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Acronym - How to write in full?
1) A reader asks, in summary, how is it better to explain the meaning of an acronym: between dashes, or with a dash at the beginning and a comma at the end? In practical terms: a) " It was considered the largest NGO - Non-Governmental Organization - in Latin America "; b) " Was it considered the largest NGO - Non-Governmental Organization, in Latin America "?
2) Before going into the actual merit of the reader's doubt, it is observed, in a first aspect, that, according to the rules of the Orthographic Agreement of 2008, the hyphen is no longer used when one wants to deny a word, saying the opposite by the preposition of a no. Here are some examples: non-aggression, non-cooperation, non-compliance, non-fiction, non-smoking, non-payment, non-proliferation, non-violence. So, in this case, Non-Governmental Organization.
3) On the merits of the inquiry, it is observed that what the reader wants, ultimately, is to know how to separate the explanation Non-Governmental Organization by punctuation marks, which is exactly the meaning of the acronym that precedes such an explanation. And, when the expression indicating the meaning of the acronym is extracted, it is noticed that there is no additional sign of punctuation that needs to be considered (" It was considered the largest NGO in Latin America "), which implies that the only challenge is actually the expression of the meaning of said entity.
4) Now, when it comes to pure intercalation, this can be done between dashes or between parentheses. But interleaving happens with identical signs, so you can't put a dash at the beginning and a comma after.
5) So, in response to the reader, check out the following examples, indicating their correction or error in parentheses: a) " It was considered the largest NGO - Non-Governmental Organization - in Latin America " (correct); b) " It was considered the largest NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) in Latin America " (correct); c) " It was considered the largest NGO - Non-Governmental Organization, in Latin America " (wrong); d) " It was considered the largest NGO, Non-Governmental Organization - in Latin America " (wrong).
