Acronyms--How often do you spell them out?

[Geoff Hart]

Katherine Darges wondered: <<I am editing a multi-section document, 
with each section 50 to 75 pages. The document was written by the 
Government for the Government.  Phrases that get turned into acronyms 
are spelled out when they are first used, followed by their acronyms in 
parentheses - most in the first section. Appendix A is a complete 
acronym list - about 300 all  ogether (this IS the Government, after 
all). Would you re-identify the acronyms in each subsequent section as 
well as adding the new ones?  Or, is once really enough, based on the 
fact that the readers of the document have all been involved in the 
project of which the document is a record?>>

The standard convention for defining acronyms is that they should be 
spelled out the first time they appear in each discrete section that 
readers can be expected to read so that readers will understand them. 
So in a single-author book that you can expect readers to read from 
cover to cover, once will suffice. In a multi-author collection such as 
a symposium proceedings, once per submitted paper is the rule of thumb; 
this same approach applies for reference material (once per chapter).

Where you don't have any clear idea of what readers are going to read, 
or where they will enter the text, your solution of providing an 
acronym list is a good one--though I'd expand this into a full glossary 
to cover any other non-acronym technical terms that might stop readers 
in their tracks. This is equally true for things like online help, and 
for the same reason: you can't guarantee that anyone will encounter the 
first definition, and rather than throwing up a roadblock, it's better 
to provide such a resource to ensure that they can find the meaning and 
keep reading.

However, forcing someone to stop reading just so they can look up a 
definition takes them out of their current task, which is understanding 
the current sentence. (Also, a good proportion will never realize that 
you've provided a glossary. <g>) Thus, you should provide the 
information "just in time"--once per section, where they have a chance 
to read it. That's particularly true for material that will be 
extracted from the main document and stored separately on the bulletin 
boards and bookshelves of individual offices--which happens more than 
you'd expect based on my tenure as a federal wage slave. This does 
create a certain amount of redundancy, but isn't that better than 
preventing comprehension?

You state that readers have all been involved in this project, and this 
may be true _now_. But any document of continuing interest will attract 
many readers who weren't part of the project. For them, and for people 
like me who take a long time to memorize all the acronyms used in a new 
project, it's a kindness to provide definitions on the go, where 
readers need to see them.

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Geoff Hart   ghart at videotron.ca
(try geoffhart at mac.com if you don't get a reply)
www.geoff-hart.com
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