Abusing Acronyms: When to Use, When to Spell Out

How many of you use acronyms in your writing?  If you’re like me, you use them almost every day.  As an essential time and type saver, many acronyms seem to have become words in their own right.  How many of you spell out acronyms on first mention or at the beginning of sentences?  I’m willing to bet most of you don’t.  But consider this: Your readers may not know what the acronyms mean and instead of helping them save time, you have lost them as they try to figure out what the acronyms mean.  I realize writers do not set out to abuse the use of acronyms, we just fall into it without realizing that our writing has suddenly become rife with weird combinations of letters that are meaningless to many readers.

The most extreme case I’ve experience was very early in my career when I worked for a US Department of Defense contractor. My job was to take minutes at various committee meetings.  As you may know, the US government is famous for its use of acronyms, so I learned to take minutes using them, which was very efficient. What really got my attention is eventually I realized that the attendees had developed their own shorthand language made up entirely of acronyms. The discussion could go on for 20 or 30 minutes without the use of any real words! That was fine for all those who knew what the acronyms meant, but for those in the meeting who didn’t, they were totally and hopelessly lost. I remember the chair of one meeting set a rule that the attendees had to use real words, not acronyms.  He also made it clear that I should spell out the acronyms in the minutes.

Acronyms also are a real problem in the scientific, medical and engineering communities, where abbreviations and acronyms abound. Scientific journals and other formal publications discourage the use of acronyms with very specific exceptions. I think they are on to something. Personally, I use acronyms in my technical writing, but I am careful not to overdo it or to use acronyms that are really obscure.  I also do not make them up. If I think an acronym will hinder understanding rather than help it, I don’t use it. I’d rather have a few more words in a sentence than create confusion for my readers. To that end, here are the rules I use for acronyms:

• Capitalize all letters in an acronym
• Spell out acronyms on first mention, followed by the acronym in parentheses
• Spell out acronyms at the beginning of sentences
• To make an acronym plural, add a lowercase “s” at the end
• If the acronym ends in “s”, consider using an apostrophe “s” for clarity

That’s it.  These five simple rules have helped me from inadvertently abusing acronyms and to using them as an aide to my readers. I would really enjoy seeing your examples of extreme acronym abuse. Also, share your thoughts on the use of acronyms. Perhaps you have some guidance that can help us all.