Are abbreviations and acronyms the same thing?
We don't know.
Seriously. There are people who say that an acronym is a form of truncation where you take the first initials of the words in a phrase to form a new word. Allow us to show you what they mean:
SCUBA stands for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, and you pronounce it "scooba."
These sticklers say that something like "FBI" is not an acronym because you don't pronounce it like the word "fibby." Right? Well, we guess you could, but no one would know what you're talking about. Something like "FBI" would be considered an initialism.
But then there are other people (like us) who say that when you take the first initials of the words in a phrase, it's an acronym—whether you pronounce them like a new word or not. Hey, why discriminate based on the totally random placement of vowels? Psh.
P.S. Whether or not you place a period between each letter in an acronym is up to you. It's a style choice. We at Shmoop like to leave them out. It saves time, and we're very busy, terribly important people.