Style Guide

Overview

Voices in the Dust will undergo periodic review by the Repair Lab to maintain a consistent style throughout the archive. This page details several stylistic conventions across the Voices in the Dust.

Resources and Materials

For all resources and materials, when there are multiple authors, list only the first followed by "et al." The title should be in title case, meaning all words except prepositions are capitalized.

• Newspaper Articles: Author Last Name, Title, Newspaper, Date

The date should be in the form of month day, year, for example, January 1, 2026.

• Academic Articles: Author Last Name, Title, Journal, Volume, Issue, Page Range, DOI, Year

Write out the full journal title without abbreviation.

• Press Release: Title, Source, ["Press Release"], Date

• Law: Title, Chapter or Section Number, Location, Date (if available)

Sources

Numerical citations are placed after any punctuation. Citations follow the same formatting as described for Resources and Materials, but they include a period at the end.

Uploads

Where possible, we have opted not to change the document title when it is uploaded to the archive. This decision was based on the thought that useful information may be present in the file title, especially those documents received from agencies and offices through requests under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (VFOIA).

The Destination Filename will be generated by Mediawiki from the file name. Leave the Summary Box blank. Once you have uploaded the file, you can describe the file vis Edit Source.

Weblinks

Because website links can change, especially links to governmental pages, we encourage contributors to upload a pdf of the webpage content. The second best option is to use Archive.org, also known as the Wayback Machine, which will preserve a snapshot of a given website at a given time. Please note, these snapshots may not constitute a permanent record, and they may still face deletion.

Photographs

Photographs should include a credit to the photographer and source. Please include descriptive alt text to make photographs accessible to all Voices in the Dust visitors. Feature photographs of the Southeast Newport News and Lambert's Point communities and other local scenes, and avoid stock and promotional images, and images made by government agencies and offices and companies uncritically.

Documents

Hertz, Archiving Websites and Preventing Broken Links, October 17, 2025