HSE Style Guide (for the website and promotional literature)

British or American English

We try to use British English wherever possible. The decision to use British English in official materials was made a long time ago and now we follow it for the sake of consistency. Our website users are perfectly capable of understanding British spellings. It does not affect comprehension.
You can consult Cambridge University Dictionary or Collins for correct spelling or refer to the Guardian Style Guide if you cannot decide which spelling to choose.

• Programme, not program. Exception: program (noun and verb) in a computer/software context
• Centre, not center
• Honour, not honor (also, behaviour, labour, etc)
• We use —ise, not —ize in verbs (organise, realise, recognise, capitalise) and respective nouns (organisation, realisation, etc)
• US spellings are kept when part of official names (eg the World Trade Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

See also:

American and British spelling differences

Comparison of American and British English

Abbreviations

Omit full stops for: vs, etc, eg, and ie

Omit full stops in academic degrees, such as PhD, MSc, etc

Omit full stops after Dr, Mr, Ms, St (St Petersburg, not St. Petersburg)

BUT keep the full stop after Prof. (As a rule, omit full stops when the abbreviation ends with the last letter of the full word; include them when it does not)

Addresses (of HSE Buildings)

See the HSE University Glossary for official translations of street addresses. We transliterate the Russian words for types of streets/places: Ulitsa, Ploschad, Bulvar, etc

Capitalisation

We capitalise:

• Titles and positions (HSE Academic Supervisor, Russian Prime Minister)
• Academic departments (Department of Economics, Laboratory for Research in Inflation and Growth)
• Academic degrees (Master’s Degree in Finance, Master’s of Fine Arts)
• Official names of individual courses of study (Introduction to Finance)
• Official names of organisations (the Green Party, World Health Organization)
• Official names of conferences and forums (The International Conference on Emerging Markets; Moscow International Financial Forum 2013)
• Names of awards or prizes (Nobel Peace Prize)
• Titles of individual lectures (The Department of Economics recently hosted the lecture ‘The Russian Economy and World Markets’.) Note: Names of lectures are also often enclosed in quotation marks.
• Titles of publications including books, periodicals, articles, chapter names, section headings

Note: Names of freestanding publications (books, pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers, and sections of newspapers) that are published separately, as well as films and TV programmes, are usually italicised:

• We read the Financial Times every day in our economics class.
• My favourite novel is War and Peace.

Note: In blocks of italicised text, titles are written in roman (un-italicised) type

Note: With periodicals, if a periodical’s name begins with ‘The’, only capitalise the ‘T’ when it appears at the beginning of a sentence: ‘The Financial Times is the only newspaper I read’. ‘I only read the Financial Times’.

Note: Using quotation marks in titles, a common phenomenon in Russian, should be avoided: the journal Sexuality&Culture, not the journal ‘Sexuality&Culture’

Do not capitalise:

• names of disciplines unless they form part of a department name, an official course name, or are themselves proper nouns (‘HSE University has introduced a new economics course.’)
• seasons: winter, spring, etc.
• words like university, department, centre, conference, etc outside of official names (‘The Department of Sociology places an emphasis on research. The department maintains close ties with leading research institutions.’)

Contractions

Contractions (don't, isn't, can't, etc) are acceptable in news items and informal mailshots.

Avoid contractions in official press releases and brochures.

COVID and Related Vocabulary

Use COVID-19 or COVID (all caps) to refer to the illness. Safety precautions include: a mask mandate, a vaccination requirement, and social distancing.

Online Learning–Related Vocabulary

We use 'in-person' classes (NOT 'offline'). Classes can also be taught 'on campus.'

Students can study 'remotely' (also 'online') or in a 'hybrid mode.'

Data

We use ‘data’ as a singular noun (not datum)

Dates and Times

Always put the year the first time a date is mentioned, so that in the future, when people are looking back through the archive, it's clear when we are referring to.

Date style:

March 15, 2025. If the year is omitted: March 15

Time: 12-hour clock (8:30 am; 1 pm; 6:15 pm), with ‘am’ and ‘pm’ written in lowercase and separated by a space

If a news article mentions something that happened ‘yesterday,’ ‘last week,’ ‘last month,’ we prefer changing it to a specific date: ‘on November 27,’ ‘in early April,’ ‘in March.’

We do not use the word ‘anniversary’ for birthdays.  'Anniversary' is used with things like weddings, deaths, historical events, starting a job etc. Phrases like 'landmark birthday' or 'special birthday' are used to talk about significant milestones.

Forms of Address

• Dr for people with PhDs
• Prof. for Professors
• Mr/Ms for people without academic degrees

Alternative: use a person's full name (Vera Ivanova)

HSE Departments

The university and its departments are translated as follows:

Высшая школа экономики: HSE University (no article!)

ВШЭ: HSE University

НИУ ВШЭ: HSE University (never NRU HSE)

Вышка: HSE University

HSE University is the preferred way to name the university, since it is the registered brand name, but HSE is also acceptable to avoid repetition and when used as an adjective (‘HSE students’, ‘the HSE Department of Internationalisation’).

Факультет: Faculty (Faculty of Law)

Отделение: School (School of Media)

Департамент: School

Кафедра: Department at all campuses. Chair is used only for the head of a department, not the organisational unit itself (see Merriam–Webster dictionary).

If a department is part of a faculty that contains schools (Moscow), then ‘department’ is translated as ‘school.’
(the three-level structure «факультет — департамент/школа — кафедра» is translated as faculty—school—department)

Sometimes it is possible to translate ‘департамент’ as ‘department’ (within a faculty and upon request).

The phrase 'academic department' is not used in department names. If the word ‘department’ is not suitable, then ‘school’ is a better choice.

If a department is part of a school (as in St Petersburg), it is translated as ‘department.’
(the two-level structure «школа — департамент / кафедра» is translated as school—department)

Лаборатория — Laboratory (not Lab)

For more information, see the Glossary.

For translations of specific HSE faculties, see the list of faculties.

For translations of specific HSE research centres and laboratories, see the research section.

When a department is part of a larger unit: School of Integrated Communications at the Faculty of Communications, Media, and Design

Филиал/кампус: Campus

Ex: HSE University–St Petersburg; HSE University in St Petersburg; HSE University campus in St Petersburg.

HSE Degree Programmes

Common translations:

Бакалавриат: undergraduate programme / Bachelor's programme

Магистратура: Master’s programme

Аспирантура: doctoral programme

For more information, see the Glossary. The full list of all programmes can be found in Programme Catalogue.

Quotes or no quotes?

In texts, we prefer to name our programmes without quotation marks: the Bachelor's in Foreign Languages and Intercultural Communication, the Master’s programme in Economics and Economic Policy. However, in some cases and parts of the website, it is easier to use quotes: the Master’s programme ‘Politics. Economics. Philosophy’/ ‘Politics. Economics. Philosophy’ Master’s programme.

NOTE: Capitalise Bachelor's and Master's when talking about a specific programme. Use lowercase (master's or bachelor's) when talking in general: all master's students, some bachelor's degrees, etc.

EXAMPLES:

HSE University is set to significantly update its range of bachelor’s and master’s programmes for the next academic year.
Our two existing fully online bachelor’s programmes—International Legal Management offered by our Moscow campus and Design offered in Perm
The Nizhny Novgorod campus will also run a Bachelor’s in Digital Marketing.

Hyphens and Em and En Dashes

• Hyphens are used to combine words (well-read). Do not use hyphens after adverbs ending in —ly (internationally recognised).
• The shorter en dash (–) is used to mark ranges (1920–29). No spaces before and after the en dash.
• The longer em dash (—) is used to separate extra information or mark a break in a sentence. No spaces before and after the em dash. Exception: When em dashes are used as bullet points, such as in interviews (see Interviews).

Ex: The first two projects took several years to get results—they were long and complicated.

Special cases

Words like webpage, website, internet, and email do not have hyphens or spaces and are not capitalised. Ecommerce, eSports, eLearning and other words starting with 'e' for 'electronic' are also not hyphenated.

We use en dashes in the names of HSE University campuses:

HSE University–St Petersburg (en dash) HSE University–Nizhny Novgorod (en dash) HSE University–Moscow (en dash) HSE University–Perm (en dash)

Special cases

Words like webpage, website, internet, and email do not have hyphens or spaces and are not capitalised. E-commerce, e-Sports and other words starting with 'e' for 'electronic' are hyphenated.

Inclusive Language

Avoid using gender-specific words like 'chairman', 'freshman', ‘alumnus’, ‘alumna’ etc. Choose gender-neutral nouns (a chairperson, a first-year student, a first-year, a graduate).

Use singular 'they' (instead of his/her) to refer back to a person. (I wanted to ask the student about their career plans).

Avoid using 'young researchers'. Opt for 'early-career researchers' or 'early-stage researchers' instead.

Avoid using 'the disabled', 'the handicapped', 'the deaf', etc. Use 'disabled people' or 'a disabled person' instead.

Avoid using words like 'victim of', 'suffering from', 'afflicted by', 'crippled by'. Use 'a person with' or 'a person has'.
More on disability language here.

Non-English Names and Words

Names should be written with the correct accent marks: Boğaziçi University, Pelé.

Non-English words which are unlikely to be understood by English speakers (including traditions, foods) should be written in italics, NOT inside quotes: ‘The students took part in an ancient Russian ritual called kolyadki’.

Unlike Western and Russian names, Asian names (Chinese/Japanese/Korean) are usually written in the following order: surname, first name in their respective languages. We usually adopt this word order for Asian names in English too (ie Xi Jinping, Mao Zedong), unless the person introduces themselves or is better known under the name in a different order.

Interviews

Each paragraph in an interview starts with an EM DASH (insert it as a special symbol, do not use the list function) and a space. Questions are in bold.

— Question?

— Answer. Answer. Answer.

— Question?

— Answer.

When we translate an interview from Russian which starts with a traditional form of address, such as Алексей Иванович, or Мария Петровна, we replace it with Dr Chernenko, Ms Ivanova, Prof. Petrov, etc.
— Элла Львовна, где вы работали до ВШЭ? И почему пришли работать в Вышку?
— Dr Khabina, where did you work before HSE? And why did you come to work at HSE?

Informal Language

Avoid using colloquial language such as

• 'guys', 'bloke'/'gal' for students
• gonna / wanna

Phrasal verbs are generally fine, unless they are marked with 'colloquial' or 'informal' in the dictionaries.

Job Titles, Academic Positions

We capitalise job titles and academic positions.

• Доцент: Associate Professor (sometimes Assistant Professor, depending on the contract).
• Научный руководитель: Academic Supervisor.

For the translation of staff positions, see the Glossary.

Titles are not capitalised when referring to someone without using their name or full official title. (‘The rector is elected by a committee of university staff’).

Links

We add links to HSE University departments, staff members, events, and projects where possible, but only once in a text:

Anita Soboleva, Associate Professor at the HSE Faculty of Law Department of the Theory of Law and Comparative Law, has been voted one of HSE’s best teachers by students in 2012. Anita Soboleva [second reference, no link] is a lawyer with 10 years’ experience and the leader of a human rights organisation, Lawyers for Constitutional Rights and Freedoms.

We try to add links to words and phrases in the text, not just print them ‘as is’:

WRONG: For more information please visit https://conf.hse.ru/

RIGHT: For more information, please visit the conference website.

Avoid adding links to blank spaces and punctuation marks, unless they are part of the phrase you are using as a link:

• HSE/NES research seminar on political economy. Topic: ‘Does Political Competition Matter for Public Goods Provision? Evidence from Russian Regions’
• 1st International 'Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey' User Conference. Moscow, May 17–18, 2013.

IMPORTANT: when inserting a link in the Heading field of a news item or an announcement, make sure the link includes the quotation marks as otherwise extra spaces will appear in the heading.

Lists

We follow the Oxford comma rule. Add a comma before the final ‘and’ in lists of more than two items: it can help the reader (he ate cereal, kippers, bacon, eggs, toast and marmalade, and tea) and sometimes it is essential.

compare

I dedicate this book to my parents, Martin Amis, and JK Rowling
with
I dedicate this book to my parents, Martin Amis and JK Rowling

If you have two items, join them with an 'and': Ex: We invited our British and American partners.

News

Each article for the News section should include a heading, a lead-in paragraph of 1–2 sentences, and the body of the text.

News Headings (and Subheadings)

Capitalise all words EXCEPT articles (a, an, the) and prepositions, unless they appear in initial position or after a colon. Conjunctions like and, nor, but, for, and or should also be written in lowercase. If there is a phrasal verb, all its parts will be capitalised.

DO NOT USE ALL CAPS for headings.

The heading should not be overly long. Even if it is an event announcement, do not put all of the information in the heading. The heading should contain only the most important bits.

Generally, it is recommended to omit articles in headings, unless the heading is a quote, contains a long sentence, or the article is needed to convey meaning:

• Steve the Pigeon Helps Explain Moscow Bike Infrastructure
• HSE and Vietnam National University to Establish Joint Research Institute
• The Engineer as a Creator of Technology
• ‘The Master’s in Comparative Social Research Is a Perfect Fit for My Academic Needs’

Note: If a word is hyphenated, capitalise both parts: Benefits of Self-Paced Studies.

Numbers

Spell out numbers 1–9; always spell out a number if it appears at the beginning of a sentence. (She wrote 23 books. Twenty-three books are sitting on the shelf.)

Large numbers of four figures and higher: use a comma every third place: 100,000 (not 100 000, not 100000)

For percentages: use the % symbol (The city lost 20% of its inhabitants to the disaster.)

Olympiads

Many student (particularly school student) competitions are called ‘olympiads’. Unless it is part of the name of a competition, we don’t capitalise the word ‘olympiad’ (despite the fact that Word underlines it with a squiggly red line).

Punctuation

Exclamation marks: Avoid using exclamation marks in English texts outside of quotes. It's considered poor style. Only use it as a very rare exception.

Lists: see Lists

Complex sentences. Generally avoid inserting a comma in situations like these:

• Our project will be a success if more students join it.
• Our project is successful because we have a strong research focus.

Avoid comma splice when connecting two complete sentences. Join sentences with a conjunction or start a new sentence.

WRONG: HSE University is quite young, it was founded a mere 30 years ago.

RIGHT: HSE University is quite young as it was founded a mere 30 years ago. OR HSE University is quite young. It was founded a mere 30 years ago.

In contact sections on websites, we prefer colons to em dashes:

• Editor-in-Chief: Andrey Bystritskiy

Useful guide on avoiding common punctuation errors can be found here.
For punctuation in  direct speech see below.

Quotation Marks and Direct Speech

Use single quotes at the start and end of a quoted section, with double quotes for quoted words within that section. Punctuation marks go inside the quotation marks (exception: colons and semicolons). Em dashes are not used to set off direct speech in English texts. Use a comma (or a question or exclamation mark) instead.

Ex: ‘We are looking forward to seeing many of you in our academic teams,’ said Nikita Anisimov, HSE University Rector. ‘Their doors are open to you.'
Ex: ‘It probably also affects them somehow. Then they ask, “Can I bring my girlfriend and friends to show them the school where I study?”'

Note: NEVER USE Russian style quote marks in English texts («»).
More about reported and direct speech in Cambridge Dictionary.

Transliteration of Russian Names

Simplified British Standard:

Valery, Dmitry, and Andrey (Not Valeriy, Dmitriy, Andrei)

However, it is recommended to check the person’s page for correct spelling of their name.

DO NOT include patronymics—they are a foreign notion to an English speaker