Role– A Role defines the tasks a user is allowed to perform. WordPress uses roles to give the ability to control and assign what users can and cannot do in the website

Editor– An Editor is someone who can publish and manage the posts and pages created by him/herself as well as by others. In other words, Editors have the ability to write, publish, and edit anything on the website. They are in charge of the entire publishing side of WordPress.

Contributor– A Contributor is someone who can write and edit their own posts and pages, but cannot publish them. Contributors submit material to the Editor for review. They do not have access to publish anything on the website.

Page– A Page is one of the two places to edit and publish content. Pages are meant to be a permanent staple in your website, and only one page is displayed at a time.

Post– A Post is one of the two places to edit and publish content. Posts are (often) shorter, time-sensitive chunks of information. Many posts are displayed at once, in a list, for newest down to oldest.  However, you may choose to only have one post show at a time.

Sticky Post– A Sticky Post is just like a regular post, only it has been selected to be a “sticky” at the top of the page. No matter when it was posted and how much is posted after it, it remains right at the top. It is also highlighted inside a green box by the AAUW style template.

Plugin– A Plugin is a site addition in WordPress.  Plugins provide auxiliary functions to your site.

Parent– A Parent is a page or category that stands alone and is not navigated to or organized under another page or category. For example, your homepage is always a parent page.

Child– A Child is a page or category that is navigated to or organized under another page or category.  For example, “Summer Events” might be a child category of “Events.”

Links– Links (or hyperlinks) are what facilitate movement from one page or media object to another on the internet.  There are links within your website that take visitors to different pages, and there are links that can take visitors to other websites or media from your own.  A link can be set to open in a new window, or it can take the place of the webpage in the current window.

Dashboard– The Dashboard is the back-end editing interface for your website and also the first thing you will see when you login to WordPress.  All the editing and publishing of a WordPress site is done through the dashboard.

Widgets– Widgets are the objects, usually containing various information, that appear in the right sidebar on your WordPress site.  Some examples of widgets are a plain text widget (usually edited to contain “Contact Us” or other pertinent information), the Calendar widget, and the Categories widget (displays the categories of your posts). Widgets are always visible, no matter what page you are on.

Menus– Menus are navigation groupings that allow your WordPress site to be highly customizable. An example of a menu is the horizontal navigation bar running directly under the site banner.

Permalinks– Permalinks are the extension name given to a particular page or post. WordPress automatically gives your page or post a permalink that corresponds to the title. So for example, if I titled my post “New Year’s Eve Benefit for Children with Diabetes,” my permalink might look something like this: http://aauw.net/2011/26/12/new-years-eve-benefit-for-children-with-diabetes/.

As you may have noticed with this example, some permalinks can become long and unwieldy, especially with posts, which include the posting date.  Fortunately, WordPress allows you to edit the permalink at any time, so I could effectively keep my long post title and shorten my permalink to something like: http://aauw.net/2011/26/12/new-years-eve-benefit/.