They will then have to remember your previously defined abbreviation, and may have to go back to double-check. The text will become more difficult to read and less likely to be accepted by the reader.
When an abbreviation is unfamiliar, readers must do some cognitive work to unpack it. This is true even if the abbreviation is defined at the beginning of the paper, as common practice demands. Humans do not read like computers: Declaring a ‘variable’ once does not guarantee that people will be able to remember it without effort when it comes up later. So, while acronyms and abbreviations do have their uses, their increased frequency over time is rather bad news. (View Highlight)