Use of Terms A-Z

Military Community and Family Policy writing guidance aligns with The Associated Press Stylebook with a few exceptions. Definitions of military-specific terms appear below, along with editorial guidance for certain commonly used words for MC&FP and our programs. See additional writing guidance in the Writing Best Practices section. Find program-specific guidance in the Program Content Guides section.

R

reserve – Lowercase.

• Individual Ready Reserve – Uppercase.
• ready reserve – Lowercase.
• reserve component – Refers to all reserve forces of the United States, including the National Guard (and, technically, the ROTC, though this is rarely intended by the user/speaker). Lowercase. Example: The reserve component faces a cut of more than $3.5 billion in the next federal budget.
• reserve components – Refers to some combination of the reserves but not necessarily all of them. Specify the applicable components or otherwise use “reserve component” (singular) to refer to all the reserve forces.
• reservist – Lowercase.
• selected reserve – Lowercase.
• standby reserve – Lowercase.