: Re: Using uncommon abbreviations Something which I see all the time in (popular) science writing is the use of abbreviations to indicate concepts. For (a made up) example: So when we're dealing

@Bryan361

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If you use a lot of abbreviations that may not be familiar to the reader, then readers may find they have to continually refer back to see what they mean. But if you don't use abbreviations, the text can get tedious and very repetitive-sounding.

Like -- let me see if I can make up a couple of sentences to illustrate:

The Warp Drive Autonomous Decontamination Peripheral (WDADP) can prevent your ship's engines from failing. A WDADP keeps foreign particles out of the engine. Most WDADPs are made from titanium alloys. Be sure to check your WDADP monthly. A well-maintained WDADP ... etc

Try re-writing that paragraph, but spelling out WDADP. It becomes terribly wordy and awkward.

On the other hand, every now and then I come across a sentence that's practically one long stream of abbreviations. "FTP your ASPX files to the IIS server before starting the CRON task on the LINUX box" and the like can be very intimidating to someone who doesn't use these abbreviations every day. (Every now and then I read a sentence filled with such abbreviations and get a chuckle from the fact that I understood it completely despite its obscurity.)

Personally, when I have a long technical term that is used repeatedly in a document, I'll abbreviate it with an explanation on first use. If I expect an abberviation to be very familiar to my target audience, I'll use it without hesitation and often without explanation. But if something is likely to be unfamiliar and only turns up a couple of times, I spell it out.

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