40 PRS Proofreading and Editing Service PhD Experts • All Academic Areas • Fast Turnaround • High Quality you do not follow these simple procedures when using acronyms, your reader may not know what you’re talking about – a frustrating experience for both author and reader. Once an acronym has been introduced in this manner, however, you can use it with confidence knowing that you’ll be understood, so long as you use it accurately and consistently. Many journals will ask that an acronym be used in all cases instead of the full term once it’s been introduced, and that acronyms not be introduced and used at all unless they’re used with considerable frequency. There are a number of other concerns that you should also consider when using acronyms and other abbreviations. For instance, sometimes a plural term such as United Nations is abbreviated with an acronym that doesn’t show the plural nature of the full version (UN), but if you’re going to use an abbreviation for both singular and plural forms of a term, add an ‘s’ when you intend the plural of the original – KI for ‘key informant’ but KIs for ‘key informants.’ In such cases, make sure that you use the appropriate form (singular or plural) when you introduce and define the abbreviation – ‘My key informants (KIs) were…,’ not ‘My key informants (KI) were…’ – and that the language you use around the acronym when it’s used alone reflects the difference: ‘My KIs were…,’ not ‘My KIs was…’ (the use of that ‘s’ will help with this). Generally speaking, abbreviations of all kinds should be avoided in the headings and subheadings of your paper, even if they’ve already been introduced and defined, and some journals will ask that they be avoided in the abstract of a paper as well. If you do have to use abbreviations in your abstract, defining them there does not mean you can avoid doing so in the main paper – they will need to be introduced and defined in both places (on the use of abbreviations and acronyms in the tables, figures, title, abstract and keywords of an academic or scientific paper, see Sections 5.1 & 6.2 below). PARt II: PRePARIng, PResentIng And PolIsHIng YoUR woRk