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When to define acronyms in academic writing?
These days nearly all academic papers have acronyms. The intention is to make
papers easier to read and to create new lingo for new concepts. However, as time
goes by, more scholars are worrying that acronyms are impeding communication
rather than helping it.
When should you introduce acronyms to define a full term or when shouldn't you?
Well-known acronyms don't need the full term
Do you immediately understand the technology described by light
amplification by stimulated emission of radiation?
What about self-contained underwater breathing apparatus? Some terms have
become so widespread that it is unnecessary to define them. In fact,
defining them might be confusing, which was easier to understand the language
above or the everyday words laser and scuba. If you have heard an acronym
spoken aloud by people outside your workplace laboratory or classroom, you
can probably use the acronym without defining it. For example, not only
molecular biologists know what DNA is, not only mathematicians know what 3d is,
and not only international relations experts know what the UN is.
Standard Abbreviations and Acronyms
However, there's is no absolute consensus on what constitutes a "well-known" acronym.
For example, organic chemists immediately know what DMSO is, while mechanical
engineers wouldn't look twice at EMF. But the former rarely need to measure or
quantify electro-motive force, and the latter rarely deal with the low-toxicity
solvent dimethyl sulfoxide; so, it seems unreasonable to say either
is well-known in a universal sense.
Check your target journal for a list of standard abbreviations. Check if your
target journal provides a "list of standard abbreviations," "List of Standard
Abbreviations and Acronyms," etc
For example, if you were looking to publish in the Journal of biological
chemistry, you could consult their standard abbreviations and acronyms and
find out that COSY can be used without abbreviation.
Define the Term and Use the Acronym
Uncommon or perhaps unfamiliar concepts
to your readers. This is the most common case in academic writing it is so common
some writers are (mistakenly) taught it as an absolute rule. If an acronym isn't in
a standard list, you should define it for the first use in your paper, especially
if the acronym is the grammatical subject of the sentence.
The Profile of Mood States (POMS) is a commonly used measure of psychological
distress. In an earlier paper an acoustic wave propagator (AWP) was proposed to
describe the time-domain evolution of mechanical waves in various media.
Even if you expect your readers to know the acronym defining it helps: to avoid
confusion. To save space. An acronym counts as one word for the purpose of
word counts. In addition, it is useful in figures and tables where space is often
limited. To attract knowledgeable readers. Sometimes researchers will search
databases using the acronym rather than the real term using the acronym ensures
Your research will appear and rank highly in their search results.
Create Your Own Acronyms
Sometimes you'll want to create your own acronyms. You might do this for an
an important concept to your paper, or a new one you are proposing it is also common
In the results section, when you want to compare groups. For example, a group c
group this is fine especially in tables and figures or space is limited example
Leukemia reoccurrence rates and patients treated with imatinib plus steroid
therapy (I plus s) were compared with those of patients treated with an attent
In monotherapy, in and with the conventional treatment CT.
You won't find these acronyms in the literature on chemotherapy for leukemia.
However, since the results section is devoted to comparing, these three groups
readers can more easily understand your data. If you create labels to mark the
objects of comparison,
use the full term only no acronym when the term is only used once.
Even if an acronym is possible, you don't have to use it. If you use the term for
which an acronym is possibly only once in a paper, you don't need to provide an
acronym. This paper proposes a novel finite-difference time-domain (fdtd)
technique to solve multiphysics problems. In the past, researchers have developed
the finite element time domain (FETD) and boundary element time domain (BETD)
numerical methods to find solutions to these equations but these will not be
discussed here.
Once again, this is Emily from uni-edit. Thanks for watching! Check out our
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