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The original poster (OP) was suggesting that acronyms should be written in expanded form once, like I did with OP at the start of the sentence, and then used by
by jlarocco 8y ago
The original poster (OP) was suggesting that acronyms should be written in expanded form once, like I did with OP at the start of the sentence, and then used by acronym for the rest of the article, like I did in the middle of this sentence. That way people who don't already know the acronym don't need to go look it up, and people who do know the acronym don't have to pause and think about it, and it still saves time and typing by the author.
Many writing style guides, like APA [1], suggest this form.
[1] https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/21/ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/21/
- the_jeremy 8y agoThe problem lies in choosing where to draw the line. People often assume the acronyms they use every day are well known, and don't think it's necessary to expand them. Case in point, you don't define APA, because you (correctly) assume I know what it means. This article doesn't look like it was written for newcomers to the field; it appears to be written for hobbyists interested in having yet another cheap SDR at their disposal. The target audience knows the acronyms, so the article doesn't bother to expand.
- solidsnack9000 8y agoThe criterion might reasonably be (a) acronyms that are terms of art in (b) an article for publication. Thus acronyms that should be known to everyone within a field would be expanded on first use. This seems redundant but it's not actually a huge burden.