Content Style Guide: Acronyms and Abbreviations

One of the best ways to ensure that our website is user-friendly is to follow industry best practices, keep the content focused on key user tasks, and keep our content up-to-date at all times.

Use acronyms and abbreviations only when necessary.

  • Avoid if possible.
  • First occurrence should spell it out with the acronym following it in parenthesis.
  • Additional occurrences should use the abbreviation tag (<abbr>) if possible.
    • In LibGuides, toggle to the "Source" view in your editor. (If in the CMS, contact me for help.)
    • Find the acronym in the HTML.
    • Add an opening abbreviation tag before it, with a title attribute that spells out the full name.
    • Add a closing </abbr> tag at the end of the acronym

Example:

<abbr title="Grand Valley State University">GVSU</abbr>

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Credits

Guide content originally created by Suzanne Chapman for the University of Illinois Libraries. Licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons By 4.0 license.

  • Last Updated: Aug 29, 2024 11:45 AM
  • URL: https://libguides.gvsu.edu/styleguide