Abbreviations

Using Abbreviations

For some reason, abbreviations seem to create more problems than they solve, at least in part because writers tend not to understand how to use them. Properly used, abbreviations can be useful. Improperly used, they are confusing and irritating. So here we go.

I classify abbreviations into three categories:

o   Undefined and generally accepted

o   Defined but generally accepted

o   Author generated.

You can expect some overlap in the first two. The last is not acceptable.

We’ll begin with the last one. Many writers like using abbreviations that they understand but that are not generally accepted in the field. They can be useful to a writer, who might prefer not to type out Asian Standard Lapdog every third sentence and so will abbreviate it ASL. ASL, however, is the generally accepted abbreviation for American Sign Language, not to mention the Association of Symbolic Logic, Apache Software License, above sea level, and age/sex/location (although the last two are usually in lower case). If a writer then decides to use ASL as an abbreviation in an article about the Asian Standard Lapdog, many readers will end up confused.

Thus, if you choose to use personal abbreviations in your drafts, feel free. Just remember to change them all in the final draft before sending your paper out to face the scrutiny of editors and reviewers. In other words, don’t, just don’t.

The first is nearly as easy as the third. Some abbreviations are so well known that they do not require definition. Most standard measurement abbreviations fall into this category. Millimeter is mm, kilometer is km, pound is lb., ounce is oz. (Of course, pound and ounce would likely not be used in a technical paper. Kg and g would do the trick.)

Certain other generally accepted abbreviations, however, depend in part on context and audience. For those in agriculture, for instance, N is for nitrogen and K is potassium. In other fields, N can stand for Newton or North, and K can be Kelvin, kbit, carat, or any number of other things. In general, context will be sufficient, and defining the term is usually unnecessary. (This is where the overlap between categories one and two occurs.)

The second category includes abbreviations that may have more than one meaning, even in the same field. In that case, definitions are important. My favorite example has to be NRA. Most people would say that stands for National Rifle Association, but it also stands for National Restaurant Association. Big difference there.

Moreover, even if an abbreviation is fairly standard in a field, that field may have subspecialties where the abbreviation is less familiar. Computer science is a good example of this. Those who specialize in networking or in programming might be less familiar with abbreviations common in robotics, even if they are actually helping with a robotics project. Thus, abbreviations are defined.

Further, even if you are writing to people within a subspecialty in a field, and you know they know the abbreviations, keep in mind that readers often dislike having to work at deciphering abbreviations, especially if an article has a large number of them.

Basically, what I am saying is that a writer must take readers into account in deciding when and how to define abbreviations in an article. Your goal in writing is, after all, to communicate information. If abbreviations get in the way of communication, then you have a problem.

General Rules

Now that the background is out of the way, we can talk about the rules. The first rule is to read the instructions to authors for any article headed for publication. Quite often, rules for using abbreviations are field specific. Most publishers, however, assume that writers understand the basic rules and don’t discuss them.

Second, use only those abbreviations that are necessary and use them sparingly. A paper about the contribution of the prairie to carbon sequestration is likely to refer to climate change. However, abbreviations focused on climate change would not be useful to readers who are primarily interested in carbon sequestration. That particular paper would have abbreviations associated with carbon sequestration but not climate change.

Usually, terminology from related fields would not be abbreviated for another reason as well. I see no reason to use abbreviations for terms used only two or three times. Spell it out.

The third general rule is to define an abbreviation the first time you use the term. Provide the term and follow it with the abbreviation in parentheses. From that point on, you use only the abbreviation. (One possible exception would be in headings. There you might prefer to spell the term out again.) A paper focused on using the by products of ethanol might refer to distillers grains (DGs). Note that the abbreviation here is in capitals, and the plural uses a lower case s.

Longer papers will likely use terminology pages instead of in line definition.

That pretty much covers the general rules. Simple enough?

Basically, remember that too many abbreviations are confusing, they should be defined the first time they are used, they should be used consistently, and their goal is the help the reader understand information.

TTFN*

*Tata for now

This blog

What made me start this blog? After retiring from teaching, you’d think I couldn’t get far enough away from what I taught for so many years. It wasn’t the teaching that finally got to me though, nor was it the subject—technical and scientific writing. I see is a need, one that I can still fill by providing information that I have accumulated over a lot of years. I’ve been successful, both as a teacher and an editor.

Most of my blog entries will center around a problem that I’ve seen either as a teacher or editor, or perhaps both. I try to use not just my own knowledge but some of the reference books I’ve accumulated. And the solutions may not work, not in every situation nor for every person writing.

I won’t claim to know everything about writing. I can be wrong, sometimes, and I can take suggestions and criticism. In fact, I often solicit both. That is the mark of a good writer and teacher. Defensive, yes, that too. Most writers are, as are most teachers, and most editors. But good ones eventually recognize the good comments, the good suggestions, and use them.

And here we all are

Red Pen: Retired

Not really, not when I still feel the urge to correct posts on Facebook and tell public speakers that their grammar needs work, not when I’m still working with technologists and scientists on their publications. I won’t miss grading papers, nor do I miss the pressures of the bureaucracy. I don’t miss students who think that because they paid tuition that they are entitled to my time, at their convenience, that they are entitled to a particular grade or to any and all help, including rewriting their papers for them.

I will miss other students, the ones who failed and accepted responsibility for it, coming back to do it right this time, the ones who worked harder than they ever have in their life and were grateful for the B, the ones who have been told they would never be able to write and learned that they can, and the ones who are spectacular writers, better than I will ever be.

I will miss my colleagues, who listened and commiserated when I was tired and discouraged, bored to tears writing the same comment on every blasted paper, who offered suggestions, changes, improvements to my lectures, who appreciated that while we all had the same goals, we could all get to those goals in different ways, by emphasizing different strategies of writing.

I am looking forward to late summer when all my former colleagues are making their way back to the classroom to try to get students to understand that good writing is essential to their careers, to their ability to think clearly and critically, even to living a fulfilling life.

But I don’t think I’m finished. Every time I read a newspaper article with errors in it, every time I see a Facebook entry that is so unclear that I can only wince, every time I get an article from a scientist who wants help getting it into publishable condition, then I know that people need advice and help, and I know that some people actually want to know, want to learn. They aren’t college students, but they realize they still have a lot to learn. And I have a lot to teach.

So I’m starting this blog. My motivation was to write as clearly and succinctly as I can lessons that I give to people whose writing I edit. Having given lessons to innumerable people over the years, I have some of those lessons down pat. This is not about creative writing; this is for people who have information that other people need; this is about communicating that information so that readers can use it.