[The senior deputy editor responds:]
P.G. Brindley shows an admirable appreciation for, ahem, the finer points of editing. The style manual of the Council of Biology Editors (now the Council of Science Editors)1 argues for a blend of 2 tendencies in the punctuation of abbreviations, namely, the British rejection of that redundant dot after “contraction abbreviations” such as “Dr.” and the North American avoidance of clutter in acronyms (AIDS) and initialisms (CIHR). CMAJ's style notes, which take up more pages than anyone could imagine, eschew periods in acronyms and initialisms, as well as in abbreviations appearing in reference lists, but we indulge mild and widely accepted illogicalities such as “Dr.” and “Nfld.” (when we don't mean NL) and other examples that I cannot place at the end of this sentence without confusing the point. Periods are not used in units of measure, where there is little chance of misreading (6 h, 2.5 mg), and elsewhere are retained on the grounds of both logic and convention (sp., spp.). Suffice it to say we avoid abbreviations where possible.
REFERENCE
- 1.↵