Question

In an APA reference entry, in an article title, chapter title, book title, or report title, do I capitalize the first word after a question mark?

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Answered By: Linda Kern
Last Updated: Dec 12, 2016     Views: 4476

Yes, capitalize the first word after a question mark or other punctuation, because it generally marks the beginning of the subtitle.

Technically the rule for article, chapter, book, and report titles is to "Capitalize only the first word of the title and of the subtitle, if any, and any proper nouns." p.185, sect. 6.29. There is no mention made of different kinds of punctuation marks. Students are often told to capitalize the first word after a colon because it's an easy way of identifying the start of a subtitle and the most common punctuation used before a subtitle, but the punctuation could also be a period, exclamation point, or question mark.

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