One may directly use these widely accepted abbreviations in the manuscript. Standard abbreviations, such as units of measurement, need not be spelled out even at their first mention. These include standard abbreviations and non-standard abbreviations. There are two types of abbreviations that are commonly used in scientific writing. Initialisms are also a series of initial letters, but pronounced by spelling each of its letters distinctly, such as ‘DNA’ for ‘Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid’ and ‘DOI’ for ‘Digital Object Identifier’.

Other examples include AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), RAM (Random Access Memory), and PIN (Personal Identification Number). For example, the acronym for ‘Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay’ is written as ‘ELISA’ and pronounced as a word. Usually, acronyms are the combination of the first letters of each word of the phrase. How is an abbreviation different from an acronym and an initialism?Īlthough both acronyms and initialisms fall under the category of abbreviations, the difference lies in the way one pronounces them. The Vancouver referencing style popularly used in biomedical sciences states that the titles of the journals should be abbreviated according to the style given in the National Library of Medicine’s Journals in NCBI Databases. For instance, the PLOS ONE journal specifies that one must not use non-standard abbreviations unless they appear for a minimum of three times in the article. Moreover, certain journals also provide a cut-off. Several journals also provide specific instructions on how to introduce, define, and use them. According to ‘The Chicago Manual of Style’ an abbreviation can be used only if it finds a mention five or more than five times in the article. It is better to use the unabbreviated form if the abbreviation is not present frequently in the manuscript. How do you decide whether to use an abbreviation or not? Let us look at some useful tips for using abbreviations correctly in scientific writing and keeping up with the journal standards.

It may puzzle your readers and force them to flip pages back and forth to locate the original definition, thereby losing interest after a while. However, one must use abbreviations with caution! Its overuse may in turn reduce readability, especially for a non-technical or non-specialist reader.

Abbreviations for words using leters