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I would do what you should normally do when you write a paper using acronyms.

Step 1 - Introduce the full term
Step 2 - Put acronym in parentheses next to it
Step 3 - Use acronym the rest of the paper

If you cannot spare the space to use the full term once in your paper then I do not know what to tell you. Taking the chance of having an adcomm not understand what you are saying when you can take easy steps to prevent it from even being a possibility seems silly and foolish.

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using anything besides NGO is awkward. don't introduce the term, it's well known
LGBT even more so

rklafehn wrote:I would do what you should normally do when you write a paper using acronyms.

Step 1 - Introduce the full term
Step 2 - Put acronym in parentheses next to it
Step 3 - Use acronym the rest of the paper

If you cannot spare the space to use the full term once in your paper then I do not know what to tell you. Taking the chance of having an adcomm not understand what you are saying when you can take easy steps to prevent it from even being a possibility seems silly and foolish.

+1. You can never assume who your reader is.

Should you then also avoid using technical, but correct terms because the reader may also be ignorant to that subject? If they don't understand something that they should (NGO), the onus is on them to look it up.
If your adcomms don't know what an NGO is, you don't want to go to school there

Don't spell out NGO or LGBT.

laxbrah420 wrote:Should you then also avoid using technical, but correct terms because the reader may also be ignorant to that subject?

No, that wasn't what I was meaning.

As a general rule, if you (here, the OP) feel that there may be some chance of confusion as to what an acronym means, then it is better to err on the side of caution by spelling it out. You'll find the same goes for academic writing.

First, there won't be any confusion as to what those mean, and second, this isn't academic writing.

Unless your undergrad is MIT you should probably spell that one out.

Dany wrote:First, there won't be any confusion as to what those mean, and second, this isn't academic writing.

No, there shouldn't be-- again, I was speaking generally. And, no, this isn't academic writing, although the same consideration does apply.

No. Always assume that your audience is ignorant about the topic. Write it out the first time that you use it and but the acronym in parenthesis. Then you can freely use the acronym.
Stick to the grammar rules and you will have not doubt that they will understand what you want to say.