Style Guide
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 propositions are capitalized. Link the document through its title.
- 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, DOI, Page Range, 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 outside of punctuation. Citations follow the same formatting as described for Resources and Materials but 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. In the Summary Box, write: [Document Title]. [Date].
This is the title of the document, not the file. The document title should use title case capitalization, and the date should be in the form of month day, year, for example, January 1, 2026. If there is no day, report January 2026. If there is no day or month, report 2026 only.
Weblinks
Because website links can change, especially links to governmental pages, we encourage editors 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. However, these snapshots may not constitute a permanent record, and they may still face deletion.
Photographs
Photographs should include credit to the photograph and source if not taken by the person uploading the image. Please include descriptive alt text to make photographs accessible to all Voices in the Dust users.