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Well, if I tell you the Thingamabob chapter has been reviewed by the SME, and you're not sure if I mean the Thingamabob expert or the Whatchamacallit expert... you have problems beyond the unwarranted use of TLAs.
;->
Go back to that grand old plank in the TW platform: know your audience! If your audience likes and/or uses TLAs, use them. If not, don't. Most of my cow-orkers don't use the term SME, so I don't use it either when I'm communicating with them. On techwr-l I do, because IMHO it's pretty generally accepted and understood. Not to mention faster than typing "experts." :-)
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Tracy Boyington tracy_boyington -at- okcareertech -dot- org
Oklahoma Department of Career & Technology Education
Stillwater, OK http://www.okcareertech.org/cimc
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But by saying "subject matter expert", does that really clarify things? You
could be talking about the Thingamabob subject matter expert while the other
person thinks you're talking about the Whatchamacallit subject matter
expert. I think it'd be clearest to state "the Dinglehoffer expert".
IPCC 01, the IEEE International Professional Communication Conference,
October 24-27, 2001 at historic La Fonda in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.
CALL FOR PAPERS OPEN UNTIL MARCH 15. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
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