Style Guide for the Teton Valley Mental
Health Coalition
Key Terms
• Telehealth: talking to your
doctor live over the phone
or over video chat
Voice
• Use the active voice as
much as possible to create
direct, clear, and concise
sentences, especially when
you are writing about the
actions of people.
• Use the passive voice when
it is more important to
focus on the recipient of an
action than on who
performed the action, such
as when describing an
experimental setup.
Punctuation Font
• Use a serial comma (also
called an Oxford comma,
Harvard comma, or series
comma) between
elements in a series of
three or more items.
• Use one space after a
period (or other
punctuation mark at the
end of a sentence)
Capitalization Numbers
• Names of racial and
ethnic groups are treated
as proper nouns, which
means they are
capitalized (e.g., African
American, Asian
American, Black,
European American, First
Nations, Hispanic, Native
American, Latinx, White).
• Racial and ethnic groups
are designated by proper
nouns and are capitalized.
Therefore, use “Black”
and “White” instead of
“black” and “white” (do
not use colors to refer to
other human groups;
doing so is considered
pejorative)
• Capitalize trade names
(e.g., brand names of
medications).
• Use sans serif fonts for
WCAG 2.1 standards
• Use words to express
numbers zero through
nine, and use numerals
to express numbers 10
and above.
• Use words to express
numbers when numbers
begin a sentence, title,
or heading (when
possible, reword the
sentence to avoid
beginning with a
number)
• Use words to express
numbers when using
common fractions
• Use numerals when
numbers that
immediately precede a
unit of measurement.
 • If people belong to
multiple racial or ethnic
groups, the names of the
specific groups are
capitalized, but the terms
“multiracial,” “biracial,”
“multi-ethnic,” and so on
are lowercase.

Abbreviations Pronouns Disability

• Avoid both the overuse and
underuse of abbreviations.
• If you abbreviate a term,
use the abbreviation at
least three times in a paper.
If you use the abbreviation
only one or two times,
readers may have difficulty
remembering what it
means, so writing the term
out each time aids
comprehension.
• Use of the singular “they”
is endorsed as part of APA
Style because it is
inclusive of all people and
helps writers avoid
making assumptions
about gender
• If you do not know the
pronouns of the person
being described, reword
the sentence to avoid a
pronoun or use the
pronoun “they.
• In person-first language,
the person is
emphasized, not the
individual’s disabling or
chronic condition (e.g.,
use “a person with
paraplegia” and “a
youth with epilepsy”
rather than “a
paraplegic” or “an
epileptic”)