Walden undergraduate students should demonstrate awareness of context and audience in written assignments. In 2000/3000 level courses, students must be able to (a) display sentence and paragraph writing skills while practicing essay level skills and (b) use evidence to support a claim in an academic argument and give credit in writing to the source.  Walden uses APA style guidelines to give credit to sources. Walden students must carefully proofread all work before submitting assignments.  In each course, students develop and improve a revision process that contributes to quality composition. 

A. Display sentence-, paragraph-, and essay-level skills.

Sentence-level skills include awareness of grammar and punctuation rules.  Paragraph-level skills involve use of evidence for idea (thesis) development.  Students should practice essay-level writing skills, including the use of transitional material and organizational frames. Students should display awareness of discipline specific conventions particular to a writing assignment, including academic expression, presentation, and stylistic choices appropriate to an academic audience.

B. Use evidence from research to support a claim and give credit to the source.

Citations Overview:  In general, citations allow you to use evidence to support a claim by crediting the source of the evidence.  Examples of evidence include statistics, quotations, and other data that you find when you are conducting research on a topic.