APA 7 – Sentence Case As Default & Capital Letter After Punctuation

jmschweizer
I love the sentence case function, which makes life a lot easier. I wonder:

1. if it is possible to set the sentence case as default for data import and,
2. if the first letter after punctuation can be capitalized (as required by APA 7)?

Any feedback is appreciated. Thank you.
  • bwiernik
    edited August 31, 2023
    1. This is done when possible, but sentence casing cannot be fully automatic because proper nouns need to be capitalized. You should always store data in sentence case and check the item at import time to be sure things are capitalized correctly. You can convert a title’s case by right clicking on it and choosing Sentence case (and then correcting proper nouns and acronyms as needed).

    2. This is done automatically when you cite with APA style. In your item data, you should store subtitles after : in lowercase, as non-APA styles generally do not uppercase this letter.
  • jmschweizer
    Thank you.
  • bmujahid
    How do you find the "sentence case" option? I'm having a lot of trouble getting my citations to use APA 7 sentence case, even after editing the source in my collection.
  • adamsmith
    If the title is in sentence case in Zotero, APA will render it in sentence case.
    If that's not what you're seeing then you're either not using APA style or you're not modifying the metadata used to create the citation (e.g., because it's no longer connected to your Zotero library). Test in a fresh document
  • ctomasin
    Hi folks - I don't quite understand bwiernik's answer to #1, on Aug 31, 2023 (above):

    to make apa sentence case style be the default when zotero imports a new citation... it sounds like that is semi-possible(?).
    But if it is... i don't understand the steps.... how do I go into a Preferences area for example, and tell zotero to always pull in new citations in sentence case style, so that I don't have to do the manual adjustment afterwards.

    AND/OR - instead of switching from title case to sentence case individually for each separate citation.... is there a way to bulk highlight a group of citations... or an entire folder... and tell zotero to swap all those titles in those citations to sentence case style?

    Thanks!
  • adamsmith
    1. There's no preference. Zotero will import in sentence case if the source offers sentence case.
    2. Currently there's no option to sentence case in bulk (and you'd need to carefully sift through refs to re-capitalize proper nouns if you used such an option). There might be in the future and it's possible one of the newer add-ons does this, but I'm not aware of one.
  • mustifanci
    Are there any new updates on this topic? I want all the articles I save to be in sentence form. If necessary, I can make changes myself, but generally, all articles are in the form of titles.
  • dstillman
    edited July 14, 2024
    @mustifanci: As noted above, you can convert a title to sentence case by right-clicking on it, choosing "Sentence case", and then fixing any proper nouns. This isn't something that can be reliably automated.

    https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/sentence_casing
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