AAaaC (Avoid Acronyms at all Costs [pronounced “Aaack!”])

 

AAaaC
(Avoid Acronyms at all Costs [pronounced “Aaack!”])

 

There are only 17,000 three-letter acronyms.

― Paul Boutin

 

Do not use acronyms or abbreviations in your writing.

Scientists, engineers, academics, bureaucrats, and despots love to use acronyms, and for good reason. When you are communicating with your tribe, you don’t want to say “groundwater availability model” over and over, you say “GAM." I get it (and I do it myself)—it’s more efficient. However, setting aside just plain bad writing (and speaking), acronyms are the biggest obstacles to understanding technical topics, especially if the writing is intended for people outside of your tribe.

For example, take the following sentence out of an actual report I reviewed back in my state bureaucracy days:

The TL defined a process through which the TWDB, after calculating the MAG, assesses the DFC with input from the GCDs in the GMA, the PWLDIG, and the RWPGs.

Got that?

There are probably only a dozen people out of the 7,943,427,687 people on Earth as of 12:40:59 PM (Central Daylight Savings Time) on April 28, 2022, that would understand the acrovomit in that sentence.

I call this acrovomit because the acronyms are spewed all over the place due to a gorging on un-necessary brevity. People talk like this. I once attended a meeting with federal bureaucrats (I was in drag, but that’s another story…) that, after 45 minutes of acronymese, I had no idea what they were talking about. Acronyms are exclusionary. They exclude anyone who is not part of the tribe. They also make it difficult to understand your writing because a reader outside of your tribe has to learn another language as they read your report or paper.

“But I included a list of acronyms!” you might protest. Well, isn’t that special. Your reader now has to flip back and forth from the text to your list or, if they print it off, go back and forth from your text to the list to figure out what the hell you are trying to say. Not a great way to treat your reader.

There are many problems with using acronyms. One is that folks tend to acronymize stuff that doesn’t need to be acronymized. For example, the TL in the example above. It means Texas Legislature. Was it so hard to spell that out? I see two-lettered acronyms more and more in the literature. Why? Are you that lazy?

Acronyms are more problematic in longer documents because, theoretically, when you use one the first time, you are supposed to explain what it means (for example, “We took this to the Texas Legislature (TL).”). In a long document, that explanation may be hidden 100 pages back.

Another issue with acronyms is that many writers will introduce an acronym and only use it one more time or, even worse, never use it after its introduction. Why in the name of TWAIN (technology without an interesting name) would you do that? And then there’s the sin of never explaining what an acronym is. I recently completed a book that included a dozen case studies from around the world. I found a paper for Australia that appeared good and included something useful, but it had unexplained acronyms in it that I could not figure out what they meant, even after searching the Interwebs. Since I didn’t know what they meant, I wasn’t completely sure what they were writing about, so I couldn’t include the paper in the book. Thus, the author’s missed out on a reference of their work.

Avoiding acronyms also prevents sloppy writing. For example, a report I recently reviewed turned Texas Land Application Permit into the acronym TLAP and then, later in the document, began referring to TLAP permits, which literally means Texas Land Application Permit permits.

I can hear the whining now: “But I don’t want to spell out Texas Water Development Board every time I mention them!” I agree that can get old. But you don’t have to!

A state agency called the Texas Water Development Board oversees water planning in the state. The Board also provides financing to implement water-resource projects in the water plan. Furthermore, the agency monitors the state’s water resources and conducts and contracts studies to better understand them.

Was that so awful? In my writing, I will periodically use the full Texas Water Development Board to remind the reader what “Board” refers to and to mix it up. Some would introduce Board as if it was an acronym (that is, “Texas Water Development Board (Board)”), but I don’t since, in my example, it’s clear what Board is referring to. However, if there were two boards and my shorthand version was not clear, I would consider formally introducing the shorthand version.

Let’s return to our initial example and remove the acronyms:

The Texas Legislature defined a process through which the Texas Water Development Board, after calculating the modeled available groundwater, assesses the desired future condition with input from the groundwater conservation districts in the groundwater management area, the person with a legally defined interest in groundwater, and the regional water planning groups.

Yes, it’s longer (369 characters instead of 156 characters, 51 words instead of 29 words), but what’s more important: Your readers or your word count?

It used to be that character and word counts were important, but in this digital age, we can be longer with little to no additional cost. For cases where word and character counts are important, such as for certain journals or abstract submissions, I still encourage avoiding acronyms. If I can do it, so can you.

Removing acronyms from your writing is the second most important action you can take to improve readability (after writing in the active tense). In the policy world, the quickest way to shut down the consideration of science in decision making is to start speaking and writing in acronyms.

There are several exceptions to the rule. One is that when quoting someone else who uses acronyms, you should honor the quote’s usage. However, you should include an editorial comment, contained in brackets, to explain the acronym.

For example:

The Texas Water Development Board states that, “DFCs [desired future conditions] are determined by groundwater conservation districts in groundwater management areas.”

I also use acronyms for citations since the purpose of cites is to support a factual statement and provide a citation where the interested reader can learn more. Since cites are not key to the readability of a document (if anything, they distract from readability—endnotes would be better), it’s OK, by my thinking, to use acrohyms.

For example:

The Texas Water Development Board states that, “DFCs [desired future conditions] are determined by groundwater conservation districts in groundwater management areas” (TWDB 2011).

In the list of references at the end, I will then do this:

TWDB (Texas Water Development Board), 2011, Groundwater management in Texas: Texas Water Development Board Report 52, 92 p.

Sometimes there isn’t enough real estate to fully spell out words in graphs and tables, in which case I will use an acronym (albeit with greater sadness) and then explain the acronym at the bottom of the table, on the graph, or in the table or graph captions. 

 

copyright Robert E. Mace 2025