Abbreviations and Acronyms

In General
Abbreviations and Acronyms in Headlines
Acronyms That Stand Alone
Articles with Abbreviations and Acronyms
Degrees
I.E. and E.G.
Plurals of Abbreviations and Acronyms
State Abbreviations
United States

In General

• Acronyms are abbreviations that are pronounced as a word, such as NASA, CAD, ASP, etc.

• The general trend is away from using periods in abbreviations, unless confusion might result. Thus, we get TLE rather than T.L.E. and ASP rather than A.S.P.

• Use abbreviations and acronyms sparingly unless your readership is familiar with them.

• Spell out the abbreviation or acronym on the first use and follow with the abbreviation in parentheses to prepare readers for your subsequent use of the abbreviation.

• Do not use abbreviations or acronyms for subsequent references if they follow at a great distance from the spelled out version. (How far is too far? Ask yourself if the readers who are least familiar with your document's content would understand the abbreviation if they came upon it at a given point in the copy.)

• Do not use the ampersand (&) as a replacement for and. Use the ampersand only when it is part of an official name of a company, product, or other proper noun, or on covers at the discretion of a designer.

• Avoid alphabet soup. Rewrite copy that's peppered with acronyms.

• Do not italicize acronyms or abbreviations even if they are the official title of a printed piece: e.g., CATECS (Center for Advanced Training in Engineering and Computer Science).

Abbreviations and acronyms should be restricted to situations where they enhance comprehension: i.e., when your copy refers repeatedly to a lengthy name or term that has a commonly accepted abbreviation. Be aware that familiarity with most abbreviations and acronyms is context sensitive and field dependent. If you use CAD in your copy, will it be immediately clear to all your readers whether you mean Council of Associate Deans or computer-aided design? Does BFA refer to Boulder Faculty Assembly or bachelor of fine arts? Shorthand that's familiar to specialists in a given field (or to long-time university employees) may be totally unintelligible to nonspecialists, students, nonuniversity readers, and newer university employees.

The BFA will meet next Tuesday to discuss the selection of a new chancellor.
(Note the the before BFA. It is needed because this acronym is pronounced as individual letters rather than as a word.)

Abbreviations and Acronyms in Titles and Headlines Whether it's wise to use acronyms or abbreviations in titles and headlines depends almost entirely on the audience and context. A magazine for engineering students and graduates, for example, would be entirely justified in using CAD in a title or headline. However, the editor of an article in a more general readership magazine might think twice before using CAD in a title. If using an abbreviation or acronym in a title seems the best option, be sure that the full name is spelled out in the first sentence of the article.

Acronyms That Stand Alone GPA and SAT are not spelled out. In fact, SAT no longer is an acronym; it's just what it is.

Articles (a, an, and the) with Abbreviations and Acronyms Use the appropriate article (a, an, or the) with abbreviations and acronyms when you would use that article in speech. In general, if an acronym (like NASA or NATO) is pronounced as a word rather than as a series of letters (the AFL-CIO), you do not need an article when the acronym is used as a noun. The choice between using a or an with an acronym or abbreviation is governed by how the acronym or abbreviation is typically spoken. Following these guidelines, we get the following:

A NASA scientist was honored at last night's dinner.

What we need is an HTML writer.

As we enter the 21st century, some experts are suggesting that NATO has outlived its usefulness.

Degrees To use periods or not? That is the (main) question in formatting abbreviations of degrees. Because the general trend is to omit periods from abbreviations, CU style omits them from degrees.

When the abbreviation of a degree may be unfamiliar to those who didn't earn that particular degree, we recommend using the familiar generic degree (such as BA, BS, MA, PhD, MBA) along with the subcategory spelled out or spelling out the entire degree. When it's clear from the context that the degree is a bachelor's, master's, or doctorate, you may omit the level of degree and just provide the field abbreviation in parentheses, as is common in various alumni publications (see second example).

Note: When spelling out degrees, use lowercase: bachelor of science, master of business administration, bachelor's degree, master's degree, doctorate.

Sharon Kurrant completed a BS in electrical engineering last May. Her cousin, Amy Seit, earned a BS in journalism the previous December. Her brother earned his doctor of musical arts degree three years ago. Her sister is working on a BA in music.

Orlando Smith (BEnvD '91) returned to CU-Boulder in 1997 to work on his master's degree in environmental design.

Sherry Crown (MMus '88) performs regularly as a guest clarinetist with a number of symphony orchestras around the country. (for an alumni publication)

but (for a general readership): Sherry Crown ('88), who holds a master's degree in music from CU-Boulder, performs regularly as a guest clarinetist with a number of U.S. symphony orchestras.

Abbreviations of Boulder Campus Degrees Boulder campus degrees currently granted (1999-2000) in a given field are indicated in parentheses after the field name. Not all degree fields are currently available as listed; those entries that indicate a discipline only are listed for alumni publications purposes.

Click here for a listing of degrees and their abbreviations.

Graduation Year with Degree When including a graduation or expected graduation year with a degree, abbreviate the year, add an apostrophe, and include a space between the year and the degree (otherwise, it looks as if the year is a possessive of the degree).

Sandra Mueller (BA '96) will return to CU-Boulder this fall as a first-year student in the School of Law.

Gerald Koller (BS, BA '95) has already made his first million and is planning to establish a CU scholarship in his name for a student pursuing a double major in science and the fine arts.

i.e. and e.g. These two abbreviations can be confusing, and should be used sparingly. The abbreviation "i.e." means "that is." You use it when you want to restate something in different words, explain the meaning of a term or phrase, or give a complete list. The abbreviation "e.g." means "for example" and is like using the phrase “such as.” Obviously, you use it when you want to give an example or an incomplete list of examples. Both "i.e." and "e.g." should have periods after each letter and be followed by a comma.

The system administration, i.e., the president and vice presidents, attended a retreat on Tuesday.

Several majors (e.g., business administration, economics, and chemistry) require strong mathematics backgrounds.

Plurals of Abbreviations and Acronyms Plurals of abbreviations and acronyms are formed by adding s alone.

All the department's MAs, PhDs, and TAs spent several hours at the seminar.

State Abbreviations Use the U.S. Postal Service format (two letters, no periods) when you must abbreviate state names. In running text, unless the copy is a lengthy list of place names, it's preferable to spell out the state name, especially if your audience might include international readers. Note that the third example needs semicolons between entries because individual items in the list include commas.

The class of 12 included students from Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Montana, Minnesota, and West Virginia.

Research was conducted in Mesa, Arizona, and Las Vegas, Nevada.

Those responding to the call for special funds included alumni from: Harrisburg, PA; Fargo, ND; Miami, FL; San Jose, CA; Midland, TX; Shreveport, LA; Hope, AR; Cincinnati, OH; Ft. Wayne, IN; and Moscow, ID.

United States

The U.S. Senate promised to pass a bill that would guarantee a minimum lifetime salary for all tenured faculty members at U.S. higher education institutions.

If you tell a group of people that a product was made in the USA, their reactions will tend to vary with their age.

Abbreviate the United States only when used as an adjective. Spell it out whenever it is used as a noun.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is one government agency that is using software developed at CU-Boulder.

The government of the United States is one of the nation's largest employers.