When I lived in Connecticut (this was during the shock to the economy in 1990-1993), I banked with the FDIC. Each bank I moved to would fold up within a few weeks. Yellow tape would be wound around the building, bank auditors would drag out boxes and we’d be told how to get our money from the FDIC. The biggest collapse was Connecticut Bank and Trust, or CBT.
When I began teaching writing for the Web, everyone was interested in learning online, at home, on computer-based training, or CBT.
As a financial writer, I often wrote about futures trading, often done on the Chicago Board of Trade, or CBT.
New research on depression has shown that drugs don’t work particularly well over long use. The depression lifts, but then comes back. A new theory of therapy says the way to cure depression is Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, or CBT.
As writers, we often use acronyms instead of spelling out the words, because we know what we mean. We expect our audience to read our article and gather the meaning from context. Or we simply assume the audience knows what we do. The case of CBT shows that it isn’t enough to use the acronym. A reader skimming the article wants to move on with content, and not get bogged down by deciphering acronyms, particularly if there are a lot of them.
Explain the acronym the first time you use it, then use the letters. No waste, just an increase in understanding.
–Image: sigpc.com
–Quinn McDonald is a writer and creativity coach. See her work at QuinnCreative.com. (c) 2007 All rights reserved.
