MIL STD- Defense Standards Format and Content

4. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS
4.1 General.
This section covers general aspects of style, format, and requirements for preparing a DoD standard.

4.2 Coverage.
A standard shall be prepared to describe essential technical requirements for engineering or technical criteria, methods, processes, or practices. To the greatest extent possible, standards shall be written so that commercial practices and processes may be used to meet the requirement, and requirements should be stated in terms of desired outcomes as opposed to detailed procedures.

4.2.1 Tailoring of requirements. Standards shall be written and structured so that referenced documents, requirements, and verification provisions can be readily tailored to suit different applications. If possible, standards should be written in a sectionalized format to facilitate tailoring and selective application of requirements. The following are options that may be used to sectionalize standards:
a. Group common requirements under different classifications in the body of the standard (see 5.7.2).
b. Group common requirements in different appendixes (see 5.14).
c. Establish individual tasks, requirements, or test methods (see 5.11.1).
d. Develop a standard that is divided into separate parts (see 5.16).