Say What You Mean
This guest post is by Renee Dutton-O'Hara, Executive Audio Producer, Mary Muñoz, Executive Medical Editor, and Cal Dykes, Senior Audio Editor at the Center for Teaching and Learning.
In this post, we would like to talk about acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms—and the importance of saying and writing what you mean. This is important no matter if you’re teaching online or in person.
CTL, as many of you know, stands for the Center for Teaching and Learning. However, it could stand for many things, and that is why we want to be clear by both speaking and writing the meaning of an acronym, abbreviation, or initialism at the first mention in your lecture.
Listen to this blog post as a MP3 audio file
What Are Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Initialisms?
Acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms (let’s call them AAIs) are commonly used to simplify complex terms, but they can be confusing if their meanings aren’t clearly stated. The Berlitz language school provides a great definition:
- An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase. For example, many medical professionals use the abbreviation Dx, which means diagnosis.
- An acronym is a word that is made up of the first letter of a group of words and is read like a single word. For example, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is pronounced as a single word, nay-toe, making it an acronym.
- An initialism is like an acronym except that each letter is read individually. For example, RSVP (répondez s’il vous plaît) is an initialism, as we say each letter one by one.
AAIs are often built into our culture so much that we don’t even realize they’re not real words. For example, you might say, “OK! I’ve got a DIY project that needs to get done ASAP!” Does your student from Bolivia know what we’re talking about? Do they know that DIY means “do it yourself”?
Here’s a short story to illustrate the point: A good friend went to visit Boston in 2024. It was her first time in the US, although she studied English for over 40 years and speaks it well. She wanted to visit MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), but she got lost in Boston when she was trying to find it. She kept asking each passerby, “Can you tell me how to get to “meat”? She was pronouncing MIT like it’s said in Spanish, meat. It took a while for her to figure out the problem: Americans call it M-I-T.
This is why we need to communicate AAIs clearly and remember that many Bloomberg School of Public Health (BSPH) learners:
- May be encountering a topic for the first time.
- Are learning in an online environment (where visual cues from the speaker may not be available).
- May not speak English as their first language.
For these three reasons, clearly defining AAIs helps ensure that everyone understands the content and can follow along without confusion. This creates a more inclusive learning experience in addition to a pedagogically sound one.
Speaking, Pronouncing, and Writing AAIs in your Lecture
When you record your online lecture with CTL, the audio producer will ask you to introduce the AAI the first time you use it in the lecture by saying the term out loud and then saying its meaning out loud. After that, you can return to using the shortened form. This is practical—especially if you must repeat it multiple times. We will also be writing the meaning down in our notes to share with our medical editors who work on your PowerPoint slides. They will ensure that all AAIs are defined in your slides at the first mention in each section of your lecture.
It’s helpful to plan how you’ll pronounce an AAI as well as its plural form. In general, to make an AAI plural, add s. For example, HMOs (health maintenance organizations) or ATMs (automated teller machines). In some cases, we’re so used to pronouncing the acronym that the actual term may be tough to pronounce! For example, physiologically-based pharmacokinetics (PBPKs) might be a challenge! The good news is that in a recording session, retakes are fine—even welcome. The audio editors remove retakes in the final version.
CoursePlus, our LMS (learning management system), also provides students with the following resources to help their comprehension of AAIs as well as the lecture materials:
- The streaming version of the lecture contains an interactive transcript
- A downloadable MP4 file of the lecture (without transcript)
- An audio-only version of the lecture (MP3)
- A downloadable transcript (TXT file)
- A handout of the lecture slides (PDF file)
Key Takeaways
CTL strives to work with faculty and guest speakers to make sure that:
- The learner can keep up with the lecture and understand the meaning of the AAI.
- The speaker will help by introducing and defining the acronym or abbreviation.
Summary and Thank You
CTL is committed to providing high-quality, professionally produced, pedagogically sound, and digitally accessible educational materials for our faculty and students as part of their BSPH public health teaching and learning experience. Thank you for helping us achieve this goal by learning how you can improve your lectures just by taking the time to identify and define AAIs.
In this post, you’ll find some examples of AAIs as well as some AAIs that don’t have to be spelled out at all.
As always, we look forward to working with you on your lecture!
For additional teaching and learning best practices, visit the CTL Teaching Toolkit site.
Examples of Some Common AAIs in Health Care, Medicine, and Public Health
Remember, all acronyms should be spelled out the first time they are used — with the exception of those noted at the very bottom of this blog post under “No Spell-Outs Needed for Some Terms.”
| AKA: also known as ANC: antenatal care BMI: body mass index BP: blood pressure CI: confidence interval Dx: diagnosis EHR: electronic health records HR: heart rate IMR: infant mortality rate |
IRB: Institutional Review Board LMIC: low- and middle-income countries NKDA: no known drug allergies OR: odds ratio PFAS: perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances |
PHC: primary health care RCT: randomized controlled trial or randomized clinical trial RR: relative risk or risk ratio Rx: prescription STIs: sexually transmitted infections TB: tuberculosis |
| No Spell-Outs Needed for Some Terms |
|---|
| The Bloomberg School Editorial Style Guide lists some common acronyms that we use regularly at the School that do not need to be spelled out, even in a first mention: AIDS, CDC, FDA, HIV, NIH, UN, UNICEF, USAID, WHO. |
Reference
Marco Monroy, M. (February 15, 2023). Berlitz. 277 top English abbreviations from texting to acronyms to slang. Accessed April 25, 2025, from https://www.berlitz.com/blog/texting-english-abbreviations