essay feedback abbreviations

A guide to your teacher's feedback: common abbreviations defined

If you are a student, you have probably seen a fair share of markings on your papers to indicate errors or ideas for improvement. If you are a teacher, you have made many of these markings and know how important it is to streamline the correcting process. While individual teachers or editors may have their own systems of signaling suggestions in writing, the language of editing and proofreading comprises many abbreviations that generally convey a universal meaning.

Below are some of the most common abbreviations used in proofreading, what they mean, and how to fix the errors they identify.

short for agreement . This refers to subject-verb agreement and means that the verb form as written does not align with the corresponding subject or pronoun. For example: Only one of the students were happy. (The correct sentence would be: Only one of the students was happy. "One "is a singular third person subject.) 

Awk:  

short for awkward wording . This usually refers to word order or to the way a phrase sounds. Consider breaking up the sentence to make it more concise or rendering the awkward expression in different, more straightforward language.

For example: We had bought extra food for the party that cost more than we expected and was not necessary in the end. (It is unclear whether the cost and inconvenience conveyed refers to the food or the party. A clearing wording would be: We had bought extra food for the party just in case, but the food cost more than we expected and was not necessary in the end.)

stands for capitalization , used to indicate that a word is incorrectly capitalized or that a lowercase word should be capitalized. For example:

The people in Italy speak italian .

The People in Italy speak Italian.

stands for diction . This refers to a misuse of diction, or incorrect word choice. For example: If we pass the test depends on the fact of whether or not we studied. A correct sentence would be: Whether or not we pass the test depends on how much we studied.

stands for fragment . This points out a stand-alone phrase that is not a complete sentence. For example: Regardless of how well I do on the test.

stands for pronoun antecedent agreement . This refers to a pronoun that does not agree with the subject it represents because of the person and/or number. For example: A good student always studies for their tests. ("A good student" is a third person singular subject, whereas "their" is the third person plural possessive pronoun).

short for pronoun . Not substantially different from the preceding example, this refers to any incorrect pronoun usage. For example: You and your brother are responsible for their actions. (It should be "your actions".)

means repetition when a phrase or word is redundant. For example:

Chocolate is my favorite flavor because I like it the most.

The woman appeared nervous in appearance.

RO (or R-O )­:

stands for run-on sentence . A run-on sentence is a sentence that has multiple independent clauses without connecting conjunctions or commas. For example: The kids ran around the playground then they splashed each other with water. Fix this by breaking the run-on sentence into two sentences, combining the independent clauses with correct punctuation, or removing one of the subjects to create a dependent clause. For example, potential alternatives to the above sentence would be:

The kids ran around the playground. Then they splashed each other with water.

The kids ran around the playground and then splashed each other with water.

The kids ran around the playground before splashing each other with water.

The kids ran around the playground, and then they splashed each other with water.

short for spelling . This means there is a misspelled word.  

Latin for Let it stand . This is a note from the proofreader to the writer to ignore a previously suggested correction, to let the text stand as it originally was written.

stands for subject verb . This is the same as Agr and means there is an error in the subject verb agreement . For example: The boys in the class is tall.

T (or VT ):

stands for verb tense . This means that a verb tense is not consistent with the context or with a surrounding verb. For example: Before the boy washed his face, he brushes his teeth.

Correct versions would be:

Before the boy washes his face, he brushes his teeth.

Before the boy washed his face, he brushed his teeth.  

stands for wrong word . This indicates that there is a more appropriate or accurate word to choose to convey the writer's intended meaning.

For example: The girl had to choose from opulent opportunities for her internship.

A better word would be one of the following: The girl had to choose from numerous/many/abundant opportunities for her internship.

Another example: Their were a lot of people at the party.

Correct word: There were a lot of people at the party.

For more examples of proofreading abbreviations, symbols and examples, see the following sites:

Capital Community College Common Proofreading Symbols

Novella Abbreviations and Symbols for Editing and Proofreading

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Grading guidelines

Grading is one of the main ways that students have of tracking how they are doing in their courses. It is a chance for students to obtain feedback on what they are doing well and what they need to improve.

Providing Feedback

Writing comments on the student papers that you are grading is an excellent way to communicate to your students how they can improve their work for future assignments; however, these comments must be clear, concise, and constructive. Numerous comments on papers tend to overwhelm students, and most students will act only on the simplest of suggestions. Also, writing excessive comments will make grading papers an impossibly lengthy task. Therefore, comments need to be limited, but should be specific about what needs to be improved, whether it is grammar, structure, or content. Finally, comments need to provide constructive criticism. Students may become discouraged if your comments are too negative. Make sure to mention not only what needs improvement, but also what has been done well. Avoid sarcastic comments – even if you are only joking, your students may not realize this and could be hurt by what could be interpreted as a demeaning comment.

The following is a list of abbreviations commonly used during paper review that may be useful in giving feedback to your students:

¶ = new paragraph sp. = spelling || = align vertically

The following are lists of suggested feedback phrases for commenting on student papers.

  Grading Practices

Each course will have different means of assessing student progress, through assignments, quizzes, essays, exams, and other activities that will be evaluated. Instructors are responsible for providing written guidelines to all students at the start of each course. This should outline how the final grade for the course will be calculated, and include any related policies such as arrangements that may be made for students who are unable to complete a test or other graded work because of short term illness or for other reasons.

Typically each assessment contributes a portion of the course grade which is ultimately reported as a percentage achieved. In most faculties, individual course are normally graded as shown in this table:

Faculties, departments and schools reserve the right to scale grades in order to maintain equity among sections and conformity to University, faculty, department, or school norms. Grades are not official until they appear on a student’s academic record.

Academic integrity

Plagiarism, cheating, or resubmitting an assignment initially prepared for another course without permission are all serious offenses.

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism is using another person’s ideas without giving credit and is considered intellectual theft. If you submit or present the oral or written work of someone else you are guilty of plagiarism.

Plagiarism may be…

(1) Accidental or Unintentional : The student may not even know that they are plagiarizing. Students must be made to understand the difference between quoting and paraphrasing, as well as the proper way to cite material.

(2) Blatant : Students are well aware of what they are doing. Purposefully using someone else’s ideas or work without proper acknowledgement is plagiarism. This includes turning in borrowed or bought research papers as their own.

(3) Self : Submitting the same term paper (or substantially the same term paper) for two courses without getting permission from your instructor is plagiarism.

As part of the teaching team will you be required to check for plagiarism?

YES! Instructors can detect passages that are familiar or use vocabulary beyond the expertise of students. Passages that are suspicious can easily be checked on-line through Google.  In addition, UBC subscribes to TurnItIn.com, an online service that scans essay and term papers to check for material copied from websites or published from paper mills (such as cheater.com), published works, or previously submitted essays  http://www.library.ubc.ca/home/plagiarism/

Resources on academic integrity:

UBC policy on plagiarism at www.vpacademic.ubc.ca/integrity

A guide to academic honesty at http://www.arts.ubc.ca/faculty-amp-staff/resources/academic-integrity.html .

A Plagiarism Resource at http://learningcommons.ubc.ca/get-study-help/academic-integrity/ .

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Codes used in marking up essays

Civil procedure, professor nathenson, glossary of handwritten codes (v. 4.1).

The table below explains the meaning of common abbreviations used when scoring your essays.  Don’t hesitate to ask for clarification.

Updated Mar. 21, 2018 (v4.1)

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How To Use Abbreviations in Academic Writing

November 3, 2022 | Blog

Cheat sheet

No time to read? Here’s the short version:

• Avoid contractions like won’t, can’t, they’re, it’s .
• The first time you mention a phrase that can be abbreviated, spell it out in full and provide the abbreviation in parentheses. Use only the abbreviation thereafter.
• Only abbreviate phrases that occur three or more times in your paper.
• Avoid abbreviations in titles, headings, the abstract, and the reference section.
• Use the standard abbreviations you find in reputable dictionaries for months, personal titles, countries and states, and some Latin phrases.

What’s an abbreviation?

Abbreviation is an umbrella term for a shortened version of a longer word or phrase. There are four types of abbreviations:

• Contraction: The result of combining two words into one word with an apostrophe. For example, don’t is a contraction of do not.
• Shortening: Shortened words in which a part of the word (usually the beginning or the end, but occasionally both!) has been dropped. They may appear as words in their own right, such as app for application, ad for advertisement, and flu for influenza. They may also appear as truncated words which are read out as if they were full words, such as for professor, Mgmt. for management, and Feb . for February. In such cases, the truncation is usually signalled with a full stop.
• Acronym: A series of letters that represents a longer phrase. The end result is pronounced like a word. For example, NASA is the acronym for the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration and is pronounced nah-sa .
• Initialism: Like an acronym, an initialism consists of several letters and represents a longer phrase. However, the end result cannot be pronounced as a word and instead has to be read letter by letter. FBI is the initialism for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and each letter is pronounced individually: ef-bee-eye.

Contractions are considered informal. They are therefore best avoided in academic writing, where it’s essential to maintain a formal register.

When to use abbreviations

Only use abbreviations for phrases that you use three or more times in a paper. For terms you use less frequently, it’s easier for a reader to read the full phrase than to try to remember an abbreviation encountered only once several pages earlier.

Sometimes, you may introduce an abbreviation at the beginning of your paper, but may not use it again until much later. In that case, consider adding a List of Abbreviations to help the reader follow along.

How to introduce an abbreviation

When you first use a phrase that can be abbreviated, spell it out in full and show the abbreviation in parentheses immediately afterwards.

Organizations often use a request for proposal (RFP) to solicit work.

The study was conducted at the University of Lagos (UNILAG). Many UNILAG students were surveyed for this research.

If the long-form phrase is already in parentheses the first time it occurs, use square brackets to set the abbreviation apart.

The number of imprisoned journalists globally has risen in the past 10 years (Society of Professional Journalists [SPJ], 2015).

Remember, after you’ve introduced the abbreviation, use only the acronym throughout the rest of your paper. You don’t need to spell out the full phrase again. That’s the beauty of abbreviations!

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently conducted a joint study with the South African Medical Association (SAMA) on water hygiene in South Africa. WHO provided SAMA with a five-year grant to collect data from 25 hospitals.

How to pluralize abbreviations

To make an acronym or initialism plural, all you need to do is add a lowercase s to the end; no apostrophes necessary!

Correct:           The CEOs were profiled in Forbes magazine.

Incorrect:         The CEO’s were profiled in Forbes magazine.

Incorrect:         The CEOS were profiled in Forbes magazine.

Articles before abbreviations

When to use a or an before an abbreviation.

Use the article that matches the way the abbreviation is pronounced. If the first sound is a vowel sound, use an . If the abbreviation starts with a consonant sound, use a .

an NBC reporter

an MRI machine

a NATO representative

a MOMA exhibit

Still not sure which article to use? Deciding whether to use a or an can be tricky. In a pinch, try searching for the entire phrase online (enclosed in quotation marks) to see how other writers in your industry have approached the problem.

When to use the before an abbreviation

This rule depends on whether the abbreviation is an acronym or an initialism. Add the if the abbreviation is an initialism (not an acronym) for a phrase or name that normally includes the word the (but don’t add the letter T in the abbreviation).

Correct:           the International Criminal Court → the ICC

Correct:           the Women’s National Basketball Association → the WNBA

Incorrect:         the National Aeronautics and Space Administration → the NASA

When to avoid abbreviations

Avoid using abbreviations in the following sections of an academic paper:

Section headings

Reference section.

Your title should be accessible to all readers and easy to understand. Avoid ambiguity by spelling out phrases in full.

Correct:           The Environmental Protection Agency’s Stance on Carbon Capture

Incorrect:         The EPA’s Stance on Carbon Capture

Abstracts are short. It’s unlikely that you’ll use the same term three or more times in an abstract, so abbreviations are not necessary here. However, if you do introduce an abbreviation in the abstract, remember to do it in the body of your paper as well.

Some readers will skim your paper to identify those sections that are most useful to them. Help them navigate the contents more easily by using full phrases in the section headings instead of relying on abbreviations.

Correct:           Undergraduate Enrolment in the Society of Women Engineers in 2018

Incorrect:         Undergraduate Enrolment in the SWE in 2018

You can use abbreviations in in-text citations. In the Reference section (sometimes labelled Works Cited), however, all abbreviations should be written in full.

Correct:            American Psychological Association. (2010). Gen Y’s evolving gender roles.  Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/millennials/gender.

Incorrect:          American Psychological Association (APA). (2010). Gen Y’s evolving gender roles. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/millennials/gender.

Incorrect:          APA. (2010). Gen Y’s evolving gender roles. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/millennials/gender.

Abbreviations in other languages

Sometimes, an abbreviation or acronym might be in a foreign language. In this case, introduce both the full phrase or name of the organization in its original language and the English translation. The abbreviation should reflect the correct word order in the original language.

Italy’s Five Star Movement, known as Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S), is a populist, anti-establishment reform party.

You can also introduce the abbreviation by putting the original name in parentheses and the abbreviation in brackets within the parentheses.

In parliamentary elections held in March 2018, the Five Star Movement (Movimento Cinque Stelle [M5S]) emerged as the largest party in Italy with 32% of the vote.

When to add a list of abbreviations

If you’ve used 10 or more abbreviations in your thesis or dissertation, consider adding a formal list of abbreviations after the table of contents. This will help your reader follow along more easily. Even if you do include a list of abbreviations, be sure to introduce each abbreviated phrase in full the first time that you use it within your text, with the corresponding abbreviation in parentheses.

A list of abbreviations should contain all the abbreviations your paper uses in alphabetical order. Abbreviations starting with a number should come before the letter ‘A’. Here’s a shortened example from a paper on medicine:

As shown in the example, abbreviations can represent not only names that would be capitalized in their full form, but also common terms that are not normally capitalized, such as blood pressure (BP). If such terms recur often in the running text, it makes sense to abbreviate them, too.

Some acronyms and initialisms are so common that they require no formal introduction; there is no need to define these in either the running text or the List of Abbreviations. Examples include USSR, AIDS, HTML, and GMT.

Frequent errors

Using abbreviations correctly in English is quite tricky, and many writers struggle with this aspect of their academic writing. Here’s a very common mistake: following an abbreviation with a word that is already in the abbreviation. For example, if you say ATM machine , the word machine is redundant because the last letter of the acronym already stands for machine .

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CAW LibGuides: Glossary of Written Assignment Feedback Terms

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In Carless & Boud (2018), feedback is defined as a process in which learners make sense of comments and use them for enhancement purposes.

There are many types of feedback that can are transferrable to various types of written assignments.  The main ones are:

• Formal – your mark, and comments on summative assignments.
• Informal – written or spoken feedback on draft work.
• Peer – from other students.
• Work related – part of performance reviews/placements/work experience.
• Advice – from friends, family, or employers.
• Data – numbers and statistics.
• Self-reflection – either related to assignments or personal!

Being too vague about a point by not explaining it in specific language, or by failing to ground it in theory or to use other examples (see also ‘Concrete’).

Address the question

Make sure that you are answering the question that is being asked – students sometimes write about topics that miss the point. Make sure your arguments and material are relevant and clearly linked to the question, and you are not simply writing everything you know about the topic.

Assess the limitations of the study

Weigh up aspects of the study and consider weaknesses that might undermine the validity of the study, and/or suggest ways the research could be improved. The weaknesses could be methodological, but may also be with how the author’s interpret and present their own findings.

Balanced argument

While it is often valuable to take a stance, be sure to present evidence for the other sides of the argument.

Make sure that the reader can easily understand what points you have made by writing clearly, and explaining why you have made these points. Sometimes it’s just a case of writing straightforwardly, and not assuming the reader will automatically know what you were thinking.

In your work you need to explain ideas clearly but with fewer words – if you have a word limit, make effective use of it! The marker may think you are waffling. Be succinct and avoid needlessly complicated words and phrases.

Make sure that you’re using clear and specific language to talk about a defined situation or a certain finding, not just vague ideas (see also ‘Abstract’).

Critically Evaluate/ Critically Analyse

Show that you have actively thought about and questioned the claims you are describing or making. Even if the claims are completely valid, show that you haven’t just accepted them at face value.

Depth/ Elaborate

Make sure that you explain your arguments in detail, using examples where appropriate and working through your ideas rather than simply glossing over them.

Showing a sophisticated or elegant writing style, or presenting evidence in an original or insightful way.

Creating a coherent argument by connecting points in a logical order to ensure that the work is easy to follow.

Give examples to back up the points you make, ideally using evidence.

Originality

Demonstrating your own thinking, perhaps by drawing upon research beyond what you learned about in class, to make an argument that not every student might have thought of.

Reading work back carefully, or getting another person to read it, to check for spelling and grammar mistakes. You should also check that your arguments make sense, and that everything is phrased clearly.

Range of Material

Try and use more than just the material provided by the lecturers, and avoid basing too much of your work on just one or two references.

Give a more precise and detailed account of what is being described, drawing on particular examples.

A way of presenting your work so the reader can follow the argument. Make sure your paragraphs are in a logical order, that you show the connections between different paragraphs, and that each section has good beginning and ending sentences.

Synthesis/ Integration

Show how different sources and theories go together to make a good argument. A lack of synthesis could mean your essay reads more like a list of research than an argument.

Transparent

Making sure that the thought-process that underlies your argument is clearly expressed. Even if you have a good idea, it’s not always easy for your marker to see your train of thought.

Unsubstantiated Claims

An unsubstantial claim lacks evidence. Make sure you justify your argument by supporting each point with empirical evidence and references. This will create a more persuasive argument.

Carless, D., & Boud, D. (2018). The development of student feedback literacy: enabling uptake of feedback. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(8), 1315-1325.

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CAW offers writing development workshops across all genres of academic writing, including ' Using Written Assignment Feedback to Develop your Writing ' that can provide additional support and guidance during your writing process.  To view available workshops and book online, visit: https://libcal.coventry.ac.uk/calendar/caw  

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• Writing Tips

How to Use Acronyms in Academic Writing

• 5-minute read
• 24th February 2015

In academic writing, you may need to use acronyms and initialisms. However, these are easy to misuse, especially when introducing them in an essay. So, how exactly do you use acronyms and initialisms in academic writing? And how to do you avoid using them incorrectly ? Let’s take a look.

What Is an Acronym?

Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations formed from the first letters of the words in a phrase or an organisation’s name:

• Acronyms are pronounced as one word (e.g. UNICEF).
• Each letter in an initialism is pronounced separately (e.g. BBC).

We use these abbreviations instead of the full terminology to save space or avoid repetition. For example, ‘UNESCO’ is much shorter than ‘United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’.

People sometimes think there is no need to introduce a well-known acronym or initialism. However, since many have more than one meaning, this can be confusing (as the World Wildlife Fund and the World Wrestling Federation ably demonstrated for many years).

Likewise, even if you are familiar with an acronym, other people might not be, especially if it is specific to your topic. As such, you should make the effort to define acronyms clearly when you introduce them in an essay.

How to Introduce Acronyms and Initialisms

When writing an essay, you should assume that your audience will not understand the abbreviations you use unless you have been told otherwise.

The first time you use one, write out the full terminology with the acronym/initialism in parentheses afterwards, like so:

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was first established…

You can then continue to refer to it as ‘UNESCO’ throughout your essay.

The one exception here is when the acronym/initialism is more common than the actual name. Most people know the package delivery company United Parcel Service, for example, as UPS.

In cases like this, you can sometimes give the shortened version first and full terminology in parentheses:

The delivery company UPS (United Parcel Service) is known for…

After introducing the term like this, you can use the shortened version throughout the rest of your essay.

Capitalising Acronyms and Initialisms

Initialisms (i.e. abbreviations that are pronounced letter by letter) are almost always written in all caps (e.g. BBC, FBI, WWF). There are some exceptions to this, such as when ‘Transport for London’ is abbreviated to ‘TfL’. In most cases, though, you will need to capitalise each letter in an initialism.

This varies a bit more for acronyms (i.e. abbreviations pronounced as a single word). Some British English style guides recommend only capitalising the first letter of these terms (e.g. Unesco or Unicef). If you are using a style guide, it is thus worth checking it for advice on how to write acronyms. Otherwise, this is simply a matter of preference (just make sure to use a consistent capitalisation style throughout your writing).

In addition, there are a few common words that began as acronyms . These include ‘radar’ (short for ‘ radio detection and ranging ‘) and ‘laser’ (short for ‘ light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation’ ). However, most people don’t even realise that these words were originally abbreviations, and they are always written with lowercase letters.

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Make Sure to Check the First Instance of the Acronym!

Many people edit and re-structure their essays at the last minute. In doing so, they may accidentally use an acronym somewhere before they defined it in the first draft, making it harder to understand.

To prevent this, though, you can use the ‘find’ function in MS Word:

• Open the search bar in MS Word (e.g. hit Ctrl + F in Word for Windows).
• Type the initialism you want to check into the search bar.
• Find the first use in the document.

If the first use of each abbreviation comes with the full terminology, all is well. If not, find the place you defined it and move the full terminology.

Creating a List of Abbreviations

If your work contains a large number of acronyms, you may want to create a list of abbreviations. Typically, this is a list at the start of a document that defines all the initialisms, acronyms, and other abbreviations.

The reader can then check this list if they need to know the meaning of an abbreviation. This can be especially useful in longer documents, as it saves the reader having to find where the abbreviation is first used and defined.

Punctuating Abbreviations

Most acronyms and abbreviations are written without punctuation, as shown in the examples above. However, it is common to use full stops in lowercase abbreviations, such as ‘a.m.’, ‘p.m.’, ‘e.g.’, and ‘i.e.’ And some style guides (mostly those that focus on American English) recommend using a full stop between letters in short initialisms, such as ‘U.S.A.’ and ‘U.K.’

Unless you’re using a style guide that suggests adding periods to certain abbreviations, this is usually a matter of preference. But make sure to apply a consistent style! For example, either of the following would be acceptable:

He was born in the UK, but he lives in the USA now. ✔

He was born in the U.K., but he lives in the U.S.A. now. ✔

But mixing these punctuation styles would be incorrect:

He was born in the UK, but he lives in the U.S.A. now. ✘

Make sure to think about how to punctuate abbreviations in your own writing.

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The rules for using acronyms can vary slightly. As such, if you are using a style guide, you should check what it says about abbreviations and acronyms.

Whichever style you’re using, though, our expert editors can help! Make sure your writing is always error free by getting it checked with Proofed. Upload a free trial document today to find out more.

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