About the Style Guide

Military Community and Family Policy is the Defense Department office that addresses quality of life issues to help service members and their families live their best military lives. MC&FP offers a suite of programs, tools and services — including Military OneSource — that connect those in the military community to resources they can use every day, from relocation planning and tax services to confidential counseling and spouse employment support. 

This style guide is for those who develop communications and outreach content in support of MC&FP programs. Its purpose is to encourage consistent expression of the Military OneSource brand in look, feel and tone. This includes content developed for MC&FP websites and applications, ePublications, eLearning modules, social media, conference materials and print products (such as guides or brochures). All grammatical guidelines in this document follow those of The Associated Press Stylebook.

All creators of content for MC&FP must follow this style guide to ensure consistency across communication efforts. They must submit requests to the Office of Military Community Outreach if they seek permission to deviate from this guide. The guidance this style guide provides supersedes the AP Stylebook when there are differences between the two.

This guide is for the development of communication materials and content only and does not apply to writing issuances or official Defense Department correspondence.

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Note: Italics are used in this guide for emphasis only (except with respect to aircraft names; see the aircraft designations entry). The AP Stylebook does not allow the use of italics.