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> From: Bruce Byfield [mailto:bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com]
> Since a tech-writer is supposed to explain concepts clearly,
> I consider
> this practice standard, even when writing for experts. You'd be
> surprised how often even experts use an acronym without
> knowing what it
> means. Even if they once knew, they soon forget. Just the other day, a
> marketing droid asked me what TCP/IP stood for, and there was an awful
> moment of blankness in my mind before I could remember (no, not that
> blankness. The one that's not normal).
Ran into the same thing with URL myself the other day.
In the same discussion, we were talking about whether to spell acronyms out
in full the first time, followed by the acronym in brackets, or the reverse.
We ended up having to do it on a case by case basis, depending on whether
people were generally most familiar with the spelled out version or the
acronym. For example, lots of people know what Scuba means, but haven't a
clue that it's an acronym and wouldn't recognise it spelled out.
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