UniWiki:Manual of Style/Abbreviations

This page is a part of the UniWiki's Manual of Style. It is a general guideline intended to harmonize article style across the UniWiki, though it is best treated with common sense, and exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should be approved by the Wiki Manager. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

This guideline covers the use of abbreviations, including initialisms, acronyms, contractions and shortenings, in the UniWiki]. An initialism is usually formed from some or all of the initial letters of words in a phrase. In some variations of English, an acronym is considered to be an initialism which is pronounced as a word (e.g. NATO), as distinct from the case where the initialism is said as a string of individual letters (e.g. "UN" for the United Nations). Herein, the term acronym applies collectively to initialisms, without distinction that an acronym is said as a word.

Maintaining a consistent abbreviation style will allow the UniWiki to be read, written, edited, and navigated more easily by readers and editors alike. The style should always be consistent within a page. If a guideline conflicts with the correct usage of a proper name, ignore it. The abbreviation style used in quotations from written sources should always be written exactly as in the original source, unless it is a UniWiki-made translation.

Always consider whether it is better to simply write a word or phrase out in full, thus avoiding potential confusion for those not familiar with its abbreviation. Remember that the UniWiki does not have the same space constraints as paper.

Use sourceable abbreviations

For shortening long titles of works, see UniWiki:Manual of Style/Titles § Abbreviation of long titles

Avoid making up new abbreviations, especially acronyms. For example, "Template:Xtn" is good as a Template:Em of Fédération Internationale Féline, but neither the anglicization nor the reduction IFF is used by the organization; use the original name and its official abbreviation, FIFe.

If it is necessary to abbreviate in "small spaces" (infoboxes, navboxes and tables), use widely recognized abbreviations. As an example, for New Zealand gross national product, use NZ and GNP, with a link if the term has not already been written out: NZ GNP; do not use the made-up initialism NZGNP).

Full stops (periods)

Modern style is to use a full stop (period) after a shortening (although there are many exceptions) but no full stops with an acronym. In the case of an acronym containing full stops between letters, it should also have a full stop after the final letter. If an abbreviation ending in a full stop ends a sentence, do not use an extra full stop (e.g. New York is in the U.S. and not New York is in the U.S..).

Contractions that contain an apostrophe (don't, shouldn't, she'd) never take a period (except at the end of a sentence, of course). They are also not used except in quotations or titles of works, as noted below. Contractions that do not contain an apostrophe almost always take a period in North American English, but the stop is optional in British English: Doctor can be abbreviated Dr. in American and Canadian English, but Dr. or Dr in British English. If in doubt, or if the dot-less usage could be confusing in the context, use the stop. An exception is units of measurement, which never use periods. (see UniWiki:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers).

Acronyms

Acronyms are abbreviations formed, usually, from the initial letters of words in a phrase.

• Capitalisation: Some acronyms are written with all capital letters, some with a mixture of capitals and lower-case letters and some are written as common nouns (e.g. laser). Acronyms whose letters are pronounced individually (which is what some call "initialisms", for example FBI, EU) are written in capitals. For more guidance on the capitalisation of acronyms, see UniWiki:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Acronyms.
• Spacing: The letters of acronyms should not be spaced.
• Plurals: Plural acronyms are written with a lower-case s after the abbreviation, without an apostrophe, unless full stops are used between the letters (e.g. ABCs or A.B.C.'s). Note that Wikipedia generally avoids using full stops in upper-case acronyms.

If there is an article about the subject of an acronym (e.g. NATO), then other articles referring to or using the acronym should use the same style (capitalisation and punctuation) that has been used within the main article. If no article exists for the subject acronym, then style should be resolved by considering consistent usage in source material.

Unless specified in the "Exceptions" section below, an acronym should be written out in full the first time it is used on a page, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses, e.g. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Common exceptions to this rule are post-nominal initials, because writing them out in full would cause clutter. Another exception is when something is most commonly known by its acronym (i.e., its article here is at the acronym title), in which case the expansion can come in the parenthetical or be omitted, except in the lead of its own article: according to the CIA (U.S. Central Intelligence Agency).

To save space in small spaces (see above), acronyms do not need to be written out in full. When not written out in full on the first use on a page, an acronym should be linked. An unambiguous acronym can be linked as-is, but an ambiguous acronym should be linked to its expansion.

For partial acronyms formed using the now-rare convention of including whole short words in them, do not blindly "normalize" them to typical current style, but write each as found in the majority of modern reliable sources. Examples: "Commander-in-Chief" is generally abbreviated CinC on its own, but may appear in all-caps when used in a longer acronym (especially a U.S. government one) like CINCFLEET and CINCAIR. The Billiard Association of America was known as BA of A; while this should not be written as unsourceable variations like BAofA or BAA, the awkwardness of the abbreviation to modern eyes can be reduced by replacing the full-width spaces with thin-space characters: BA{{thinsp}}of{{thinsp}}A or BA of A gives BA of A, which better groups the letters into a unit.

Exceptions

Countries and multinational unions

For these commonly referred to entities, the full name does not need to be written out in full on first use, nor provided on first use in parentheses after the full name if written out.

Acronym	Expansion	Notes
EU	European Union
PRC	People's Republic of China
UAE	United Arab Emirates
UK	United Kingdom
US or U.S.	United States	Some American editors prefer to use "U.S." However, use a consistent style within the same article; use "US" in articles with other national abbreviations, e.g. "UK" or "UAE". USA, U.S.A. and U.S. of A. are generally not used except in quoted material.

Time zones

Abbreviations for time zones (e.g. GMT and UTC) should not be written out in full in times.

Miscellanea

Acronym	Expansion	Notes
AD	anno Domini ('in the year of our Lord')	Should not be written out in full in dates. Do not use in the year of our lord or any other translation of Anno Domini.
a.k.a. or AKA	also known as	Should only be used in small spaces, otherwise use the full phrase. Never use "aka".
am	ante meridiem	Should not be written out in full in times. It should not be written AM or A.M.
CE	Common Era	Should not be written out in full in dates.
e.g.	exempli gratia ('for example')	Should not be italicized or written out in full in normal usage.
i.e.	id est ('that is' / 'in other words')	Should not be italicized or written out in full in normal usage.
laser	light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation
n/a or N/A	not applicable	Should not be written n.a., N.A., NA or na..
PC	personal computer	Does not need to be written out in full on first use, nor provided on first use in parentheses after the full term if written out.
pm	post meridiem	Should not be written out in full in times. It should not be written PM or P.M.
radar	radio detection and ranging

Acronyms in page titles

See also: Wikipedia:Article titles#Article title format

Acronyms should be used in a page name if the subject is known primarily by its abbreviation and that abbreviation is primarily associated with the subject (e.g. NASA). In general, if readers somewhat familiar with the subject are likely to only recognize the name by its acronym, then the acronym should be used as a title.

One general exception to this rule deals with a strong preference for natural disambiguation. Many acronyms are used for several things; naming a page with the full name helps to avoid clashes. For instance, multiple TV/radio broadcasting companies share the initials ABC; even though some may be far better known by that acronym, articles on those companies are found at, for example, American Broadcasting Company rather than ABC (U.S. TV network). If it is found that a particular subject is overwhelmingly denoted by an unambiguous acronym, the article title on that subject can be expressed as the acronym and a disambiguation page can be used for the other subjects.

In many cases, no decision is necessary because a given acronym has several expansions, none of which is the most prominent. Under such circumstances, an article should be named with the spelled-out phrase and the acronym should be a disambiguation page providing descriptive links to all of them. See, for example, "[Wikipedia:AJAR|[AJAR]]", which disambiguates between "African Journal of AIDS Research" and "Australian Journal of Agricultural Research". A title like AJAR (African journal) should be avoided if at all possible. If the acronym and the full name are both in common use, both pages should exist, with one redirecting to the other (or as a disambiguation page).

Acronyms as disambiguators

To save space, acronyms should be used as disambiguators, when necessary. For example, "Great Northern Railway (U.S.)" and "Labour Party (UK)". The abbreviations are preferred over United States and United Kingdom, for brevity.

Contractions

See: Wikipedia:List of English contractions

A contraction is an abbreviation of one or more words that has some or all of the middle letters removed but retains the first and final letters (e.g. Mr and aren't). Missing letters are replaced by an apostrophe in multiple-word contractions. Contractions should not be used on the UniWiki. The contraction o'clock is an exception, as it is mandatory in all forms of writing.

Prefix titles such as Mr and Dr should not be used. Prefixes of royalty and nobility should be used, however (in accordance with a relevant style guide), but should not be abbreviated. (See Wikipedia:Titles and styles and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility).)

Shortenings

A shortening is an abbreviation of a word for which at least the last letter has been removed (e.g. etc. and rhino). Some shortenings also contain letters that are not present in their expansion (e.g. bike). Whether or not to follow a shortening with a full stop often comes down to individual cases, but, as a general rule, use a full stop after a shortening that only exists in writing (e.g. etc.) but not for a shortening that is used in speech (e.g. rhino). Common sense should be applied to judge whether a shortening is acceptable in prose or not. Words such as rhino and bike should be avoided; etc. should be used over et cetera, and informal terms, such as wanna, are not used in UniWiki articles. Uncommon shortenings should be linked on the first use on a page.

Miscellaneous shortenings

Shortening	Expansion	Notes
approx.	approximately	It should only be used in small spaces.
c.	circa ("around")	In dates, to indicate around, approximately, or about, the unitalicized abbreviation c. is preferred over circa, ca, ca., approximately, or approx. It should not be italicized in normal usage.
et al.	et alii ("and others")	It should normally only be used in references and where it is part of a name, such as of a legal case, e.g. United States v. Thompson et al.
vs./v./v	versus (against / in contrast to)	They do not need to be linked. Prefer "vs." except in legal contexts, where the usage is "v." or "v", depending on jurisdiction. They should not be italicized since they have long been assimilated into the language as an English word. The full word should be used in most cases, but it is conventional to use an abbreviation in certain contexts, including law and sports.
viz.	videlicet ("that is to say" / "namely")	It should be linked on first use.

Symbols

Unit symbols

The main section for this topic is on the page UniWiki:Manual of Style, in the section Units of measurement.

Miscellaneous symbols

• The ampersand (&), a replacement for the word and, should only be used in small spaces such as tables and infoboxes, but, preferably, should be avoided even there. However, it is common in many trademarks and titles of published works, and should be retained when found in them.
• The at sign (@) should not be used in the place of the word at in normal text.

Latin abbreviations

In normal usage, abbreviations of Latin words and phrases should be italicised, except AD, c., e.g., etc. and i.e., which have become ordinary parts of the English language. The expansions of Latin abbreviations should still be italicised, as with most foreign words and phrases (Anno Domini, circa, exempli gratia, et cetera, id est). These are not normally used in article prose.

Do not use &c. in the place of etc.

Special considerations

• Postal codes and abbreviations of place names (e.g. Calif. (California), TX (Texas), Yorks. (Yorkshire) should not be used to stand in for the full names in normal text. The practice is common when specifying places of publication in source citations, especially after the first occurrence.
• "Saint[e]" versus "St" or "St." in placenames should depend upon the official usage.
• Abbreviations should be written in the same fashion each time they are used within the same page (e.g. "US" and "U.S." should not be alternated). Any special cases should have a natural reason (perhaps a list of officers in a joint British–American taskforce) that should be obvious to the reader; stating such a reason in an HTML comment will help other editors to maintain it.

See also

• American and British English differences#Punctuation
• Wikipedia:Edit summary legend
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Acronyms and abbreviations
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Acronyms
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (aircraft)
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships)