ANSI Y14.38

[dbrlogan]

Hi

I am working on our drafting room manual and was going to use Y14.38 for abbreviations. I heard our technical writing group discussing the need for abbrevs as well but they write for an international base. We use the convention of fully defining the word with the abbrev BATTERY (BTRY) when first used so I guess any abbrevs could be used but I would prefer a standard.

The question is: is ANSI an internationaly recognised system or will I need an ISO abbrev list? I've made searches but couldn't come up with the ISO standard.

Thanks

 

[JLSeagull]

Consider avoiding abreaviations, perhaps with the exception of engineering units. International standards cover engineering units. Examples include IEEE Std 260.1. Search NIST for a few downloadable standards. Seach the web for acronyms. The military and governmental organizations just love acronyms.

 

[KENAT]

The American standard is ASME Y14.38 - not ANSI.

If your drawings are otherwise to ASME standards then yes I'd use it.

Also as it is based on the old Mil Std (I believe) it uses a lot of 'NATO' terminology so should at least be OK in most of Europe.

From a tech pubs point of view, I'd say go ahead and use it as the source but as you say, in the manual or whatever all the abbreviations used should be explained, be it at first use or in a glossary, or maybe both for ease of reading.

I'm not sure if there is an equivalent ISO standard.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:*&q=ISO+equivalent+of+ASME+Y14.38+abbreviations

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:*&q=ISO+ABBREVIATIONS+AND+ACRONYMS

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of faq731-376 recently, or taken a look at

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?