Using abbreviations in academic writing. As you begin your 26th consecutive hour of writing with that dissertation deadline looming over you, it’s easy to want to cut some corners. Every second counts when the words begin to blend into a singular block of academic jargon, and you’re in a desperate race against time.
The English language is littered with possibilities to make words, phrases, or even names shorter than they are. Many of these are not only available to the would-be midnight dissertation grinder they are actively encouraged in academic writing.
However, for every pre-approved shortcut, there are countless instances where hacking off a word or two just won’t do. These are potential alterations that come up frequently with dissertation proofreading and thesis editing, with plenty of confusion around them. Welcome to the scatter-gun world of abbreviations.
An abbreviation is any word or phrase made shorter than its original form. You do this in various ways and for several reasons, but English tends to have rigid rules regarding when we would use them.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is one of the most well-known organisations in the world, responsible for some of the most iconic moments in living memory. Yet, when was the last time you heard it referred to that way? When you take the first letter of each word while dropping articles (the) and conjunctions (and), we arrive at the much more familiar name, NASA.
Rule – Acronyms are almost always capitalised, and you should introduce each new form by including the full wording with the first example only – The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Initialism works similarly, but instead of sounding out the word like with NASA or UNICEF, we say the first letter of each word. The first channel on TV is rarely referred to as British Broadcasting Corporation One, but rather as BBC 1, while the Federal Bureau of Investigations becomes simply FBI.
Rule – Again, initialism almost exclusively uses capitalisation, although we increasingly see odd-ball exceptions for stylistic purposes, for example, TfL (travel for London). If you need to pluralise an initialism, with CEO, for example, add a lower case s at the end – CEOs.
Contractions are probably the most common form of abbreviation and work by ramming two words together to such an extent that letters vanish into thin air or rather become an odd hanging apostrophe. I have becomes I’ve, should not becomes shouldn’t, are not becomes aren’t – and had not becomes hadn’t.
Rule – Avoid using contractions in formal or academic work.
The Romans said, “sod Britain, let’s head back to warmer climes” over 1,500 years ago, but our language still reverberates with Latin, much of which we don’t pay the slightest attention to.
Latin abbreviations are used all the time in English. For example, is changed to the easily-typable, e.g. (exempli gratia), and so on morphs into the delightful sound etc. (et cetera), in other words, becomes, i.e. (id est) while and others, commonly used in scientific papers, is changed to et al. (et alii).
Rule – In most academic work, it’s best to use the longer form of these Latin phrases, and most would agree that plonking etc at the end of the sentence is just laziness. If you have something else to say, then go ahead and say it.
We abbreviate titles and measurements, while dates can be a little hit-and-miss depending on how formal you are writing. Doctor becomes Dr. (with a full stop in the US) and Dr (without a full stop in the UK).
Millimetre is annoying long for something so small, so instead, we change it to mm, while kilogram becomes kg and second is altered to the infinitely easier, s. Dates can also be easily hacked apart, but these would rarely appear in academic papers. Take the first three letters from a month or day, and hey presto, we have Fri 6th Aug, instead of the wordy Friday 6th August.
Rule – Check your style guide here. Academic work often requires full titles, measurements, and dates but may include exceptions for scientific work.
As with much in academic writing, it’s essential to consult your style guide before starting. There are some significant differences between British and US English regarding abbreviations. One of the clearest is full stops used countries – UK in the UK and U.K in the US.
Some style guides recommend using acronyms and initialisms only after a certain number of examples, while others such as Harvard state they can be used after their first. If you’re writing a long paper with plenty of acronyms and initialisms, some of which might be a little obscure, it’s always worth adding a glossary at the start to help the reader refer back to it.
As we said earlier, when including acronyms and initialisms, it’s important to include the complete phrase the first time you mention it. When you’re on draft 10, things can sometimes get a little blurry, and it can be easy to miss changes. We recommend simply using the search function in Word or Google docs to locate the first time an acronym or initialism was used. Make sure this is one of the last checks you do.
Even formal academic texts are supposed to flow well when written. If you find your text morphing into a list of acronyms and looking more computer than human-friendly, consider making some changes.
It also probably goes without saying, but we’ll state our opinion clearly here. Text English has absolutely no place in an academic paper unless it is referenced in the paper itself. You should never appear as u, and because, although a pesky word, should never appear as cuz.
Our last point is that abbreviations need to be consistent. Don’t use one rule for one phrase and something entirely different for another. If you introduce an acronym, use it for the rest of your paper, with the only exception being if it’s included in a quote, heading, tables, or figures.
