These resources are for doctoral students at the preproposal stage and who are not yet working or are just beginning to work on their official proposal documents.

Receiving a doctoral degree means you have demonstrated your ability to do independent, original scholarly work at the doctoral level. At Walden, this means completing a doctoral capstone document—dissertation, doctoral study, project study, or doctoral project—to be published in the ProQuest database.

Part of becoming an independent academic writer means knowing the skills you need to develop in your writing process as well as the resources available to help you develop them. The time you spend working with faculty to develop your preproposal document(s) is also a perfect opportunity to reflect on your writing skills and what further work you need to do to prepare yourself to write the proposal and final study.

The Writing Center offers instructional feedback on premise and prospectus documents through the paper review appointments in myPASS. The Preproposal Starter Kit offers resources to help you hone your scholarly voice and plan, draft, and polish your writing at the doctoral level so you are prepared once you start work on your proposal.

Writing support for longer writing projects required of doctoral students like proposals and final studies can be found on the Doctoral Capstone Form and Style site, where numerous services and resources for students at the capstone stage are housed. The Form and Style editors have a limited amount of time to review proposal and final study chapters or sections, by faculty request only; committee chairs can find the application for the Chapter Edit service on the Toolbox for Faculty site.

As you begin planning and preparing to write the dissertation, doctoral study, project study, or project to fulfill your degree, understand that there are key differences between writing successfully for courses and writing a long-form, doctoral-level manuscript.

While you have been developing the strong research, writing, and citation skills throughout your program, for the doctoral capstone you will write and revise one document in multiple phases, with multiple stages of approval, and with feedback from multiple people.

In the Doctoral Capstone Students webinar series, review the Transitioning from Coursework to Doctoral Capstone Writing and Writing Process for Longer Research Projects webinars to get a fuller idea of what to expect as you transition from student to doctoral scholar.

Doctoral programs in the U.S.-style academic system are generally divided into two stages:

• Doctoral coursework, when you develop your expertise and hone your research interests.
  • Writing takes the form of completing assigned topics, goals, and objectives.
  • The audience is generally limited to individual faculty members or the other people enrolled in the course.
  • Assignments receive grades, and students receive feedback to apply in future assignments.
• “The capstone,” when you design and conduct original research and demonstrate your authority and expertise.
  • Writing goals and objectives become more self-directed as doctoral students take on the responsibility of developing their own unique focus.
  • The audience becomes the broader scholarly community, as completed doctoral capstone documents are published and available in ScholarWorks and the ProQuest database.
  • Drafts go through hundreds of revisions, with several rounds of feedback and input from faculty and staff.
  • The doctoral student is essentially building toward one manuscript from the time they begin the preproposal process to the time they graduate.

Long-form research writing allows scholars room to explore complex issues and ask more sophisticated questions. A doctoral capstone study represents:

• an “original contribution” to scholarship,
• depth and breadth of knowledge in your field, and
• months of writing, rewriting, and more writing.

Completing a longer research project is how doctoral-level scholars demonstrate they are independent researchers. You will need to be self-directed, self-sufficient, and self-aware about your writing skills and your writing process.

Use the resources in this kit to build a strong foundation so you can support yourself through the doctoral writing journey ahead.

Know what the requirements are for your program and what courses, forms, and documents you need to complete before you can start work on your official proposal. Read degree and program guidelines carefully and make sure you have up-to-date copies of important documents easily accessible for quick reference.
 

Outside the Writing Center:

Student Success Advising

Consult with your student success advisor about program and degree requirements.

Office of Research and Doctoral Services: Office of Student Research Administration

• DBA Prospectus Guide, Doctoral Study Rubric and Handbook
• DHA Doctoral Study Premise Guide, DHA Doctoral Study Prospectus Guide, DHA Doctoral Study Guidebook
• DIT Doctoral Study Premise, DIT Doctoral Study Prospectus
• DNP Project Premise Guide, DNP Project Process Guide
• DrPH Doctoral Study Premise Guide, DrPH Doctoral Study Prospectus Guide, DrPH Doctoral Study Guidebook
• DSW
• EdD Doctoral Study Committee Assignment Form, EdD Prospectus Guide
• PhD Dissertation Premise Guide, PhD Dissertation Prospectus Guide, PhD Dissertation Guidebook

Doctoral Capstone Resources Guide

• Getting Started
• Developing Your Skills

In addition to knowing the specific requirements and expectations for your program and degree, learn what the expectations are for a doctoral-level academic writer.

Writing Resources:

Scholarly Writing

Writing Concisely

Webinars

• Doctoral Capstone Students: “Transitioning from Coursework to Doctoral Capstone Writing”
• Graduate Students: “Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography Basics”
• Scholarly Writing: “Building and Organizing Academic Arguments”
• Scholarly Writing: “Synthesis and Thesis Development”

WriteCast (Writing Center podcast)

• Episode 21: Writing Expectations at U.S. Colleges and Universities

Outside the Writing Center:

Academic Skills Center

• Courses (on graduate writing, APA style, academic integrity, and more)

Walden Library

• Dissertations and doctoral studies completed by Walden students
• Webinars on Library Skills
• Research Process Guides

Office of Research and Doctoral Services

• Research Resources
• Research Planning and Writing

Research Ethics and Compliance Links

Understand your strengths and weaknesses as an independent academic writer. Keep in mind that writing a doctoral capstone study is a unique process, and grades on previous coursework are often not a sufficient indicator of how prepared you are to complete a longer piece of original research.

Writing Resources:

Blog

• Self-Reflection: Getting to Know All About You(r Writing)

Quizzes

Modules

For Multilingual Students

Outside the Writing Center:

Academic Skills Center

• Microsoft Office Skills
• Building Your Skills for Success

Be proactive and self-sufficient in your writing practice. Learn how to assess your own writing; incorporate both general and specific feedback throughout a draft; build up your support system; and compile resources, tools, and practices that help support you in your writing and research.

Remember to refer frequently to program-specific guidance documents, such as the premise and/or prospectus guides on ORDS site in conjunction with the templates on the Writing Center site, to be sure you have followed all guidelines and met all requirements before submitting to faculty for feedback.

Writing Resources:

Using Evidence

Organizational Tools

APA Style

• APA Basics Checklist
• Common Reference List Examples

Webinars

• APA Citations & Style
• Grammar
• Practical Skills: “Paraphrasing Source Information”

Blog

• Outlining Your Outline as a Way to Help You Write Every Day
• Demystifying Prewriting: Yeah, There’s an App for That
• Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Pettis Perry (Part 1)
• Responding to Feedback Is Hard: Here’s Why You Should Do It Anyway
• Help Them Help You: Being Receptive to Faculty Feedback
• Defining a Gap in the Literature: On Proving the Presence of an Absence
• Writing Through Fear
• and many, many others

Quick Answers

Videos and Playlists

WriteCast (Writing Center podcast)

• Episode 7: Balancing School, Life and Family
• Episode 10: Faculty Writing Advice: Residency Interview with Dr. JaMuir Robinson
• Episode 15: What to do with Negative Feedback on Your Writing
• Episode 20: Favorite Apps to Save You Time When You Write

Social Media

Outside the Writing Center:

Walden Library

• Zotero Reference Manager
• Journal Alerts and Search Alerts
• Using Google Scholar with Walden Library

Academic Skills Center

• Software Assistance

Outside Walden:

APA Style Blog

Crossref.org free DOI lookup

Write to generate and develop your ideas. Think of writing as a process to help get your thinking started, not just a way to capture a finished product on the page. The doctoral capstone document is long, and it will go through many drafts and versions—use that process as an opportunity to practice your skills and become an expert in your topic.

Writing Resources:

Writing a Paper

Webinars

• Scholarly Writing: “Six Steps to Developing Your Writing Process”
• Scholarly Writing: “Prewriting Techniques”

Blog

• Free Yourself in the First Draft
• Good Writing Is Rewriting: Learning to Revise
• Organize, Organize, Organize
• Five Tips for Tackling the Dissertation
• Introductions: Waiting Until the End

Breaking Down the MEAL Plan (Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4)

Become your own reviewer—develop your skills so you can make organizational and sentence-level adjustments to improve your draft as well as prepare clean, APA-compliant documents to submit to your committee.

You are ultimately the one responsible for preparing a publication-worthy document at the time of graduation—start developing the self-editing skills and peer support network now to sustain you through the long process of writing and revising a doctoral capstone research project.

Writing Resources:

Grammarly

Grammar and Composition

Scholarly Voice

Other APA Style Guidelines

Program-Specific Templates

Webinars

• Scholarly Writing: “Revising: Reflecting on and Perfecting Your Writing”
• APA Citations & Style:  “Reference List Checklist”

Blog

• Incorporating Grammarly into Your Writing Process
• Becoming Your Own Grammarly
• Five Ways to Create Flow in Your Writing
• Tips for Writing Meaningful and Worthwhile Sentences
• Tools to Streamline Revision
• How to Give Useful Peer Feedback
• Writing Together: How Peer Writing Communities Can Be Your Secret to Success

WriteCast (Writing Center podcast)

• Episode 14: The 5 Rs of Revision

Outside the Writing Center:

Academic Skills Center

• MS Word Support