diff --git a/data/2024/2024-09-10/meta.yaml b/data/2024/2024-09-10/meta.yaml
index 499bbdf30..1ef5e144e 100644
--- a/data/2024/2024-09-10/meta.yaml
+++ b/data/2024/2024-09-10/meta.yaml
@@ -1,12 +1,12 @@
-title: Economic Diversity and Student Outcomes
+title: "Economic Diversity and Student Outcomes"
 article:
-  title: Economic diversity and student outcomes at the University of Texas at Dallas
-  url: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/university-of-texas-at-dallas
+  title: "Economic diversity and student outcomes at the University of Texas at Dallas"
+  url: "https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/university-of-texas-at-dallas"
 data_source:
   title: "Opportunity Insights: College-Level Data for 139 Selective American Colleges"
-  url: https://opportunityinsights.org/data/
+  url: "https://opportunityinsights.org/data/"
 images:
-- file: utd-access.png
+- file: "utd-access.png"
   alt: >
     Parent income for students attending The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). 
     The median family income is $89,800, which is among the highest in Texas but
diff --git a/static/templates/assign_week.R b/static/templates/assign_week.R
index 9e2eee6d2..938011cf7 100644
--- a/static/templates/assign_week.R
+++ b/static/templates/assign_week.R
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 # Set these variables ----------------------------------------------------------
 
 # src_folder_name <- "american_idol"
-# target_date <- "2024-07-23"
+# target_date <- "2024-09-10"
 
 # Run these scripts ------------------------------------------------------------
 
@@ -18,7 +18,9 @@ fs::dir_create(target_dir)
 
 ## metadata --------------------------------------------------------------------
 
-metadata <- yaml::read_yaml(fs::path(src_dir, "meta.yaml"))
+source(here::here("static", "templates", "metadata.R"), local = TRUE)
+
+metadata <- read_metadata(fs::path(src_dir, "meta.yaml"))
 
 dataset_files <- fs::dir_ls(src_dir, glob = "*.csv") |> unname()
 dataset_filenames <- basename(dataset_files)
diff --git a/static/templates/metadata.R b/static/templates/metadata.R
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..467f6c11b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/static/templates/metadata.R
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+read_metadata <- function(path) {
+  yaml_preprocess(path)
+  yaml::read_yaml
+}
+
+yaml_preprocess <- function(path) {
+  readLines(path, warn = FALSE) |> 
+    yaml_quote() |> 
+    writeLines(path)
+}
+
+yaml_quote <- function(yaml_lines) {
+  stringr::str_replace(
+    yaml_lines,
+    "^([^:]*:\\s+)([^>|\"'].*)$",
+    '\\1"\\2"'
+  )
+}