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Citations instruction for doctoral capstone writers.

Reusing Your Own Work

The elements of the capstone are designed to build on one another, and students may work on developing a section of the capstone through more than one term. Because students begin and continue to work on different elements of the capstone throughout their coursework and the capstone shell (typically 8000 and 9000 courses), they may want to reuse work completed initially in a previous course. For guidance on reusing work for the capstone, students should consult their chair and the policy from the Walden University Student Handbook (2021). 

  • As students are assigned a chair and move into the capstone course shells, students should communicate early and often with their chair regarding what previous coursework is acceptable to reuse in the development of the capstone.  Students should again discuss using related work, such as previous iterations of capstone elements, with their chair.
  • In the final, published capstone document, students should not cite work completed in courses (e.g., course papers or discussion posts). Any self-authored work that is cited and referenced in the doctoral capstone should be previously published work, and citations and references to those sources should follow the standard APA format.