital multimedia container format most commonly used to store video and audio
MPEG	Moving Picture Experts Group	The name of the group that devised this commonly-used compression format for audio and visual digital data. Now used to refer to the file format rather than the group.
PNG	Portable Network Graphics	A compressed, lossless digital image file format.
RESTful API	Representational State Transfer + ful	A software architecture that defines a set of constraints used for creating Web services.
RTC	Real-time Communication	Used to refer to any live telecommunications that occur without transmission delays.
RTMP	Real-time Messaging Protocol	A TCP-based protocol which maintains persistent connections and allows low-latency communication
SDK	Software Development Kit	A collection of software development tools in one installable package.
TS	MPEG Transport Stream	A standard digital container format for transmission and storage of audio, video, and related metadata.
TURN	Traversal Using Relays around NAT	A protocol that assists in traversal of network address translators (NAT) or firewalls for multimedia applications.
URL	Uniform Resource Locator	A reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network, typically on the Web.
Wi-Fi	Wireless Fidelity (unofficial)	A family of wireless networking technologies, commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access.
XML	Extensible Markup Language	A metalanguage used to define their customized markup languages.

Common issues when native-Chinese speakers write English content

The worldwide language of programming is English, so it is essential for our writing to sound like a native-English writer wrote it.

Here are some issues that native-Chinese speakers sometimes encounter when writing English content and how to overcome them:

Omitting or inserting articles

In Chinese, there is no need for articles (such as the equivalent for “a”, “an”, and “the”) before nouns, so Chinese speakers often forget to add the appropriate article in English. In some cases, Chinese speakers overcompensate and add an article when it is not needed. While there is no foolproof way to solve this problem, try speaking the English phrase out loud. If it sounds odd to you, it probably is. When in doubt, talk to a colleague, or reach out to a native English speaker.

Gender confusion

There aren’t separate gender pronouns (such as “he” and “she”, “his” and “her”) in Chinese. In most technical writing, you should not have to refer to a specific gender in most instances, so use the gender non-specific “they” instead of the awkward “his/her” or “he/she” constructions.

Singular and plural Nouns and Uncountable Nouns

In Chinese, context distinguishes between singular and plural nouns. In English, plural nouns often end with an “s” (for example: singular “method”, plural “methods”). But this is not the case for all English nouns, such as the “uncountable nouns,” which are things that cannot be counted by numbers. Examples include “information,” “equipment,” “knowledge,” “research,” “safety,” and “evidence.” These words are already plural, so they need no s at the end.

Verb tense confusion

There is no such thing as verb conjugation to denote past, present, or future tenses in Chinese, as context provides the necessary cues. Write using active voice and present tense in English to minimize any difficulty in using other tenses.