Form and Style editors staff the Editor Office Hours service. Form and Style editors’ role within Walden is to aid students as they complete the doctoral study or dissertation. We work with students on APA, cohesion and flow, alignment, scholarly tone, tables and figures, appendices, as well as other final document characteristics and formatting.
Office Hours is a service for Walden Students. Use Office Hours to contact an editor with a question related to the items mentioned above. This service is intended as a quick Q&A about the dissertation or doctoral study, live, with an editor. These are questions that may be answered in 5-7 minutes or less, like: formatting a reference, helping with grammar or APA in one sentence, proofreading a paragraph for passive voice, or determining whether a few sentences are an acceptable paraphrase.
Office Hours is not intended for editors to review documents, so please do not ask them to do so. This service is intended for a brief question, which can be answered in real time, with an opportunity for follow up. For more detailed or lengthy questions specific to doctoral capstones, please e-mail editor@mail.waldenu.edu.
During chat, we are often working simultaneously with many students. Because of this, there may be a delay in response time as we complete a previous chat. We appreciate your patience and please know that we will respond within chat hours. If you prefer not to wait, please e-mail editor@mail.waldenu.edu with your question.
Form and Style, editing, and self-editing advice for students writing the capstone.
Office Hours provide an informal, group advising setting where students may ask questions and receive advice about APA, writing, grammar, formatting, and general editing and self-editing in the capstone.
Students may ask any questions pertaining to writing the proposal or final study. The editor will provide advice and resources. Because this is a group advising environment, individual students will take turns to ask their questions and receive answers. The advisors may address the questions from two or more students at the same time whenever it is possible, in consideration of the time limit or the long turn-around time of some questions. Students who are waiting for their turn can often learn useful information from listening to other students’ questions.
Please note the following:
Form and Style Office Hours Staff
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Please see our Office Hours Policy for details on what types of questions we can answer.
Capstone Formatting Staff
Walden’s Form and Style editors staff the Capstone Formatting support service. Form and Style editors’ role within Walden is to aid students as they prepare and format their doctoral capstone documents, providing instruction, guidance, and direct assistance where appropriate.
Capstone Formatting Support
Capstone Formatting support is an asynchronous, email-based service available to Walden students. Use the Capstone Formatting email address (capstoneformatting@mail.waldenu.edu) to contact an editor with a question or issue related to formatting the doctoral capstone document in Microsoft Word. Be sure to include the most recent version of your doctoral capstone.
This service is designed to assist students who are experiencing significant technical challenges related to specific aspects of formatting the capstone, such as tagging headings; automating the Table of Contents, List of Tables, or List of Figures; and formatting and captioning tables and figures. Editors will provide supportive resources to assist with these tasks. Where warranted, editors may also provide direct assistance with reformatting aspects of the capstone using Microsoft Word (please see the submission guidance section for specific information on submitting requests for headings and TOC support vs. smaller-scale issues before sending your email).
Capstone Formatting is not intended as a comprehensive document formatting service. Documents submitted to Capstone Formatting should already be placed in the appropriate doctoral capstone template. Students should make a good-faith effort to format the document before seeking support through the Capstone Formatting service. Editors assisting students will focus on specific aspects of capstone formatting that students have been unable to resolve independently in order to help them move forward in the capstone process.
Specifically, there are two situations in which editors may provide formatting support through the Capstone Formatting service:
1. A student has a completely written draft of either a proposal or a final study and has questions/issues regarding formatting and use of the Walden capstone template (e.g., headings, TOC, landscape pagination).
2. A student has a smaller scale formatting issue with something like a table, a figure, or another individual-level, specific formatting question/issue (e.g., tables or figure formatting, margins, portrait pagination, appendices formatting).
This limited service is exclusively for formatting. Students who have questions or need guidance for general capstone writing, APA, or grammar issues should contact editor@mail.waldenu.edu.
Time and Pacing
Editors monitoring the Capstone Formatting email inbox will review incoming messages and will make an initial reply within 2 business days (48 hours). If the formatting assistance request is complex or time consuming, the replying editor may inform the student that more than 1 day is needed to provide the necessary support; if this is the case, the editor will inform the student of when to expect a more in-depth response.
Students should ensure that any document sent to Capstone Formatting is a current version in which the editor can make corrections and is attached as an MS Word document. Due to time constraints, editors cannot make the same corrections to multiple versions of a document (i.e., editors will not repeat formatting already performed for a student).
Guidance for Submission
Guidance for Help with Headings, TOC, and Landscape Pagination
First, students should have a completed proposal or final study draft before submitting a request for this type of support. Students need to attach an MS Word document. We cannot work with a shared document link, PDF, Google Doc, or other type of file. Because formatting issues with capstone document headings and the TOC is an involved and time-consuming process, we ask that students limit their request to format the TOC to 4 instances throughout the capstone process. We suggest that students look at using 2 requests during the proposal process and 2 during the final study stage.
Editors will ensure that the manuscript meets the prepublication formatting requirements set by the university and ProQuest. In order to avoid formatting complications associated with the writing and approval process, this edit is reserved for completed drafts rather than a single section or chapter.
Please also note that TOC and headings are also something that we review and correct in every Walden capstone at the F&S review stage.
Guidance for Help with Margins, Portrait Pagination, Tables, and Figures, and all Other Inquiries
These smaller scale, individual pieces of capstone document formatting are generally easy to format and do not take a lot of time and attention. Students need to attach an MS Word document. We cannot work with a shared document link, PDF, Google Doc, or other type of file. Instances like this can be requested at any time in the process and are not limited to a set number of requests. Editors will correct the formatting for these areas and return a corrected document as well as provide links and resources to help students moving forward.
As professional writing instructors and editors, we are committed to working with Walden University students, both online in various services and in person at residencies and intensives, to listen respectfully as we provide writing support. In turn, we hold students to the university’s Code of Conduct and reserve the right to end conversations that are hostile or otherwise inappropriate.
We are also happy to provide free and open access website instruction, videos, and social media to the general learning public and other educators. However, we expect the same mutual respect we require of Walden’s student population. We do not condone abusive and otherwise inappropriate behavior towards our staff or other Walden University community members. We reserve the right to end hostile or unproductive engagement.
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