Editorial standards guide
This Editorial Standards Guide complements our new brand identity and is intended to help our global team communicate with internal and external stakeholders with more clarity, consistency, and precision.
General writing guidance
Know your audience
- Identify from the start the audience you are writing to and the desired takeaway
- Remember that investors have different levels of experience with PE, with many new entrants in recent years. Find a happy middle, not too basic, not too complex.
Make it easy for the reader
- Be concise and precise. After writing a first draft, go back and identify and cut any unnecessary verbiage (Short attention spans out there!)
- Organize your content. Visual first impressions are key. Write down your three main points and organize your content around them by using headers, sub-headers, bullets, and graphics to break up your text.
Brand tone and voice
Integrate the firm’s “tone” and “voice”
- “Tone” is the consistent way in which we communicate to our clients, people, and the markets. For example, we are collaborative yet daring, deliberate but not overly cautious…
- “Voice” is how our character comes through in our communications – in other words, the impression that we leave. Accessible, genuine, and inclusive are a few traits that define our firm and should be kept in mind in communicating with all stakeholders.
Punctuation
Colons & semicolons
- Colons are used in sentences to show that something is following, such as a quotation, example, or list. If the word following the colon begins a complete sentence, the word should be capitalized. If it begins a fragment, it should be lower-cased.
Complete sentence: The meeting host made an announcement: The festivities for the evening would begin promptly at 8 p.m. Fragment: The meeting host made an announcement: festivities would begin promptly at 8 p.m.
- Semicolons are used to join two independent clauses, or two complete thoughts that could stand alone as a complete sentence.
Example: The team had studied the data closely; no other scenario was plausible.
- Semicolons can also be used to separate a list of items in a sentence with a series of commas.
Example: The investor relations team visited clients in San Antonio, Texas; Sacramento, California; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Salt Lake City, Utah.
Commas
- Use commas to indicate a pause between parts of a sentence
- Use Oxford (serial) commas to separate items in a list
- Use a comma to mark the place of thousands in a large numeral
Contractions
- Avoid using contractions in any external-facing content or communications.
- Exceptions may include if content is more dialogue-oriented, such as a Q&A-style interview.
Dashes
- Use the longer “m-dash” (–) and not the shorter “n-dash” (-) to a) indicate a break in thought or sentence structure; b) introduce a phrase added for emphasis, definition, or explanation; and c) separate two clauses.
Hyphenation
- Use a hyphen with certain terms if they are used as adjectives. No adjective, no hyphen: The stock was publicly traded.
Adjective, use hyphen: The publicly-traded securities were purchased at a relative discount.
- Do not hyphenate compound words with frequently used prefixes, such as anti-, multi-, semi-, non-, post-, etc. Correct usage: Semiannual, multidisciplinary, antitrust
- Avoid “widows” and bad line breaks in content Widow – leaving only one word on a line of text; in the example below, ‘teams’ is a widow and should be moved up to second line.
Widow example: Managing Director Ed Powers participated on a panel of LPs to discuss the benefits of having diverse investment teams.
- Avoid bad line breaks, i.e., a dangling hyphen at the end of a line of text. In the example below, the word ‘investment’ should be joined together or separated at ‘invest-‘
Example: The risk team visited with the client, listened to their inve- stment objectives and concerns, asked follow-up questions, and began to develop a solution
Periods
- Use a period after a full sentence; no periods necessary for fragments.
- Always leave one single space after a period and between the start of the next sentence.
Quotation marks
- Quotation marks follow commas or periods ending the statement being quoted:
Example 1: “Close the door,” he said. Example 2: He said, “Close the door.”
Capitalization
Academic degrees/areas of study
- When citing academic degrees, always capitalize the area of study Example: John received his BS in Economics from the University of Michigan in 2008.
Chart headers
- We can be more flexible on capitalization with chart and graph headers − If the design style calls for all caps, that is permissible − If the style is not all caps, cap the first word and any proper nouns
Geographic regions
- Capitalize geographic destinations and regions if they are distinct areas Examples: the West, Northern California, Bay Area, New England
HarbourVest teams
- When referring to a specific HarbourVest team or business division, use capital letters:
Example 1: HarbourVest’s Direct investment team hosted a webcast for European clients. Example 2: The firm’s Legal department was instrumental in helping the client understand potential regulatory challenges.
- When referring generally to a capability or area of expertise, use lower case Example: European clients are very interested in learning more about our direct investment capabilities.
HarbourVest titles
- When titles are referenced generally and not attached to a name, use lower case
Example 1: The firm’s managing directors hold an annual offsite meeting each year.
Example 2: Amanda Outerbridge, a managing director at HarbourVest, participated in the industry panel.
- When a title either precedes or follows a name, always capitalize title
Example 1: Managing Director Amanda Outerbridge participated in the industry panel. Example 2: Amanda Outerbridge, Managing Director, participated in the industry panel.
Internet
- Always capitalize the ‘I’
Limited partner/general partner
- These terms should not be upper-cased in text
- Exceptions may be made for certain legal or formal documents
Numbers, percentages, decimals
Millions, billions, trillions
- Always write out in full in text Example: We agreed to provide $100 million (not $100M) in capital support to the general partner.
- In charts and graphs: Can use ‘$100B’ but ‘B’ needs to be defined on first reference Be consistent in how you write out billions, millions, etc. Incorrect: $1,049.7 million
Correct: $1 billion
Numbers in text
- Write out all single-digit numbers (1 to 9) as ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’… Example: HarbourVest gave the client three different investment scenarios to consider.
Exceptions: Percentages, ratios
− 3%, not ‘three’ percent − 4.5x return
- For double-digit numbers (10 and above), write out numerically Example: The firm’s managing directors have an average industry tenure of 21 years.
Percentages
- Use your judgment to determine if percentages should have one decimal point or be rounded; if rounding, use a qualifier such as ‘nearly’ or ‘approximately’
Decimal: Assets under management grew by 27.6% in 2021. Rounding: Assets under management grew by nearly 28% in 2021.
Usage and style
Dates
- Writing out dates in text − (US) Correct: September 8, 2019 − (US) Incorrect: September 8th, 2019 − (EU) Correct: 8 September 2019 − (EU) Incorrect: 8, September, 2019
- Referencing dates numerically − (US) Correct: 9/8/2019 − (US) Incorrect: 09/08/2019 − (EU) Correct: 8 September 2019 − (EU) Incorrect: 8, September, 2019
Times
− Correct: 7:45 a.m. − Incorrect: 7:45 AM, 7:45 am − Correct: 10 p.m. − Incorrect: 10:00 PM, 10:00 pm
Fonts
- Our primary typeface is Montserrat. This is used for headlines, sub- headings, and short lines of text.
- Lora is our secondary typeface and is utilized for general body copy.
Percentage ranges
- Never use a hyphen to show a percentage range, and always put the ‘%’ symbol next to both numbers:
Correct: The fund intends to invest between 50% and 75% of its capital in buyout investments. Correct: The fund intends to invest 50% to 75% of its capital in buyout investments. Incorrect: The fund intends to invest 50%-75% of its capital in buyout investments. Incorrect: The fund intends to invest 50-75% of its capital in buyout investments. Incorrect: The fund intends to invest 50 to 75% of its capital in buyout investments.
Source footnotes
- When attributing a statistic or fact to a specific source, add a superscript footnote to the end of the excerpt that is cited
Example: Assets in ESG-focused investment vehicles grew by more than $100 million in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Acronyms and abbreviations
Academic degrees/distinctions (CFA)
- Do not use periods when citing academic degrees or areas of study; capitalize the area(s) of study Example: Samantha graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 2012 with a BS in Economics.
Acronyms in text
- Always write out the full term and define in parentheses on first reference. The acronym may then be used on all following references. If plural on second reference, never use an apostrophe.
Example: The fund’s limited partners (LPs) consisted of public pension plans, sovereign wealth funds, and university endowments. Cumulatively, these LPs contributed $400 million in capital to the fund.
Common industry acronyms
- Regardless of how intuitive an acronym may seem our standard is to not assume and to fully define the term on first reference.
Examples include: Internal rate of return (IRR); total value-to-funded (TV/F); environment, social, and governance (ESG); and separately managed accounts (SMAs)
HarbourVest titles
- Never use acronyms for HarbourVest titles (e.g., MD, SVP) in any external-facing communications or content
Period ranges
- Always define the period range (first half, quarter) you are using on first reference, and then use acronyms sparingly in text; they can be used more liberally in charts and graphs.
Examples: −first half of 2021 (H1 2021) −second quarter of 2021 (Q2 2021) −fiscal year 2021 (FY 2021) −year over year (YoY)
- When referring to a decade in plural form, do not use an apostrophe. Correct: 1980s Incorrect: 1980’s, 80’s
HarbourVest-specific standards
Employees vs. staff
- Do not use ‘employees’ in written external materials; instead use a variant, i.e., ‘staff’ or ‘team members’
Industry terminology
- Private markets vs. private equity
-“Private equity” is often used as an umbrella term to describe the industry, but it really only encompasses buyouts and venture capital -“Private markets” covers private equity, credit, infrastructure and real assets, and other sub-sectors, and should be referenced when discussing the broader industry.
- Separately managed accounts vs. separate managed accounts
We refer to these as separately managed accounts (SMAs), not separate managed accounts.
Investment types
- Our main investment strategies should be referenced as follows:
− Primary investments − Secondary investments − Direct co-investments − Private credit − Infrastructure and real assets − Emerging and diverse
Oxford comma
- One longstanding debate among grammar geeks involves the use, or lack thereof, of the Oxford comma, also known as the serial comma.
- HarbourVest uses the Oxford comma in all communications and content to ensure complete clarity to the reader. Example: Built and refined over more than three decades, our integrated investment platform provides clients with significant and diverse private markets opportunities across primary investments, secondary investments, and direct co-investments.