Sharon, Jon: Why not use Word Entries?

Re: RE: Musing3 - ABCZ Short forms -- Jon Knowles
Posted by Marianne ^Ž , Mon, Sep 16, 2002, 09:35:27	Reply	Top	Forum

Sharon, Jon,

Both of you use dedicated short forms and Phrase entries. Below is an experiment of what happens if you use Word entries.

To do the experiment, I used Sharon's glossary and added all the words to the Word section, using Enrich. Then I entered all the words with Sharon's short form and noted on what line it appears in the Word advisory. Here are the results:

Sharon Line

abf aortobifemoral 1

ack acknowledge 1

anch anticholinergic 1

acl acromioclavicular 2

adc adenocarcinoma 1

adj adjacent 1

adv adventitious 1

adeq adequate 1

afm aforementioned 1

alb albumin 1

alg alignment 1

anc anticoagulation 2

anh antihypertensive 1

anp antiplatelet 1

appx approximately 1

ast asterixis 1

asx asphyxiation 1

appt appointment 2

appy appendectomy 1

apx appendix 2

As you can see, most of them appear in the first line and a few on the second. In other words, the very logic that Sharon uses to find what is a good dedicated abbreviation also works well to get it to the top of the Word Advisory.

This points to a possible approach: Use dedicated short forms only for the very frequent ones, when you want to be absolutely sure to get it with a few letters without even thinking about it. For all others, just take advantage of the power of Word entries.

Marianne

Followups

Why ABCZ focuses on the Phrases advisory -- Jon Knowles Sep 17
- I never glance at both advisories at the same time -- Marianne Sep 19
Dedicated short forms -- Sharon Allred Oct 02