Start here if you have been told to submit DD Form 2960. First, know what you are filling: DoD Plain Writing Act Compliance. The document is titled DD Form 2960, DoD Plain Language Compliance, April 2013.
Then look at the edition date: not stated, publisher status not stated. After that, ask whether the form covers your situation. It almost certainly does regardless of your branch — DD forms run Department-wide rather than through a single service.
Then settle the schedule. You are working under not stated, with not stated responsible for the document, and your organization layers its own deadlines on that. Ask before you assume a date.
Finally, decide how you will complete it. You can type into a fillable file or print a blank and write by hand, and the rest of this page walks you through both paths in order.
Now fill it in. Work from the top of the page downward, and do not jump ahead — the identifying block comes first, the substance of your entry second, the certification last. Later boxes often depend on what you put at the top.
Check the edition before you type a word. The date appears on the face of the form; it should read not stated. When it does not, discard the file and take a fresh copy from this page. Department-level revisions replace the blank across all services simultaneously, which means an old printout can be out of step everywhere.
Look up an unclear item on the form face before anywhere else, then in not stated. Should the two texts conflict, the directive is the one you follow.
Download the form
Begin by choosing a file. Available here: PDF. Plan for 1 pages and about 200 entries.
All of it downloads free. When you are ready to work, do this: save the file locally, then open it in a full pdf application. Browsers often ignore field properties, and you can lose everything you typed.
What the form asks for
- Button1
- Button3
- CheckBox1
- Line2
- Page1
- SignatureField1
- StaticText1
- T13
- T14
- T15
- T16
- T18
- T20
- T21
- T24
- T25
- T26
- T27
- T30
- T31
- T35
- T37
- T40
- T46
Submit the completed form through the channel not stated or your local guidance specifies. Save a copy for yourself before it leaves your hands, whether that means a scan, a photograph or a duplicate file.
When DD Form 2960 references another form, search on the series and number. Because DD numbers are common to every military department, the number by itself identifies exactly one document.
Here is where people go wrong. They see a number in an instruction and download whichever form matches it. But DA and DD are separate systems — Army-specific in one case, Department-wide under not stated in the other — so check which series you were sent to before you take the file.
Come back and check the edition next time you need this form. Editions change when the prescribing directive is reissued, when the information collected changes, or when the required notice language is updated, and none of those events reaches you directly. Verifying not stated at the moment you download is the whole defence.
One thing this page does not do: tell you whether your submission will be accepted. We publish the document and explain how to complete it, and that is where our role ends. Nothing here is legal advice. Take questions about eligibility, applicability or procedure to not stated, to your servicing personnel office, or to the office named in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 2960?
- DD Form 2960, DoD Plain Language Compliance, April 2013
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?