However, established usage may be different, particularly for the names of companies (ICI, IBM, etc.) and universities (UEA, UCL, etc.).Īcronyms with up to five letters are uppercased: AIDS, COST, COVID-19, ECHO, EFTA, NASA, NATO, SHAPE, TRIPSĮxceptions: Tacis and Phare, which are no longer considered acronymsĪcronyms with six letters or more should normally be written with an initial capital followed by lower case. Generally speaking, acronyms do not take a definite article (NATO, REACH, etc.), but initialisms do (the UK, the BBC, the EU, etc.). Initialisms are formed from the initial letters of a series of words and each separate letter is pronounced (BBC, MEP, USA, etc.).Īs a general principle, acronyms and initialisms do not have a full stop between the capitals.Įxcept for well-known acronyms and initialisms, write out the full term followed by the abbreviation in brackets on its first mention in a document (or, where necessary, in long reports, on its first mention in each section): The emissions trading scheme (ETS) should enable the EU to meet its Kyoto target. Some of these are formed from French titles (e.g. In repeated references, it is also often possible to use a short form instead of an abbreviation: The emissions trading scheme is now in operation throughout the EU … The scheme will involve constant monitoring of emissions trading activities.Īcronyms are words formed from the first (or first few) letters of a series of words, and are pronounced as words (Benelux, NATO, etc.).
If an abbreviation occurs only once or twice, it is best to dispense with it altogether and use the full form. Second, they should not be used needlessly. If your document contains a lot of abbreviations, consider including a list of them and their meanings at the beginning or end of the document.
So when an abbreviation that may not be familiar to readers first occurs, it is best to write out the full term followed by the abbreviation in brackets: The emissions trading scheme (ETS) should enable the EU to meet its Kyoto target. The prime consideration when using abbreviations should be to help the reader.
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