Letter From the Editor Blog:

Letter From the Editor Blog

April 2019 Letter From the Editor

Dear scholarly writer,

In this Letter From the Editor, I want to offer some perspective on why working with your program template as you prepare your capstone study is so important. I’ll also provide some guidance on how to best use the template to make your capstone writing and revision process as smooth as possible—whether you are just beginning your doctoral research/project work, are currently underway, or nearing completion.

Like other universities, Walden capstone documents must adhere to specific formatting requirements set by ProQuest, which publishes completed and approved studies, and by the university itself. Programs within Walden also have unique requirements ranging from the language used on the title page to expectations for supplemental material to be included in appendices

At the Form and Style stage, we editors review your document not only for APA adherence and writing coherence but to make sure that it meets these important formatting specifications. Often, we need to spend a considerable amount of time on formatting issues to ensure smooth sailing during the student’s final defense and subsequent submission to the CAO’s Office and to ProQuest. A prime reason for these formatting issues is that students often have manually formatted the document rather than used their program template, which has correct margin, page number, and other required formatting built into it. But, if you begin to work with the capstone template at the proposal stage and develop familiarity in using it, you can make your writing and revision process smoother.

Amid learning APA and the doctoral research/project work in your program and topic areas, formatting your final study or project may seem to be another daunting challenge, especially if you’re still developing your proficiency in using Microsoft Word. That is why we have developed templates for each program as well as templates for a prospectus, if required by your program. At the proposal stage, you’ll transfer your content to the doctoral capstone study for your program (e.g., the PhD Dissertation Template or the EdD Project Study Template). We have also included on our website a brief template demonstration video and our SMRTguide on troubleshooting the template Table of Contents. Another valuable resource is the Form and Style Review Checklist. Using the Checklist, you can double-check that your formatting is intact (e.g., that margins and pagination are correct), even after several revisions of your document.

It is pivotal that you use the most current and up-to-date template for your program, so be sure to access the template from our website and not one that has been e-mailed to you by others. Older templates can have out-of-date formatting and content issues such as incorrect section and chapter headings. After downloading and saving the template, be sure to use an approach that considers the multiple revisions you’ll be doing and includes back-ups! One of the first things you’ll notice when familiarizing yourself with the template is that the document is annotated with comments and sometimes text on specific pages (e.g., guidelines about the abstract on the abstract page). You’ll want to read these annotations (possibly several times) because they help explain aspects of the template. Eventually you’ll delete this and any sample text and enter your own content. You’ll also notice that templates include all the required preliminary and text pages required by each program, in addition to a first page for the references following the text. Also included are optional pages (Acknowledgements and Dedication in the preliminary section and an initial appendix page) should those be pertinent for your document.