I'm a junior marketing major, can you help me understand the required dissertation format for the Business Strategy Capstone project due in 6 weeks while working 20 hours a week?

For a business capstone project, you should almost certainly use APA style, as it is the industry standard for marketing and business research. MLA is typically reserved for the humanities, so sticking with APA will keep your work looking professional and aligned with what your professor expects. I know that balancing a twenty-hour work week with a forty-page writing requirement feels incredibly daunting, but try to view your research as building a puzzle rather than just filling pages. If you think of your project like constructing a house, your outline is the frame; you just need to add the walls and details one room at a time. Since you are struggling with the length and source requirements, try focusing on deep-diving into specific case studies within your social media topic rather than keeping everything broad. Each case study can easily eat up five to ten pages and naturally integrates your required citations. Regarding the abstract, don’t stress about writing it perfectly right now; save it for the very end. Once the paper is finished, you’ll find it much easier to summarize your main findings in a concise paragraph. You have a solid foundation with your outline, so just commit to writing a few pages every time you have a shift break or a quiet hour, and you will hit that page count before you know it. You have already done the hardest part by organizing your thoughts, so just take it one section at a time and you will cross that finish line.

You should definitely stick with APA style for your capstone, as it is the professional standard in business and marketing, whereas MLA is almost exclusively used for literature and the humanities. Since you are already six weeks out and juggling a part-time job, the most important thing is to stop viewing that forty-page requirement as a hurdle you have to jump over and start seeing it as a space you need to fill with substantive analysis. The reason you might be struggling to hit the page count is likely because your current scope is too broad; if you try to cover the entire landscape of social media and consumer behavior, you will end up with a superficial summary rather than a rigorous academic argument. Instead, narrow your focus to a specific niche, such as how short-form video algorithms specifically influence impulse purchasing patterns among Gen Z consumers. By zooming in, you can dedicate entire sections to literature reviews, detailed methodology, and complex data interpretation, which naturally adds length while actually improving the quality of your work. When it comes to the abstract, remember that it is the final piece of the puzzle, not the first. Don't stress about perfecting it right now; write your core chapters first, and then summarize your findings once the narrative is set in stone. Regarding your source requirement, don't just dump citations into your bibliography to hit twenty; use them as the foundation for your arguments. If you find yourself short on pages, look for contradictory studies or conflicting market trends within your research. For instance, if you find one report claiming that influencer marketing increases brand loyalty but another suggesting it leads to consumer fatigue, you have a perfect opportunity to write three or four pages comparing those perspectives. This kind of critical analysis is exactly what professors look for in a capstone, and it helps you reach that page count organically without resorting to fluff. Finally, be kind to yourself regarding your work schedule. Working twenty hours a week is a significant commitment, so you need to treat your writing time like a non-negotiable shift. Try to carve out two-hour blocks where you focus exclusively on one section of your outline, rather than trying to write the whole thing at once. If you find your progress stalling, reach out to your professor during office hours with a specific question about your methodology rather than a general complaint about the length; showing that you are already deep into the research process will prove you are taking the project seriously. If you stay organized and keep your focus tight, you will find that forty pages actually goes by faster than you think.