The Walden Writing Center also presents a variety of resources on formatting and self-editing to use in these final stages before F&S. To guarantee a smooth form and style (F&S) review, ideally with minimal changes to do afterward, students should proofread and revise their own work thoroughly.

Students and faculty should prioritize document preparation based on clarity, consistency, economy of expression, correct attribution of previous authors’ work, and basic APA style (7th edition). While the editor will make suggestions for further revision when they return the reviewed document, the editors do not expect the document to be free of all errors to reach the F&S review stage.

In turn, though the editors will make direct corrections to a selection of pages and proofread some passages, they will prioritize their feedback based on ProQuest requirements, institutional preferences, and general scholarly writing standards.

• Become familiar with the Form and Style Review Process and what to expect from the form and style editors.
• Watch the Preparing for the Form and Style webinar.
• Become familiar with the Form and Style Checklist as this is what editors will look for in their review.
• To make sure the document contains the correct formatting and pagination in the Microsoft Word document version of the capstone manuscript, download and use the appropriate Capstone Document Templates for your program.
• Use the Template Demonstration Video, which walks through how to use the template documents most effectively.
• Become familiar with the Top 10 Problems That Delay Students at the Form and Style Review and address these before submitting to F&S.
• Obtain permission for any reprinted tables, figures, or information in appendices under copyright and include the letter of permission from the copyright holder in an appendix. Permission to use and permission to reprint material are two different things, and you may need to obtain them separately. (You may receive permission to use an instrument under copyright to collect data, for example, but this does not mean that you automatically have permission to include a copy of that instrument in the published document.)
• It is your responsibility to confirm that any copyrighted material or research instruments have been used with permission and that permission to use these sources is included in an appendix.