Use the bolded terms below as your standard for spelling, capitalization, and formatting. These are common words and phrases we use across Indian Affairs content.
People and Roles
- BIA employees, BIA team members, or BIA staffers
- Older person or senior (not elderly)
- Use gender-neutral terms like firefighter instead of fireman
Government and Agencies
- Congress (refers to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives)
- congressional (lowercase unless part of a proper name, like Congressional Record)
- federal (lowercase unless part of a proper name, like Federal Bureau of Investigation)
- federal government (not Federal Government)
- executive branch
- United States government or U.S. government (not U.S. Government)
- government (lowercase unless part of a proper name)
Technology and Tools
- agile
- DevOps
- digital coalition
- GitHub
- JavaScript
- kanban
- open source, open source software
- Scrum (only for the agile method, not daily meetings—use daily standup instead)
- single sign-on
- sitemap
- startup
- tech (okay in informal writing; use technology in formal writing)
- user-centered design
- human-centered design
- U.S. Web Design Standards (first use), then just Standards
Formatting and Style
- a.m., p.m.
- DC (not D.C.)
- email (not e-mail)
- homepage
- README
- percent (spell it out in most writing)
- URLs should be lowercase, even at the start of a sentence
Example: notalone.gov launched today. - U.S. (not US or USA)
Hyphenation and Word Use
- back end, back end development
- front end, front end developer
- drop-down (adjective: drop-down menu),
drop down (noun: select from the drop down)- Never use dropdown
- login (noun or adjective: login page)
log in (verb: log in to your account) - to do (noun: your to dos)
to-do (adjective: your to-do list)
