<abbrev> Abbreviation or Acronym

Abbreviation, acronym, or emoticon used in the text of a document, possibly including an expansion of the acronym.

Usage/Remarks

Although an abbreviation is typically a few capitalized letters such as an acronym (“NIH”, “WHO”, “UN”, or “GAO”), emoticons (“;-)”) can also be tagged as abbreviations (“smile-wink”).
Linking
Link to Explanation — The linking attributes (with the standard XLink attributes) may be used to provide a live link to an expansion, extended definition, or additional explanation of an abbreviation or acronym.
Acronym Links to Institution — The attribute @rid can be used inside an affiliation, to link an Acronym for an institution to the institution name, institution identifier, or <institution-wrap> (which holds both the name and identifier).
Accessibility
Sometimes an <abbrev> needs to be pronounced in a way that is not reflected in its content or its tagging. The @alt attribute can be used to record the pronunciation for screen readers and other accessibility devices. For example, the abbreviation “WHO” may be better pronounced as “World Health Organization” or as “W.H.O.” than as the word “who”. The @alt attribute can also be used to provide the textual interpretation of a symbol such as an emoticon (for example, for “;-)” use “@alt='smile-wink'”).
Conversion Note
Abbreviations, while common in STM books, have been rarely tagged in the STM journal world, and will not be present in many journal tag sets. Thus, converted material cannot rely on acronyms and abbreviations being recognized unless processing has been added to recognize them. This element used to be quite rare in the journal world, but is on the increase for accessibility uses.
Related Elements
The <def> may be used within an <abbrev> to contain, for example, the expansion of the acronym, for example, with “NIH” as the acronym and “National Institutes of Health” as the expansion.
Attributes

Base Attributes

Namespaces

Models and Context
May be contained in
Description
Any combination of:
Content Model
<!ELEMENT  abbrev       (#PCDATA %abbrev-elements;)*                 >
Expanded Content Model

(#PCDATA | def)*

Tagged Samples
With and without alternate text for pronunciation
...
<article-meta>
 <article-categories>...</article-categories>
 <title-group>
  <article-title>The disabilities of the arm, shoulder and hand
  (<abbrev>DASH</abbrev>) outcome questionnaire: longitudinal
  construct validity and measuring self-rated health change after
  surgery</article-title>
 </title-group>
 <contrib-group>...</contrib-group>
 ...
 <abstract>
  <p><bold>Background:</bold> The disabilities of the arm, shoulder
   and hand (<abbrev alt="D.A.S.H.">DASH</abbrev>) questionnaire is a
   self-administered region-specific outcome instrument developed as
   a measure of self-rated upper-extremity disability and symptoms. The
   <abbrev  alt="D.A.S.H.">DASH</abbrev> consists mainly of a 30-item
   disability/symptom scale, scored 0 (no disability) to 100. The main
   purpose of this study was to assess the <italic>longitudinal
   construct validity</italic> of the <abbrev alt="D.A.S.H.">DASH</abbrev>
   among patients undergoing surgery.</p>
  ...
 </abstract>
</article-meta>
...
Emoticon
...
<p>And I can say without fear of contradiction
 <abbrev alt="Wink smile">;)</abbrev> that this
 political process is without flaw.</p>
...
Related Resources