Q: To avoid plagiarism, should I put quotation marks around the full forms of abbreviations and acronyms?

You raise a relevant query. But before we respond to it, we would like to make a slight technical point. While it’s understood what you mean by “in order to avoid plagiarism,” technically, this would be expressed by “in order to avoid being identified as plagiarism.” This is because, as it is clear, the full forms of abbreviations and acronyms are not plagiarized text. In the plagiarism detection tool, they may show up as plagiarized because of the inputs in the tool, but these are established terms and can be discounted when a human check is performed.

Also, as you would know, you need to expand an abbreviation or acronym only the first instance; thereafter, you can use only the abbreviation or acronym. In case you weren’t doing this so far, this should reduce the detected plagiarism count a bit. Finally, apart from being unnecessary, putting quotation marks around expansions would also be odd. :-)

In a plagiarism check, you should aim for a figure around 30% or less. So, you could have two counts for your paper, one including the full forms and the other without. If the count without the full forms is around 30%, you are good to go. You may also mention this detail in the cover letter during submission. Finally, note that journals run their own plagiarism check on a manuscript, but don’t rely on that alone, especially for cases where it’s a close call. In those cases, they make a judicious decision. So, as long as you are conscious as well as conscientious – and you seem to be both – your manuscript should be fine.

All the best for the submission!

You may also find the following resources useful:

• Should references be included in a plagiarism check?
• 5 Easy tips to avoid accidental plagiarism
• How to avoid plagiarism [Course]