Assume that I give my work information in my CV with the date (year) intervals. My last position started this year and is continued at the moment.
Example Co. ABC Manager 2012 - cont.
How should I abbreviate continued here? Is cont. correct?
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31
I believe the answer to the question in the title of your original post is “cont.”, but the usual way of putting that on an application or résumé is spelled “present”, as in “2012 – present”.
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8Or just leave it blank: “2012 – ”. – tchrist Jul 31 '12 at 17:20
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3"present" is used in America, but maybe Mr Palavuzlar is living somewhere else, where "continued" is used for this. – GEdgar Jul 31 '12 at 17:21
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@GEdgar, You could be correct. – TecBrat Jul 31 '12 at 17:28
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I also like @tchirst's suggestion in the comment above. – TecBrat Jul 31 '12 at 17:28
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I live in Turkiye. I thought about present as well but I don't think it can be abbreviated properly... – Mehper C. Palavuzlar Jul 31 '12 at 17:46
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2@MehperC.Palavuzlar I should think 'pres.' would do nicely – JAM Jul 31 '12 at 17:53
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4@MehperC.Palavuzlar, For the record, Why does it need to be abbreviated? – user606723 Jul 31 '12 at 21:20
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@MehperC.Palavuzlar It's a relatively formal thing, so you should avoid abbreviations. Indeed, avoid abbreviations generally, and use them where there's something strong to gain (a very long word in a context of limited space) or where the abbreviations are much more common than the plain word (Mr, etc.). If you don't know the abbreviation, but do know the word, it probably isn't that case. – Jon Hanna Aug 01 '12 at 02:50
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@user606723: Because of the constant column width. – Mehper C. Palavuzlar Aug 01 '12 at 06:09
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@MehperC.Palavuzlar If your CV has a constant width requirement, I'd maybe think about changing that :s – Svish Aug 01 '12 at 09:02
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@Svish: Yeah I know, it's an elegant format which is not much changeable :\ – Mehper C. Palavuzlar Aug 01 '12 at 09:53
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1Doesn't sound (or look) very elegant to me :p – Svish Aug 01 '12 at 10:23
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There is no right or wrong with abbreviations, but you would do well to avoid them if possible. Here are three distinct pieces of advice:
Just write “(continued)” (including parens), and you’ll be fine.
If you have some sort of mania for them, or horizontal-space consideration, then sure, write “(cont.)”.
It’s a good idea to set it in italic, no matter what you do.
In your case, though, you should probably write one of:
- 2012 – present
- 2012 –
As those both look better than “2012 – (continuing)”.
tchrist
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5Also consider "2012 forward". Note, I agree that "2012 – present" and "2012 –" are better than the other forms above, and agree abbreviation should be avoided for this item. – James Waldby - jwpat7 Jul 31 '12 at 19:32
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The usual abbreviation for continued is cont. as indicated elsewhere. However, it isn't normal in BE to use this in the way shown in your example. The preferred option would be to use either 2012 to date or 2012 to present.
Tony Balmforth
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1+1 Absolutely.
cont.or its variants are for when you are breaking the textual flow and resuming elsewhere, usually on the next page or leaf. For CVs and other documents it should be as @Tony Balmforth has suggested. – immutabl Jul 31 '12 at 19:02
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cont’d is another abbreviation for continued that you frequently see e.g. in movie scripts when long blocks of dialog get split up, but probably not in a CV list of previous employments. I suspect it’s more of an American thing.
TehMacDawg
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