Pravdateam

This is a style guide for the English Version of Ukrayinska Pravda.

Titles
Capitalize a title when it comes before or after a name, as in:

President Viktor Yushchenko issued a decree. Viktor Yushchenko, the President of Ukraine, issued a decree.

Do not capitalize a title when it refers to the office and is not accompanied by a name:

No one knows who the next president will be.

However, in case a title is used to specify the person, it shall be capitalized.

The country is watching a battle between the President and Mr. Yanukovich.

Commas
Commas shall be used only once per series:

Tymoshenko, Yushchenko and Yanukovych are rivals.

Abbreviations
Please use only well known international abbreviations in the headlines.

Will President Yushchenko Visit US Next Week? — Good Moroz Generates New Ideas for the OPG — Bad Should be: Moroz Generates New Ideas for the Office of the Prosecutor General

Quotations
In Ukrainian, quotations usually involve a lot of punctuation. In English, only one comma is used, and when it is used inside the quotation marks:

“I enjoy eating salo, but only if it is progressive and socialist salo,” said Natalia Vitrenko, the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party. “I am the president of Ukraine,” said President Yushchenko.

The period and comma always go inside quotation marks. Semicolons, dashes, question marks, and exclamation points go inside the quotation marks when they apply to the quoted material, but put them outside the quotation marks when they apply to the whole sentence. Always use double quotes ("). Use single quotes (') to quote text inside a quote.

List of Abbreviations that May be Used in the Headlines

 * UN
 * US
 * BYuT

What to use after the quotes?
The words used after a quote are very tricky, because they can describe a large variety of different emphases. The order in which they are used, however, is fairly consistent. The verb comes first and then comes the name of the person speaking. This is true, except when the speaker is referred to by a pronoun. In that case, the pronoun comes first:

“I am the president of Ukraine,” said Yushchenko. “I am the president of Ukraine,” he said.

However, if the sentence used after a quote is an extended one, the noun may come first. If the verb is a complex one or used in the combination with other verbs, the noun comes first as well.

“These hands have never stolen,” President Yushchenko used to say during his pre-election campaign.

Please use only past tense when describing direct speech.

References to Sources
To be drafted.

UNIAN news agency reports President Yushchenko had announced that at the meeting with representatives of German political and business circles.

No quotation — no quotation marks
Use quotation marks sparingly if there are no words directly being quoted. Quotation marks are unnecessary in the following example:

Our Ukraine People’s Union (Народний Союз „Наша Україна”)

Proper Nouns
See a separate section for more details. Also see our Lexicon for the ready-to-use translations.

Please note that if a proper noun already has its translation in the Lexicon, then only this variant of translation shall be used.

Question, problem, issue, matter, item
Paragraph1

Paragraph2

Particular situations
I will draft the description later.

Using brief and full titles of the governmental agencies
Ministry of Finance vs. Finance Ministry. Please draft this section.

Legislation and Political Documents

 * Use verb stipulate when explaining the scope of application of the law.

Закон передачає кримінальну відповідальність за ...      The Law stipulates criminal responsibility for ...


 * Translating official titles

Law of Ukraine on the Cabinet of Ministers Law on the Cabinet of Ministers