WGU UXM3 Task 1: Academic Research and Evidence-Based Writing
Two sections. One QUOTA template. One evidence-based essay. And a rubric that’s more specific than it looks. Here’s exactly what each part requires — and what gets students sent back for revisions when they miss the mark on the source evaluation or the cultural awareness discussion.
UXM3 Task 1 looks deceptively simple on the surface. Two sources, a template, a short essay. But the rubric has eight distinct evaluation criteria — and several of them are easy to half-answer if you don’t know what the evaluator is actually checking for. The QUOTA evaluation especially trips students up, because each row in the table requires a specific type of response, not just a general comment about the source.
What This Guide Covers
What the Task Is Actually Asking
There are two competencies being assessed here: applying research strategies and technology literacy (7092.1.2), and applying critical thinking and cultural awareness in writing (7092.1.3). The task is the course’s way of checking both at once.
Section 1 tests whether you can evaluate sources using a structured framework — the QUOTA criteria. You’re given two sources and told upfront which one is credible and which one is not. Your job isn’t to figure that out from scratch. It’s to explain why, using each of the five QUOTA criteria, for both sources.
Section 2 tests whether you can write an evidence-based paper connecting a career role to real professional challenges — and apply cultural awareness thinking to that context. The paper draws on the sources you evaluated in Section 1. Both sections are interconnected. You can’t write a strong Section 2 if you haven’t engaged properly with the sources in Section 1.
WGU provides a supporting resource under the Web Links section of the task. Read it before completing the QUOTA table. It defines exactly what each criterion means in the context of source evaluation. Students who skip it and write generic responses in the table — “the source seems reliable” or “the author seems qualified” — almost always end up at Approaching Competence on rubric item B. The definitions matter. Use them.
The QUOTA Criteria — What Each One Is Asking
QUOTA isn’t just an acronym. Each letter represents a different lens for evaluating a source. Treating them as interchangeable — or writing the same general idea across all five — is the most common way to produce an incomplete evaluation.
Who Wrote It and Where Was It Published?
This is about author credentials and publication venue. For a journal article, you look at the authors’ professional affiliations, academic degrees, and whether the journal is peer-reviewed. For a Wikipedia article, neither of those criteria is reliably verifiable — anyone can edit it, and there are no named, credentialed authors attached to the content.
What to write here: For Source 1, identify the authors’ credentials and the journal’s peer-review status. For Source 2 (Wikipedia), explain that author qualifications cannot be established because Wikipedia entries are collaboratively edited by anonymous contributors and do not attribute content to identifiable, credentialed authors.When Was It Published?
Currency matters differently for different topics. For health equity and cultural competence — a rapidly evolving field — a 2020 article is current. A Wikipedia article has no verifiable publication date attached to specific claims. Individual sentences may have been added or changed at any point. That makes currency impossible to confirm for any particular piece of information in a Wikipedia entry.
What to write here: For Source 1, state the publication year and explain why that currency is appropriate for the topic. For Source 2, explain that Wikipedia’s continuous editing model means there is no reliable publication date for any specific claim — the last edit date for the whole page doesn’t tell you when any particular piece of information was added or changed.Is It Unbiased? And Does It Need to Be?
This one is slightly more nuanced. “Objective” doesn’t mean a source must have zero perspective — it means the information is presented fairly, evidence is cited, and any bias or viewpoint is acknowledged rather than hidden. A peer-reviewed article can take a position and still be credible, as long as it supports that position with evidence and discloses its methodology. Wikipedia’s neutrality policy is stated, but enforcement is inconsistent — and because entries can be edited by anyone, objectivity is not guaranteed.
What to write here: For Source 1, assess whether the article presents evidence fairly and notes any limitations. For Source 2, discuss Wikipedia’s stated neutrality policy and then explain why that policy doesn’t make individual entries reliably objective — editing by non-experts or interest-driven contributors can introduce bias that isn’t flagged for the reader.Can You Trust the Information?
Truth here means verifiability — whether the information in the source is backed by evidence, data, or cited research. Peer-reviewed articles go through editorial scrutiny and fact-checking by experts before publication. Wikipedia does not. Claims on Wikipedia may link to citations, but the citations can be misrepresented, taken out of context, or simply absent for some claims. That’s the distinction to make.
What to write here: For Source 1, reference the peer-review process as evidence that the claims have been vetted. For Source 2, point out that while Wikipedia sometimes cites sources, the platform does not verify that claims accurately represent those sources — and many claims appear without citations at all.Is It Relevant to Your Career Role?
This is where your career role selection matters. The Applicable criterion asks you to connect the source directly to the career you identified in part A. If you chose a Human Services career role, you need to explain how the specific content of each source relates to the work someone in that role actually does. Generic statements (“this is relevant to helping people”) don’t satisfy the rubric. Specific connections do.
What to write here: For both sources, tie the content to specific responsibilities or challenges of your chosen career role. For Source 1 — the cultural humility article — the connection is direct: Human Services professionals work with diverse populations and need cultural awareness to work effectively. For Source 2, even an unreliable source can be discussed in terms of relevance — though part of your evaluation should note that its lack of credibility limits its usefulness as a professional resource.Evaluating Source 1 — The Cultural Humility Article
The assigned article is: Foronda et al. (2020). “Rethinking Cultural Competence: Shifting to Cultural Humility.” Published in Health Equity, a peer-reviewed open-access journal. DOI: 10.1177/1178632920970580.
This is the credible source. Your QUOTA evaluation needs to explain why it’s credible — not just assert that it is. Work through each criterion individually and make specific references to the source’s characteristics: who the authors are, when it was published, how the peer-review process supports the T criterion, and so on.
What Makes This Source Credible
- Published in a peer-reviewed journal — editorial review by field experts
- Authors have academic affiliations in nursing and health sciences — named, credentialed contributors
- Published in 2020 — current within the five-year window for the topic
- Presents a developed argument with cited evidence — supports the T (True) criterion
- Directly relevant to careers involving work with diverse populations — supports A (Applicable)
What the Article Actually Argues
The article makes the case that cultural competence — the traditional approach of acquiring skills and knowledge about other cultures — is insufficient on its own. It argues for a shift toward cultural humility: a lifelong process of self-reflection, openness to learning, and acknowledgment of power dynamics in professional relationships. This distinction is central to Section 2 of your assignment.
Evaluating Source 2 — The Wikipedia Entry
The second source is the Wikipedia article on “Human Services” at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_services. This is the not credible source. Your job is to explain, across all five QUOTA criteria, why it fails to meet the standard for academic or professional use.
Students who evaluate Source 2 by simply writing “Wikipedia is unreliable” across all five criteria will receive an incomplete evaluation. Each criterion needs to be addressed separately, and each needs a specific reason tied to that criterion. “Not qualified” needs to explain the anonymous authorship model. “Not objective” needs to explain inconsistent neutrality enforcement. “Not up-to-date” needs to explain the undated editing history. Don’t collapse five distinct arguments into one vague statement.
| QUOTA Criterion | What to Examine in the Wikipedia Entry | Likely Conclusion |
|---|---|---|
| Qualified | Can you identify the author(s) by name and verify their credentials? Who has editorial accountability for the content? | No named, credentialed authors. Anyone with an account can edit. No institutional accountability. |
| Up-to-Date | Does the page provide a publication date? Can you verify when specific claims were added or last verified? | The “last edited” date applies to the whole page, not individual claims. Content currency is unverifiable at the claim level. |
| Objective | Does Wikipedia’s stated neutrality policy guarantee that this particular entry is balanced and free of editorializing? | Policy exists but enforcement is inconsistent. Bias or inaccuracies can persist without detection. |
| True | Are all claims cited? Are those citations verified to accurately represent the source? Is the editorial process comparable to peer review? | Citations are inconsistent. Claims can appear without sources. No expert peer-review before publication. |
| Applicable | Does the content relate to your career role? Even if it does, does its credibility level make it appropriate to use as a professional resource? | Content may relate to the career topic, but its credibility issues limit its usefulness as a professional or academic resource. |
Section 2 — What the Evidence-Based Paper Must Cover
Section 2 is where most of the rubric items live. The essay must cover seven distinct things — each mapped to its own rubric criterion. Writing a well-organized general essay about your career role isn’t enough. You need to hit each criterion explicitly and support every claim with examples from the sources you identified in Section 1 (part C).
That last part matters. The rubric for D1, D2, D2a, D3, D4, and D4a all specify: “well supported by relevant examples from the sources identified in part C.” If your essay makes a claim without tying it back to one of those sources, you risk an Approaching Competence grade even if the claim itself is accurate.
The Cultural Awareness Sections — D3, D4, D4a
These three criteria are where the second competency (cultural awareness) gets assessed. They also tend to be the most under-developed parts of student submissions — because they require more than describing diversity. The rubric is checking whether you can logically connect cultural awareness to your specific career role and the specific individuals you’d encounter.
Two Types of Individuals You Would Encounter in This Career Role
Identify two distinct types of individuals a person in your career role would work with. These need to be relevant to the career goal — not just generic categories of “people.” For a Human Services role, this might be clients from specific demographic groups, colleagues from different professional backgrounds, community stakeholders, or service agency staff. Each type needs to be described and tied to the career role with source support.
What evaluators want to see: Specificity. “People from different cultures” is too vague. “Immigrant clients navigating public benefit systems” and “interdisciplinary team members from healthcare and social work backgrounds” are specific enough to anchor D4 and D4a meaningfully.Why Cultural Awareness Matters When Working With the Individuals You Described
This connects directly to the cultural humility article from Source 1. The explanation must logically apply to the specific individuals you identified in D3 — not a general argument about why cultural sensitivity is good. If your D3 individuals include immigrant clients, your D4 explanation should discuss how cultural awareness shapes the professional’s ability to build trust, interpret communication styles, or navigate differing perspectives on help-seeking behavior. Use the source.
What Happens When Cultural Awareness Is Absent
This is the negative case — what are the concrete negative effects when a professional in this role lacks cultural awareness when working with the individuals from D3? The rubric requires this to be complete, accurate, and logically applied to those specific individuals. Vague statements like “misunderstandings can occur” won’t reach Competent. Describe the specific professional, ethical, or relational consequences that follow from a lack of cultural humility — and again, use your source.
Drawing from the assigned article: The Foronda et al. (2020) article discusses how defaulting to cultural competence thinking — treating culture as a set of learnable facts — can lead professionals to overgeneralize about individuals, miss individual variation, and reinforce power imbalances. That’s specific, source-backed content that maps directly to what D4a is asking for.APA Citations and the Reference Page
The rubric criterion E — Sources — requires two things: in-text citations for every source that’s quoted, paraphrased, or summarized, and a reference list that accurately identifies the author, date, title, and source location. Both must be present. Having one without the other puts you at Approaching Competence.
In-Text Citation Format — APA 7th
For a paraphrase: (Foronda et al., 2020). For a direct quote: (Foronda et al., 2020, p. X). Every claim drawn from a source needs a citation immediately following it — not at the end of the paragraph. If you make three paraphrased claims from the same source in one paragraph, cite after each one.
Reference List Entry — Journal Article
Foronda, C., Baptiste, D.-L., Reinholdt, M. M., & Ousman, K. (2020). Rethinking cultural competence: Shifting to cultural humility. Health Equity, 4(1), 672–675. https://doi.org/10.1177/1178632920970580
Reference List Entry — Wikipedia
Wikipedia entries are generally not listed in APA reference lists because they lack stable authorship and publication dates. If you reference the Wikipedia article in Section 1 only for the purpose of evaluating it, note that in your reference list as: Wikipedia. (n.d.). Human services. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_services
One Common Formatting Error
Reference list entries use a hanging indent — first line flush left, all subsequent lines indented 0.5 inches. Many students format them as regular paragraphs or use a first-line indent instead. In WGU submissions, this falls under rubric criterion F (professional communication). It won’t fail the paper alone, but it signals formatting carelessness that evaluators notice.
Rubric Breakdown — What Each Criterion Actually Needs
State the Role. Connect It to Your Degree.
The career role must be related to your degree plan’s focus. If you’re in a Human Services program, a role like case manager, social services coordinator, or community outreach worker is appropriate. Don’t pick something tangential. The evaluator is checking for a logical connection between your degree and the role — state that connection explicitly rather than assuming it’s obvious.
Complete and Accurate — All 5 Criteria, Both Sources
The evaluation is “complete and accurate” only when all five QUOTA criteria are addressed for both sources and each response actually speaks to what that criterion measures. Incomplete means you’ve addressed only some criteria, or your responses don’t match the criterion — for example, writing about publication date under the Q (Qualified) section instead of author credentials.
Two Credible Sources, Last 5 Years, Related to Career Role
For Section 2, you need to identify two credible sources that relate to your career role. These can be the same sources evaluated in Section 1 (Source 1 is credible; Source 2 is not, so you’d need to find a replacement if you’re relying on Section 1 sources for Section 2 evidence). Peer-reviewed journal articles published in the last five years are safest. Google Scholar filtered by date is a reliable starting point.
Each Criterion Needs Specific Content and Source Support
D1 (two professional skills), D2 (one problem), D2a (applying one skill to that problem), D3 (two types of individuals), D4 (cultural awareness with those individuals), D4a (negative effects of lacking cultural awareness) — each must be addressed individually and connected to your sources. Writing a flowing essay that weaves everything together is fine, but make sure every rubric element is present and identifiable. Evaluators work through the rubric item by item.
Citations in Text + Reference List + Grammar and Fluency
E requires both in-text citations and a reference list. If either is missing or inaccurate, you’re at Approaching Competence regardless of how well the content is written. F requires satisfactory grammar, sentence fluency, contextual spelling, and punctuation. WGU uses Grammarly for Education — substantial errors flagged under the Correctness category are specifically mentioned in the rubric as the threshold for Approaching Competence.
Frequently Asked Questions
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WGU performance assessments, QUOTA evaluations, evidence-based writing, and APA formatting — our academic writing team works with WGU students across programs.
WGU Course Help Get StartedBefore You Submit
Run through this checklist before uploading to the WGU task submission portal. Section 1 and Section 2 are submitted as one document — the QUOTA Template file with all sections completed.
Section 1 — Both QUOTA Tables Fully Completed
All five QUOTA criteria filled in for Source 1 and Source 2. Each response speaks to what that criterion actually measures. No cells left blank or filled with placeholder text.
Career Role Stated and Tied to Your Degree Focus
Named at the top of the template and consistent with your degree plan. If it requires explanation (e.g., an adjacent role), provide that connection explicitly.
Section 2 Essay Covers All Six D-Criteria
D1, D2, D2a, D3, D4, D4a — each addressed with specific content, not just mentioned. Each supported by a citation from the credible sources identified in part C.
In-Text Citations Present for Every Paraphrase or Quote
APA 7th edition format. Author last name, year, and page number for direct quotes. Every claim drawn from a source cited at the point of use.
Reference Page Included With All Sources Listed Correctly
Hanging indent format. All authors, dates, titles, journal names, volumes, and DOIs or URLs included. Every in-text citation has a matching reference entry.