Decoding the ACRO Editing Code

There is a lot of specific terminology for names and processes in the technology industry. These are often represented as acronyms.

Acronyms are good to use when writing, because by abstracting a term, they achieve brevity, and can reduce visual noise and reduce the cognitive load on the reader having to parse a complex sentence. 

In this episode, host Carl Richards interviews Felicity Brand, Christine Beuhler, and Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire. We talk about how we use the Editing Code ACRO to add clarity and give all our readers the same chance to understand our writing.

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Episode Transcript

Carl Richards (00:07):
Hi, I'm Carl from OSP. And this is communicate
connect, grow the OSP podcast.
On today's episode, we'retalking about using acronyms in
your writing with the editingcode acro. If you want to be a
more effective writer, a moretransparent editor, develop
clear strategic thinking, orlearn from our network of expert
friends and colleagues. That'swhat we're here for. We divide

(00:30):
our episodes across threethemes, communicate, connect,
and grow. This is a communicateepisode, and we're talking about
terminology and word choice withour editorial code accurate.

(01:00):
The acro editing code falls intothe word choice phase of the
editing process. And it's aboutusing acronyms in your writing.
In our documentation about thiscode, it says, acronyms explain
what they stand for, and explainwhat they are and what they do
if needed.

Felicity Brand (01:19):
G'day, I'm Felicity brand. And I am a
editor and writer at OpenStrategy Partners. I do a lot of
technical editing, and I do somewriting. And I love talking
about it. What's the deal withEQ, right? So acro is an editing
code that falls in our wordchoice of phase. It's a pretty

(01:40):
simple rule. And maybe a lot ofpeople already know it, it's the
rule that you should spell outtechnical terms, you need to do
it at least once, and then placetheir acronym right next to it.
And that's kind of yourpermission ticket to use that
acronym throughout the rest ofyour written piece for brevity,
really, you're saving space. Youknow, when I first started

(02:02):
thinking about acro, I thought,there's not much to say this
will be over really quick. Butthen it turned out that I have a
lot to say. So acronyms areprevalent when writing about
technology. There's a lot ofspecific terminology for names
and processes in the technologyindustry. And they're often
represented as acronyms, theyare good to use when you're

(02:26):
writing, because by abstractinga term, you achieve brevity. And
that can reduce visual noise forthe reader and also kind of
reduce the cognitive load asthey have to pass, perhaps a
long sentence. So you know,acronyms are good. However, we
want to be kind to our readersand spell out technical terms,

(02:49):
because you don't want to assumeknowledge.

Jeffrey A. McGuire (02:52):
Hi, I'm "jam." That's J A M, an acronym
for Jeffrey Alexander McGuire.
But please feel free to call meJim acro is simply short for
acronyms. And Open StrategyPartners. We want to communicate
authentically. And for us, thatmeans being authentic, being
clear and being empathetic. Andthat expresses itself in how we

(03:18):
research how we write how we puttogether communications. I've
been in a lot of corporatecontexts where acronyms rule the
day and think of the classicHave you done your TPS reports,
right? I don't know what a TPSreport is. And it's a great
running joke. But if you're inan organization where there's
just letters and numbers andstuff all over the place, it can

(03:40):
be really hard to keep track.
And we don't want to excludepeople. So in the end accurate
is really, really, reallysimple. If you use an acronym,
explain it, the first time youuse it, and then go ahead and
use it for the rest of the pieceyou're working on. But do that
every time. And there's a trickto the explaining. And the best

(04:01):
and easiest example for thiscould be CSS, CSS, everybody
says CSS CSS does something withhow it makes websites look and
respond. CSS stands forCascading Style Sheets. So the
name Cascading Style Sheets wellcascading because there's an a
hierarchical principle where themore specific something is, then

(04:23):
it overrides things that areless specific. And that's just a
technical description, but whatthey actually are is style
sheets. So a pretty good way todeal with that. One is just to
say CSS stylesheets, even thoughit's redundant, we understand
where that's going. In anothercase, I might write CSS
stylesheets and then an M dashor some brackets or something,

(04:46):
the code that controls thedisplay of your website,
something like that. And thenI've explained the acronym and
I've explained what it does andthen we can then everybody is
probably on the same pageenough. For us to continue
whatever the discussion is.

Christine Beuhler (05:02):
I'm Christine Bueller, and I'm a
Communications Consultant atOpen Strategy Partners, which
means I'm usually working onblogs and landing pages and
newsletters for our clients aswell as you know, working more
deeply on what their underlyingcommunication strategy should

(05:25):
be. So the editing code acro ispretty self explanatory. It just
stands for no acronym. All itmeans is to explain an acronym.
Whenever you come across it.
Usually we do it in parenthesis,the first time we mentioned it,
and then we can resort to usingthe shortened version of it and

(05:48):
the rest of the piece. But wejust like to make sure we are
clear about an acronym right atthe beginning.

Carl Richards (06:00):
Let's explore how you use this code as an editor.

Felicity Brand (06:03):
As an editor.
When you're looking at acro,well, it's as simple as checking
the acronyms have been spelledout. As per your house style.
You can add value as an editorby looking for opportunities to
use acronyms that maybe theauthor hasn't spotted. Another
way, acro gives editors anopportunity to add value by
deciding when not to spell outan acronym. Consider the broader

(06:26):
content strategy, the aim of thepiece of writing and
particularly the audience, ifyou're looking at a piece that's
pitched at a very technicallevel, and you know, that can be
signposted by the title, yourisk losing your audience, if
you spell out common orgenerally accepted acronyms, for
example, maybe you've got apiece written for UX designers,

(06:50):
that audience probably doesn'tneed. Now, this may be
controversial, probably doesn'tneed CSS, Cascading Style Sheets
to be spelt out. Actually, I'dlike to hear what Jim has to say
about that. If you've got awritten piece that is pitched at
a professional UX design level,if early on in that piece, the

(07:11):
reader comes across CSS spelledout, they may they may bounce,
they might think this isn't forme, it's too basic, I'm looking
for something a lot moredetailed, a lot more advanced.
Anyway, that's that's myopinion, when I'm editing the
other job when I'm looking atacro is determining the best
place for that first use. Sogenerally, you will introduce

(07:32):
your acronym the first time youuse that technical term. What if
that technical term is in theheading? Do you want to include
the acronym in the heading,that's adding character camp,
it's adding visual noise. Sothat's a call that you as an
editor might flag with yourauthor. And perhaps you might
try to reframe that so that youcan elegantly use that technical

(07:56):
phrase in the opening sentence,maybe, and get your acronym in
there. Another thing that youmight like to consider this may
be also controversial, is if apiece is really long, and it
goes below the fold. Decidewhether you need to spell out
your acronym more than once. Andthat's it's really just about

(08:16):
being kind to your reader. Ifthey land on the page and scroll
down. And they're seeing thisacronym, do they have to scroll
back up to the top to find outwhat that term is?

Jeffrey A. McGuire (08:26):
When I'm editing, copy acro, comes under
the broad umbrella concept ofclarity? Are we explaining
things at the appropriate levelfor the audience. And in any
case, if there's something longthat we don't want to type, or
it's typically referred to asits acronym, hey, let's explain

(08:48):
it once give everybody a chanceto read our article with the
same sort of a starting point ormaybe give them enough clues to
to go look for more informationif they're interested.

Christine Beuhler (09:00):
Acro is especially an important concept
in the tech industry, justbecause there are so many
different tech acronyms. Andthey're also you know, they're
changing, new ones are beingadded, like, all the time. I
have been in the tech space formany years now. And I still am

(09:24):
googling things like, Okay, whatis this new one? What does this
one mean? Yeah, I think youknow, especially since we are
often working with technicalclients, sometimes they may take
it as a given that everyone'slevel of knowledge is the same
as theirs. And that's not truesometimes. And so making sure

(09:48):
everyone is on the same pageright at the beginning can help
a lot in terms of making readersfeel included and welcomed to
your piece of writing have you

Carl Richards (10:01):
As a writer? How do you approach this code?

Felicity Brand (10:04):
As a writer, when I'm using a technical term
that is quite a mouthful, let'ssay static site generator,
sometimes I can't wait to get tothe part where I can just use
the acronym. As a writer, youknow, you need to be kind to
your reader and always spell outthe acronym at least once, at
the start of the piece. Thereare accepted rules for how you

(10:25):
do that. And generally, youwrite the phrase, you put the
acronym in brackets immediatelyfollowing, and that is your
permission ticket to use theacronym for the remainder of the
piece. When you're writing,don't be tempted to hyperlink
out to an external resource todefine your acronym, lean
towards always including it inyour writing for names or

(10:46):
processes of new or very modernacronyms. You add value by
explaining them in the contextof your piece. I think there are
some acronyms that don't need tobe spelled out. And those are
older, more well known acronymsin the technology space, such as

(11:06):
HTML, URL, maybe CSS, depending,yeah, that's a judgment call.
But I think I am going on recordto say that I think there are
some acronyms in the technologyindustry that don't need to be
spelled out in full

Jeffrey A. McGuire (11:22):
when I'm writing a piece. Acro for me is
one of those sort of checklistactivities to make sure that
I've explained myself well. Andit'll end up being a research
activity, you know, if I'mdealing with Kubernetes, which
is written k, eight s, or I'mdealing with CSS, or ROI, or as
soon as you get into business orfinance, there's just there's so

(11:42):
many of them, I will go and makesure that I understand it. And I
will find that way to put in thetwo three or four words, five
words, one sentence, whatever toexplain it, right, it ends up
being a little research task, Ikind of enjoy the the learning
aspect of that, too.

Christine Beuhler (11:56):
As a writer, I'm using acro a lot. I'm always
looking out for terms that needto be defined. And like
explained a little more clearly,I'm often googling those terms,
myself. So I understand what I'mtalking about as a writer, just
defining those acronyms right upfront just ties in well with our

(12:22):
goal at OSP to just be inclusiveand use inclusive language as
much as possible.

Carl Richards (12:30):
For the reader to have a great experience. Here's
why this editing code isextremely important.

Felicity Brand (12:36):
No one likes to feel stupid. You don't want to
make your reader have to workhard to go off page to find the
definition of an acronym. Youknow, I think I'm pretty tech
savvy. But even I am clueless.
When I come across a piece withan acronym that is not spelled
out. Particularly if you getinto anything to do with web

(12:56):
three, or cryptocurrency thereare a heap of acronyms in that
space. So don't don't assumeknowledge when it comes to your
readers. Because no one likes tofeel that they don't understand,
we want to make it easy forthem. You know, we want them to
read the written piece. So keepthem on page, treat them nicely
and help them understand

Jeffrey A. McGuire (13:18):
when we're working on any communication for
ourselves or for clients at OpenStrategy Partners. We are also
thinking about the audience thatwe're trying to reach. Is it
developers who can cope with amuch higher level or density or
depth of of technicalinformation? Is it marketing

(13:39):
people who have other thingsthat they geek out about? Is it
business people? And perhapswhat is their technical level
knowledge of business things? Imean, I could be reading about
business for developers, that'snot crazy, either. All of these
worlds have their jargon. And ifI want to make the piece
approachable, and stand alone,understandable, I want to give

(14:01):
the reader the chance to comealong with me to learn about the
interesting stuff that I'mwriting about. Frankly, the
names of technologies are barelyever the point of an article, I
just want to give the readerthis chance to be like, Hey,
this is what we're talkingabout. This is what it's for.
We're going to call it by thisacronym now. Now let's get on
with the rest of it

Christine Beuhler (14:19):
as a reader macro is important. Just because
you can't predict the level ofknowledge a reader has when they
come to your page. Some readersmight not be familiar with that
term at all. And they need thatdefinition. Some might already
be like experts and so easy forthem to just skim past it. They

(14:43):
don't need it. And other people,you know, it might be helpful
just because they need arefresher. You know, maybe
they're like, oh, yeah, I knewwhat that was, but I forgot or
I'm not as clear as I could beon the term. So it's helpful I
think for all readers

Carl Richards (15:13):
FYI, if you're using acronyms make sure you say
exactly what the acronym meansfor your information. FYI,
explain to the reader so theyare very clear with what you're
trying to convey. Share yourexamples or questions with us
via Twitter @open_strategy, oremail

(15:34):
[e-mail].
This was one of the editorialcodes we use at OSP. If you'd
like to learn more in themeantime, come on over to
openstrategypartners.com Have alook at our writer enablement
workshops case study offeringfor get in touch to talk about
your strategy or productcommunication needs. Thanks to
everyone who contributed to thispodcast, all the peas that OSP

(15:57):
thanks to our clients whobelieve in us. Shout out to
Patrick Gamal for our highenergy, maple syrup flavor theme
music and to Mike snow foradditional horn arrangements.
Thank you for listening andsubscribing. About our three
themes on the podcast, you'llhear different members of the

(16:17):
OSP team hosting episodes overtime, communicate all things
communication. We share how wetackle writing, editing, word
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(16:39):
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(17:00):
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Subscribe now on YouTube, Applepodcasts or the podcast channel
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(17:24):
on Twitter. Until next time, I'mCarl Richards and this is the
OSP podcast.

Felicity Brand (18:04):
Got a lot to say okay, so yeah, I can't compete
with Jam Jam has a lot to say.
But yes, sometimes I do too.
Just a jam starts coming out alot more perfectly whole and
fully formed.

Jeffrey A. McGuire (18:23):
Yeah, so kthxbai TTYL FYIROWQ