Re: Acronyms & Abbreviations--Just Say NO!

["Janice Gelb" <janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com>]

Tom Murrell <tmurrell -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:
> 
> --- Janice Gelb <janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com> wrote:
> > First of all, the acronyms you cite as causing reader 
> > confusion are not acronyms that I think are generally 
> > used in technical documentation. I mainly see them in 
> > email or list posts. I believe most people reading this 
> > type of email or message accept that people are striving 
> > for brevity and one soon gets used to the common acronyms.
> 
[snip]
> 
> Oh, and I recommend the following example to those who think
> "everybody knows what this acronym means." Go to 
> http://acronymfinder.com and enter any common acronym and
> see how many different possible answers you get for it.
> Even FTP has multiple possible meanings. The writer's
> meaning has to be garnered from context and an appropriate
> background knowledge, but then that can trip the reader up,
> too.
> 

No, in a case where there are multiple possible meanings, 
the writer's meaning should be garnered from the inclusion 
of the spelled-out meaning of the acronym the first time it's 
used, not from context!

>
> > Regarding technical documentation, our rule is that acronyms 
> > (except *exceedingly* common ones like CPU) should be written 
> > out on first usage.(etc.)
> 
> I suspect most of us have similar rules. I found that if I define
> an acronym someplace in the document and don't use it again for
> several pages, the reader has forgotten what it is or meant. I've
> already commented on how I see readers using glossaries and indices.
> I consider it a rule of thumb that if people only turn to the
> documentation in desperation, they are really in deep doo-doo
> when they turn to the back of the book (or the front) to look
> something up.
> 

If you are writing to the correct audience level, only 
readers at the lower end of the experience scale should 
have to be doing this, and this activity is in place of 
frustrating the majority of your readers who either are 
already familiar with the initialism or who will quickly 
grasp it. You *are* using these in accordance with your 
audience level, right?


> > These rules should avoid reader confusion, and enable 
> > writers to use acronyms common to their industry and 
> > technology area.
> 
> Obviously, I am challenging these assumptions. If they avoided
> confusion, we wouldn't have SMEs showing up in meetings asking
> "What does DASD mean again?" or whatever.
> 

The statement above was that the rules I noted for use 
of initialisms in technical documentation would avoid 
reader confusion. I agree that if your SMEs keep forgetting 
what an initialism stands for, it's probably not one that 
you want to include in your documentation. 

>
> I will concede that initialisms CAN improve readability. However,
> my basic position remains that writers use them as shortcuts to
> their writing rather than as aids to their readers. What I'm 
> suggesting is that you continue to write them, but make a pass
> through your document and remove about 75% of them and see if
> communication doesn't actually improve.
> 

See whether communication improves for whom? If you're writing 
for an advanced audience familiar with the field, you probably 
don't want to remove 75% of the occurrences. If the initialism 
is in place of a long phrase and is used throughout the book, 
then you also probably don't want to delete them.

I could get behind a statement that said "Writers should be 
aware that many people in the industry overuse initialisms 
and acronyms and assess their own use accordingly." But 
you seem to be going a bit overboard in your repeated statements 
that writers nearly always use them as incomprehensible shortcuts 
and therefore we should hardly ever use them.

-- Janice

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