Abbreviations

I’m doing a bunch of clean up from an automated scan report we received. And right now, I’m working on abbreviations. I have a lot of items to sort through.

There were a number of other things it flagged that I’m just not sure how (or if we need to) handle.

1. Honorifics in titles. We have a number of doctors and phd’s on our sites with bylines.  For example, John Smith, MD, or Dr. John Smith. Both Dr. and MD would are considered ‘abbreviations’. Do I need to wrap these in <abbr> tags?

2. Footnotes: Proper citation of articles in our footnotes often lists just peoples first and middle initials in the citation. For example: "Ranny, L., Melvin, C. et al. (2006).  Systematic review: Smoking cessation interventions strategies for adults and adults in special populations. Annals of Internal Medicine, 145, 845-856.” Do we need to be wrapping <abbr> tags around the initials? Around "et al"?

2. Addresses: State and Street abbreviations. We also have addresses on our site, and the automated scan flagged things like KS, IL, St. Ave. Should we also be wrapping these in <abbr> tags?

I know these are all AAA level requirements. But we’re trying to set things up in the right direction for us while we’re doing this work (Or at least understand the standards better).

We already have guidelines in place for our writing to spell out abbreviations like "anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF)”. I’m just trying to understand how to approach abbreviations in this other domain.

Thanks!
Jeana