Style guide template for state agencies

State organizations can use this template to develop their own style guides that build on the Mass.gov style guide.

What is a style guide?

A style guide is a set of rules that everyone in your organization should follow. It covers how to address your audience, grammar, word choice, branding, and more. 

Using a style guide keeps communications consistent across websites, documents, presentations, and social media.  

Why create an organization style guide?

Organizations should follow the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ style guidelines including the Mass.gov style guide and Mayflower Design System. This ensures consistency across the Mass.gov website and web applications. 

However, you may need to build on or extend the Mass.gov style guide to cover your organization’s specific conventions. For example, you likely have certain words you use when describing a process, or branding for new programs or initiatives. These wouldn’t be covered in the Mass.gov style guide, but yours can outline these unique rules.

It also can address internal processes like naming documents, document storage, and templates. This helps your employees do their jobs more efficiently. 

How to use this template

Download the organization style guide template and then customize it for your organization. Wherever you see [ORGANIZATION], replace it with your organization's name. Some sections like [ORGANIZATION]-specific conventions have example text – keep it if it makes sense for your organization or replace it with your own.

Delete any sections you don’t need. If you’re just starting to socialize content norms for your organization, then trying to fill out the entire template could be overwhelming. 

We suggest uploading the style guide to a central file system like SharePoint or Confluence. Then share it with anyone in your organization that creates content or writes documentation for public and internal use.

Here are a few scenarios the style guide can help with:

• Your organization has established definitions of technical terms (e.g. by your legal team, through testing with people, etc.). You can record these and make sure everyone who publishes uses the same definition.

• You have established norms around word choices. For example, you always want to use “active duty” instead of “in the line of duty,” or “application” instead of “claim.” Use your style guide to document this.

• You have a specific naming convention for your datasets. For example, you might instruct everyone, “Name your datasets using your project name and the date range included in the dataset. The date should be in the format 4-digit year dash month dash day, for example 2025-03-01.”