Sternberg, R. Stout, J. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37 , — Strunk, W. The elements of style 2nd ed. New York, NY: Macmillan. Pinker, S. Williams, K. Ostracism: Effects of being excluded and ignored. Zanna Ed. Andrew H. Hales is a graduate student at Purdue University studying social psychological science. His research examines ostracism and social influence. Hales can be contacted via ahales purdue.
He studies group processing and social influence with primary interests in ostracism, social loafing, stealing thunder, and Internet research. His lab developed the popular research game Cyberball to study ostracism.
Williams can be contacted via kip psych. Joel Rector can be contacted via apsobserver psychologicalscience. Sarah Gaither shares how her experiences as a biracial individual have informed her psychological research on identity. One way to take advantage of graduate school is to study abroad, where you can find new scientific perspectives and research methods as well as improve your career options. The APS Teaching Fund is supporting the development of a central clearinghouse for research on teaching introductory psychology, along with other pedagogical resources.
About the Authors Andrew H. Going Global With Your PhD One way to take advantage of graduate school is to study abroad, where you can find new scientific perspectives and research methods as well as improve your career options. We use technologies, such as cookies, to customize content and advertising, to provide social media features and to analyse traffic to the site.
We also share information about your use of our site with our analytics partners. A good rule for abbreviations is to put the reader first. Ask yourself: Will the abbreviation make the sentence easier to read, or will it confuse the reader for example, if the abbreviation is too obscure? If an abbreviation still sounds like a good idea, next consider the context. Abbreviations are perfectly OK in personal and casual writing—they're often OK in formal writing too.
You might want to ask your boss or your teacher if you're unsure. As you read earlier, acronyms are used in place of a phrase or string of words. They're almost always made up of the words' initials and are spelled in all caps. They can represent all kinds of things, from organizations to mnemonics to sandwiches.
Like abbreviations , there's a lot of overlap between acronyms and initialisms —but remember, this doesn't really matter when it comes to using them. It might help to think of acronyms as something catchier than abbreviations after all, they represent longer phrases, so it helps if they're memorable. They don't just shorten words; they stand for organizations, ideas, and other things you want people to remember. Acronyms are read differently from abbreviations.
Take the word BLT. If you saw that on the menu at your favorite restaurant, there's a good chance you'd just order a BLT , not a bacon , lettuce , and tomato sandwich. You wouldn't pronounce it built or belt either; you would say B-L-T. This is what makes acronyms unique—you can read them as they appear, even though they stand for something else.
The pronunciation of acronyms can vary, however. Sometimes it's just a question of, " Can the acronym be pronounced as a word? However, there's no set rule that governs this.
Knowing how to pronounce acronyms depends a lot your awareness of the world around you, but it's not the end of the world if you make a mistake. Sometimes you may need to explain the acronym when using it in writing. Style guides suggest that you write the acronym first, followed by the full name or phrase in parentheses.
You can also write them in the opposite order—whatever makes more sense. In short, if the acronym is more widely known, list it first; if it's more obscure, you may want to start with the entire phrase. A lot of contemporary acronyms might need to be explained for different reasons this also applies to the chat abbreviations that we discussed earlier. As always, this type of slang can be OK in certain contexts, but it might leave some readers feeling confused.
A few other abbreviations are so well known that you can use them safely in your writing. Indeed, in some of these cases, the abbreviated form of the name is far more familiar than the full name. Otherwise, however, you should try to avoid the use of abbreviations in your formal writing. The frequent use of unnecessary abbreviations will make your text irritating and hard to read.
So, you should write four ounces not 4 oz. It is far more important to make your writing easy to read than to save a few seconds in writing it. There is one exception to this policy. In scientific writing, the names of units are always abbreviated and always written without full stops or a plural s.
There are a number of Latin abbreviations which are sometimes used in English texts. Here are the commonest ones with their English equivalents: e.
Their use is only appropriate in special circumstances in which brevity is at a premium, such as in footnotes. It is very poor style to spatter your page with these things, and it could be disastrous to use them without being quite sure what they mean.
If you do use one, make sure you punctuate it correctly. Here is an example. The recommended form is this: Several British universities were founded in the Victorian era; for example, the University of Manchester was established in The following version is not wrong, but it is poor style: Several British universities were founded in the Victorian era; e. Using a Latin abbreviation does not relieve you of the obligation of punctuating your sentence.
Again, if you avoid Latin abbreviations, you won't get into this sort of trouble. The abbreviation ca. Roger Bacon ca. Here the use of ca. If neither birth date nor death date is known for sure, then each is preceded by ca. Outside of parentheses , you should usually avoid the use of ca. For a much more detailed listing of abbreviations and acronyms, you can check in the back pages of many dictionaries, or consult the Chicago Manual of Style also available online to subscribers or the free online version of the United States Government Printing Office Style Manual.
For comprehensive online acronyms dictionaries, especially for technical fields such as chemistry and medicine, I recommend these sites:. Skip to main content. Abbreviations and Acronyms Print Abbreviations the shortened form of a word or phrase and acronyms words formed from the initial letters of a phrase are commonly used in technical writing. Abbreviations Typically, abbreviate social titles Ms. In resumes and cover letters, avoid abbreviations representing titles of degrees e. Follow most abbreviations with a period, except those representing units of measure "Mar.
See the table that follows for further guidance. Typically, do not abbreviate geographic names and countries in text i.
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