Remembering to Define Abbreviations

Recently I received an e-mail message that said it was from the NAPB. “That’s odd,” I thought. “I had heard that the National Association of Physician Broadcasters no longer existed.”

Even more strangely, the message seemed to be about agriculture, not medical communication. Then I realized: This NAPB was the National Association of Plant Breeders.

This example of confusion about an abbreviation was amusing. But sometimes the situation isn’t so funny.

I recall sitting next to the head of a funding agency at a research conference overseas. Many researchers who were speaking didn’t define the abbreviations they were using. Therefore their presentations were hard to understand.

The funding-agency head became angrier and angrier. I don’t think he felt very inclined to support such researchers again. (One good outcome, though: The experience confirmed his desire to fund a project to improve research communication.)

Editors, too, say that a common problem is failure to define acronyms and other abbreviations.

In general, a term should be written in full the first time it appears in a given publication or presentation. An abbreviation for the term can then go immediately after it in parentheses. On later uses, the abbreviation can appear alone.

Normally, mainly well-established abbreviations should be used. Beware of coining many abbreviations of your own. The space that is saved might not be worth the confusion.

Also, if a document contains many abbreviations that might be new to readers, consider putting them in table. One way or another, don’t leave readers wondering!

Until the next post—

Barbara