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Boatwright Memorial Library

GEOGRAPHY RESEARCH GUIDE

Geography Department Style

The Department of Geography & the Environment uses APA Style (7th ed.) for citations. 

APA Resources

Why You Should Cite Your Sources

Citation: A (Very) Brief Introduction from NCSU Libraries

Hanging Indents in Word and Google Docs

APA Quirks & Common Mistakes

Sentence case
  • Capitalize only the first letter at the beginning of a title:
    • Three ways to combat climate change through the courts. (CORRECT) 
    • Three Ways to Combat Climate Change Through the Courts. (INCORRECT)
  • Capitalize the first letter after any punctuation in a title:
    • Cities and climate change: Urban sustainability and global environmental governance (CORRECT) 
    • Cities and climate change: urban sustainability and global environmental governance (INCORRECT)
  • Proper nouns are also capitalized in titles:
    • Economic mobility and the rise of the Latin American middle class (CORRECT)
    • Economic mobility and the rise of the latin american middle class (INCORRECT)
"Retrieved from" dates
  • Generally you do not need to list the date when you accessed a website:
    • Retrieved from https://thewalrus.ca/a-future-without-sharks/ (CORRECT) vs.
    • Retrieved November 8, 2018 from https://thewalrus.ca/a-future-without-sharks/ (INCORRECT)
  • Only list the date when the content is designed to be constantly updated (like on a wiki)
    • Retrieved August 1, 2022 from http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Peru/Arahuay (CORRECT)

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