A-Z House Style Guide

1 / 10

headquarters #

Do not use as it suggests one place has power and authority over others. It is another term associated with the military, so please don’t use it to describe any Tearfund building or country office. Use global office or our office in Haiti (for example) or Tearfund’s offices in Teddington.

2 / 10

health work, health worker, health centre #

Separate words.

3 / 10

healthcare #

One word.

4 / 10

heaven/hell #

Lower case ‘h’ for both words unless start of sentence.

5 / 10

HIV and AIDS #

Describe people as ‘living with HIV’ or ‘not living with HIV’. Don’t describe people as HIV positive or negative. Avoid negative words such as suffering, infected, victim and so on. 

‘People affected by HIV’ is fine.

HIV is a ‘virus’ not a disease or an illness, do don’t refer to it as a disease or an illness.

Be clear about whether you are talking about HIV, AIDS or HIV and AIDS: HIV is the virus, and AIDS is a syndrome of opportunistic infections that can develop in the final stages of HIV. So don’t be lazy and lump them together as a generic term for the virus.

In general, use ‘HIV’ except when specifically talking about AIDS. Eg Ben’s sister is living with HIV.

Occasionally it will be legitimate to talk about HIV and AIDS. For example, when talking generically about lots of different partners’ work, you could say HIV and AIDS programmes because some programmes could be focusing on responding to HIV, eg preventative programmes etc, and others could be specifically responding to AIDS, like home-based care for seriously ill people.

We never use the composite term ‘HIV/AIDS’ – it is outdated.

6 / 10

homegroups #

Lower case ‘h’, no hyphen; use this term rather than ‘house groups’ or ‘cell groups’ or anything else.

Exception: when quoting a person, use a different term if that’s what they’ve said.

7 / 10

homophobia #

Has no place in our communications. Our critics expect evangelicals to be bigoted. Subvert expectation

See also, sexual orientation.

8 / 10

hopefully #

Means ‘with hope’. Yes: She smiled hopefully. No: ‘Hopefully we’ll go today.’ Better: We hope to go today.

9 / 10

hyperlinks #

Rather than telling readers to ‘go here’, ‘click here’, ‘visit here’ etc, hyperlink the copy that describes the action or signpost itself.

It is best practice to hyperlink a whole statement or line (rather than one or two words), eg: 

Yes: Read more stories about Honduras OR Don’t forget to sign up today as places are limited

No: Read more stories about Honduras OR Don’t forget to sign up today as places are limited

Hyperlinks should be bold and underlined.

10 / 10

hyphens #

This is a hyphen ‘‑’. It should not be confused with a dash and should never be used with a space.

Hyphens can be used to break up names eg Lavinia Fauntleroy-Smythe.

Use hyphens for compound phrases that imply measurement, eg a three-minute talk, a six-mile run, a 32-page document.

Use hyphens to clarify modifying phrases made up of two or more words that come before a noun: a little-used car (compare with a little used car), right-wing groups etc.

Don’t use hyphens to break up sentences etc, use en dashes. See also en dash.

Where compounds can be written with or without a hyphen, Tearfund house style is generally to write without the hyphen, so no hyphen in rebuild, ongoing, online, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, upmarket, waterlogged etc. Only use hyphens to add clarity and make reading easier, eg an attempt to re-create his former life… Re-press the garment.