The use of self-consistent terminology to describe polymerizations is important for litigation, patents, research and education. Imprecision in these areas can be both costly and confusing. To address this situation the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has made recommendations, which are summarized below. In the version shown as the supplementary material, references and hyperlinks lead to source documents; screen tips contain definitions published in IUPAC recommendations. More details can also be found in the IUPAC Purple Book. This guide is one of a series on terminology and nomenclature. Refer to the supplementary material for the complete and interactive version of this brief guide.