While many of us have worked for the FBI, SWAT Teams, and NASA, not everyone will always know what those acronyms stand for. This is true for most any acronym, depending on the audience. Be careful with acronyms – recognize that they may not be known, and spell them out the first time you use them. You can put the acronym in parentheses after the phrase, i.e. Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA), then use the acronym afterwards. This is often very useful as acronyms take up fewer words/characters. BUT, be careful about having too many acronyms. A sentence that reads like ‘I worked for the XYZ performing ABC analysis with DEF and GHI controls.’ is hard to read. The reader may struggle to remember what each of these acronyms means. Work to find a balance.
Similarly, be careful of field/discipline specific jargon. If you are writing to experts in your field, you may be able to use your field’s jargon safely. Though, recognize that you may know more about your specific research than some PhDs in your field and so be cautious with jargon even when writing to them. If you know that you are not writing to experts in your field (i.e. reviewers of Fulbright, Boren, Critical Language, Gilman awards and more) you cannot use jargon as it will very likely not be understood.