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Alexander Schulte edited this page Mar 23, 2021 · 14 revisions

DigitalGov Style Guides

View the full Digital.gov style guide

Interesting Writing Resources

http://www.copyblogger.com/strengthen-your-weaknesses/

http://webdesign.about.com/od/htmlxhtmltutorials/a/aa072098.htm

http://webdesign.about.com/od/writing/a/aa110104.htm

https://content-guide.18f.gov/

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/write-for-us/ and https://www.smashingmagazine.com/editorial-process/

http://alistapart.com/about/contribute and http://alistapart.com/about/style-guide

https://civicquarterly.com/contribute/ and https://civicquarterly.com/contribute/guide

Spelling and capitalization

  • agency not Agency (unless at the beginning of a sentence)
  • am not a.m.
  • analytics.usa.gov (not Analytics Dashboard)
  • big data
  • Cloud Computing
  • D.C.
  • dataset
  • DigitalGov not DigitalGov.gov
  • e-book
  • email not e-mail
  • federal
  • gifs
  • government
  • government-wide
  • intranet
  • Internet or internet
  • JavaScript
  • millennials
  • mobile first
  • mobile-friendly
  • mobile web development
  • pm not p.m.
  • responsive web design
  • round up
  • search engine optimization (SEO)
  • smartphone
  • startup
  • U.S.
  • U.S. government
  • veteran (unless talking about U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs [VA])
  • Web (use capitalized “Web” when the word stands alone; lowercase as part of a phrase, i.e. responsive web design)
  • Web page
  • website
  • WiFi

Word choice and style

  • Use % not percent
  • For bulleted lists - Use punctuation (usually a .) at the end of the list, not after every bullet point, if it’s a complete sentence. If it’s a list of fragments, do not use punctuation at the end. Capitalize the first word in each bullet point.
  • After a colon, capitalize the next word if it starts a complete sentence (not a fragment)
  • We use Title Case for article titles and paragraph headers, meaning every word is capitalized except prepositions, etc. If you’re unsure, use this Title Case tool.
  • HTML code for em dash & en dash
    • For em dash in HTML: —
    • For en dash in HTML: – -One space after periods, not two
  • To add spaces after paragraphs in a list: use
  • instead of
  • for each item in the list. See Three of the Greatest Books for Customer Experience (That Aren't about Customer Experience) for an example.
  • Titles of blogs, magazines, books, etc. are in normal text (i.e. no italics or underlining). Ideally, the titles will be linked to the work that is being referenced.
  • For numbers: write out numbers under 10, except percentages.
  • For dates: include ‘rd/st/th’ after day of week (i.e. November 23rd instead of November 23).
  • Only use acronyms on second reference; on first reference spell out agency name:

lorem ipsum National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

Duis aute irure dolor NASA in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Agency Acronyms:

  • Administration on Aging
  • Administrative Office of the United States Courts
  • American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC)
  • American National Red Cross
  • Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
  • Architect of the Capitol
  • Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG)
  • Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives
  • Bureau of Justice Statistics
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
  • Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
  • Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
  • Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation
  • Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
  • Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS)
  • Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency
  • Department of Commerce (Commerce)
  • Defense Finance and Accounting Services (DFAS)
  • Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
  • Executive Office of the President (EOP)
  • Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank)
  • Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
  • Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
  • Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
  • Federal Election Commission (FEC)
  • Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
  • Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)
  • Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)
  • Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS)
  • Federal Railroad Administration
  • Federal Register
  • Federal Reserve Board (FRB)
  • Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
  • Institute for Education Sciences
  • Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)
  • Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
  • Library of Congress (LOC)
  • NASA
  • National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
  • National Cancer Institute (NCI)
  • National Defense University (NDU)
  • National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
  • National Eye Institute (NEI)
  • National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
  • National Hurricane Center
  • National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
  • National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
  • National Institutes of Health (NIH)
  • National Library of Medicine (NLM)
  • National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
  • National Ocean Service
  • National Resources Conservation Service
  • National Science Foundation (NSF)
  • National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
  • National Weather Service (NWS)
  • National Zoological Park
  • Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
  • Occupational Safety & Health Administration
  • Office of Child Support Enforcement
  • Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
  • Office of Naval Research
  • Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)
  • Peace Corps
  • Smithsonian Institution
  • The Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
  • The United States Social Security Administration (SSA)
  • The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)
  • Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
  • United States Air Force
  • United States Army
  • United States Census Bureau
  • United States Department of Defense (DoD)
  • United States Department of Energy (DOE)
  • United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
  • United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
  • United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
  • United States Department of Transportation (DOT)
  • United States Geological Survey (USGS)
  • United States Navy
  • United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
  • United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
  • United States Postal Service (USPS)
  • U.S. Access Board
  • U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
  • U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
  • U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing
  • U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
  • U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service
  • U.S. Coast Guard
  • U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
  • U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
  • U.S. Department of Education (Education)
  • U.S. Forest Service
  • U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)
  • U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO)
  • U.S. Department of the Interior (Interior)
  • U.S. Department of Justice (Justice)
  • U.S. Department of Labor (Labor)
  • U.S. Department of State (State)
  • U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury)
  • U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
  • U.S. Digital Service (USDS)
  • U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
  • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)
  • U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
  • U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)
  • U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
  • U.S. National Park Service (NPS)
  • U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE)
  • U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
  • U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA)
  • White House
  • White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)
  • World Bank

Conventions and best practices

  • If you are creating a post for someone else, please add their name to the Guest Override field. And we can add a sentence about them at the bottom of the post in italics.

Scott Horvath is the Bureau Social Media Lead, Office of Communications and Publishing at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

  • For cross posting posts from other blogs, add a sentence at the bottom that links to and references the original blog:

This post was originally published on the openFDA blog by Dr. Taha Kass-Hout, the Chief Health Informatics Officer of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

  • Don't forget to strip out any code from Word or Google docs, if you're not creating content directly in WordPress. You can do that a number of ways:

  • Paste content directly from Word or Gdocs into Notepad & then into WP

    • Clicking the "Text" tab in the post before pasting the content directly in
    • Clicking the "Paste as Text" button in the WISWYG menu (letter T on a clipboard)

🎉Questions? Email digitalgov@gsa.gov

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