BUSI 4900: Capstone: Strategic Business Management

© 2015 Laureate Education, Inc. 1

Academic Writing Expectations: Capstone Courses

Students at the capstone stage should understand how to use appropriate and relevant content to

develop and explore ideas in writing. In the final project, students must be able to (a) display sentence-,

paragraph-, and essay-level skills; (b) use evidence to support a claim in an academic argument and give

credit to a source; and (c) provide the reader with documentation of research with a reference page.

Capstone projects must contain the appropriate academic sources for the discipline. The writing should

demonstrate an awareness of the importance of presentation style and audience. Walden capstone

criteria align with the Association of American Colleges and Universities assessment rubrics for final

projects. Final projects should be free of errors, cohesive, and comprehensive in scope. For more

information, review the AACU website regarding capstone standards.

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

Sentence-level skills include proper use of grammar and punctuation rules. Paragraph-level skills include

the use of evidence for idea (thesis) development. Essay-level writing skills, including the use of

transitional material and organizational frames, help the reader follow the logic in an academic

argument. Students must use discipline-specific conventions particular to a writing assignment,

including academic expression, presentation, and stylistic choices, appropriate to a discipline-specific

academic audience.

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

In-Text Citations Overview: In general, in-text citations allow you to use evidence to support a claim.

Examples of evidence include statistics, quotations, and other data that you find when you are

conducting research on a topic.

© 2015 Laureate Education, Inc. 2

Short Quotation With Signal Phrase

A “signal phrase” appears at the beginning of a sentence that includes the name of the author.

According to Jones (2010), “Students must practice writing in an academic voice” (p. 11).

Short Quotation Without Signal Phrase

Quotations from authors can be used with or without signal phrases.

Research on learning how to write at the college level revealed that “the fastest way to learn academic

writing is to read articles that are written in a scholarly voice” (Williamson, 2011, p. 22).

Paraphrase

A paraphrase occurs when you do not quote a source directly, but when you use ideas from a source

and restate them in your own words.

According to Williamson (2010), students who want to write in an academic voice should read scholarly

journal articles. [Note that the idea is the same as the above, but the wording belongs to the author

rather than to Williamson.]

Variation for Two Authors

“Writing is the foundational skill of the online classroom” (Gilmer & Walsh, 2012, p. 33). According to

Gilmer and Walsh (2012), students who learn in asynchronous settings write more than brick-and-

mortar students do, and the skill is practiced in classes that are not focused on composition.

Variation for More than Two Authors

“A goal of the Walden Writing Center is to help all students compose comfortably” (Cook, Marshall, &

Pezalla, 2012, p. 44). For students to become comfortable in writing, it is essential to support them and

© 2015 Laureate Education, Inc. 3

provide them with clear academic writing expectations throughout their academic journey (Cook et al.,

2012).

Long Quotation (40+ words)

A long quotation of 40-plus words is called a block quotation and is set apart from the rest of the text.

Note that the actual quote does not have a quotation mark before or after it because it is visibly set

apart from the essay.

Burton’s (2011) study found the following:

Students encounter difficulty mastering academic writing. Few students have used style guides

before attending an undergraduate program. Composing academic material can be difficult for

many students, but with time and practice, composing in a scholarly voice can become an

automatic process. (p. 199)

C. Provide the reader with documentation of research with a reference page.

Article With Single Author

Constantine, S. (2006). Correction in the countryside: Convict labour in rural Germany 1871–1914.

German History, 24(1), 39–61. doi: 10.1191/0266355406gh362oa

Article With Two or More Authors

Intrigue, A., & Allure, P. (2006). An article without a DOI number. Journal of Citing Correctly, 99(3), 331–

355. Retrieved from http://www.journalofcitingcorrectly.com

Unknown Author

Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary (10th ed.). (1993). Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster.

© 2015 Laureate Education, Inc. 4

Book With Author or Authors

Mitchell, D., & Ruff, D. (1925). The menace in your neighborhood (5th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.

Book With Editor or Editors

Timmerman, B. (2010). Title of the chapter or article. In A. Cook & J. Patterson (Eds.), Title of book here

(pp. 30–45). New York, NY: Best Publishing House Ever.

Electronic (Internet) Source

Intrigue, A., & Allure, P. (2006). An article without a DOI number. Journal of Citing Correctly, 99(3), 331–

355. Retrieved from http://www.journalofcitingcorrectly.com