Routine, Priority, Immediate, and Flash. You should exercise sound judgement when choosing message precedence. Plain Language Address (PLA). PLAs identify activities by short title and sometimes location. For example, the PLA address for Sea Control Squadron Twenty Two (VS-22) would be typed on a message as SEACONRON TWO TWO. Message Types Messages are classified according to precedence, content, addressees, and format. Naval message drafts should ensure that the appropriate precedence is assigned to outgoing messages. A “Routine” precedence should not be assigned to important outgoing messages when information is of a time-sensitive or critical nature, nor should an “Immediate” precedence be assigned to an outgoing message that contains only routine information. Message content determines whether a message is operational or administrative. Operational messages influence or deal directly with ship, troop, or aircraft movement or directly bear on safety of life, ship, forces, intelligence operations, communications, or battle plans. Operational messages also deal with information that relates to fleet readiness training exercises. Administrative messages deal primarily with administrative matters that concern operations and readiness. Messages types are also classified according to addressees. There are four types of addressees as follows: General messages are GENADMIN-formatted messages  for  recurring  release  to  a predetermined distribution list or Navy-wide. This type of message is usually identified by the Book messages are messages that are destined to two or more addressees but contain addressee information that the drafter feels should not be disseminated to the other recipients. Multiple-address messages have two or more addressees, either action or information. Single-addressee messages have only one addressee. The single addressee may be either the action addressee (TO) or information addressee (INFO). general message title of ALCOM (all commands), NAVOP (naval operations), or ALMILACT (all military activities). There are two types of message formats—narrative and pro forma. GENADMIN is the United States Message Text Format that is used for most narrative messages. Pertinent instructions and publications specify the use of other formats for narrative messages. Pro forma messages are messages with defined data fields that can be read and processed by machine. Message Preparation Naval messages are prepared in accordance with the Naval Telecommunications Procedures User‘s Manual, NTP 3. NTP 3 provides specific guidance on the preparation and transmission of naval messages. Changes to message preparation procedures occur frequently, so be sure to use the latest revision to the NTP 3. If in doubt about message preparation procedures, check with your local communications office. The Message Text Format (MTF) Editor provides you with automated assistance for drafting GENADMIN messages. MTF Editor software is menu driven and allows you to draft a formatted message by using a fill-in-the-blank template. Some fields on the template are mandatory, and other fields are optional. You should refer to the NTP 3 whenever you are unsure if a field is mandatory or optional. The following are general guidelines to use when you draft a GENADMIN message: Allowable characters include A through Z (all capitalized), numerals 0 through 9, blank spaces, and some special characters. The allowable special characters are quotation marks (“ ”), periods (.), commas (,), parentheses ( ), question marks (?), hyphens and dashes (-), and, in some cases, slants (-/-). Don’t use other special characters because they are not available on Navy teletypewriter keyboards and will cause formatting errors. Limit abbreviations within the text of messages to those meanings that are self-evident, unequivocal, and easily recognized. In doubtful cases, always let clarity take precedence over brevity. Use the mandatory sets (MSGID, SUBJ, and RMKS) on all GENADMIN messages. Use optional sets (REF, NARR, and so forth) as 2-16