{"id":1149,"date":"2014-01-28T02:54:03","date_gmt":"2014-01-28T02:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writeherewritenowwriteon.wordpress.com\/?p=84"},"modified":"2016-02-04T11:41:01","modified_gmt":"2016-02-04T17:41:01","slug":"capstone-conquest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/capstone-conquest\/","title":{"rendered":"Capstone conquest"},"content":{"rendered":"

by EliSabeth Bancroft Wessel Meindl<\/p>\n

Capstone.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all heard it, a lot of us know it as an old friend, or sordid enemy. And regardless of your relationship with it\u2014whether you\u2019re just getting to know it, talking about it, or already heavily involved with it, it\u2019s a big deal. The secret that I want to let you in on is that (come closer)\u2014it\u2019s not<\/i>. That final capstone product is made up of a dozen (okay, or more) little things that are completely in your grasp, even through blurred vision of sleepless nights.<\/p>\n

Here are ten tips to help the process!<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Stay focused,<\/b> go back to that contract and your advisor as many times as you need to make sure you\u2019re not veering off the path of intent. You will find many tangents that could easily become their own capstones, so remember to keep your topic and purpose in focus. When I was first attending Principia I was in a class where there was a huge assignment due at the end of the term. We had been working on it the entire semester, and about three weeks out I was still unable to pull this thing to a manageable paper. So I met with my professor, who was kind enough to be blunt and tell me that I was ignoring the assignment. That\u2019s why I was struggling. It happens, we get side tracked, so be aware of this pitfall and don\u2019t waste your time.
    \n <\/b><\/li>\n
  2. Be honest<\/b>\u2014with yourself and with your advisor. There is no person out there who is looking for you to fail, especially your capstone guide, so be willing to let go of the fear that you haven\u2019t done all he or she has asked and keep recognizing that you are doing God\u2019s work just as much as your own work. It\u2019s our job to be obedient to the one Mind, and part of that is humility. If you\u2019re struggling, talk to your advisor!<\/li>\n
  3. Write what you know.<\/b> That can\u2019t be said enough! Write down all the things you know, and when you get stuck, sit down and write what you know again.\u00a0 This will help you break writer\u2019s block and give a fresh perspective or tone to your own \u201cvoice\u201d in the writing, because there on the paper will be all those facts you\u2019ve picked up during this project in your own words.<\/li>\n
  4. Outline.<\/b> The same five-paragraph paper outline they taught me in high school was where I started my 60-page capstone, and you know what? It totally helped. It gave me a simple starting place, and kept me focused in a logical direction. Point, sub-point, sub-point, repeat. There will be more than five paragraphs, and more than two sub-points, but creating a simple \u201cform\u201d to plug your information into it will help you organize your thoughts and all those factoids you\u2019ve learned.<\/li>\n
  5. Don\u2019t pre-edit<\/b>; it doesn\u2019t help anyone. If you\u2019re so distracted by the sentence you just typed that you\u2019re not paying attention to the next one you\u2019re putting down, you are pulling focus from every good idea you\u2019re reflecting.\u00a0 Just put the words down and let them sit together. Stay attentive to the ones you are writing and get through the whole idea before returning to check your commas or seeing if there\u2019s a different adjective you would prefer to use. These are all important things, but they come later.<\/li>\n
  6. Save multiple drafts.<\/b> Label them any way you want, but don\u2019t limit yourself to just one draft that you change again and again, because tomorrow you may realize that the silly idea you typed today was actually brilliant, but you can\u2019t quite remember it. I went through 20+ drafts of my capstone. No, you don\u2019t need 20 versions, but for me it was helpful to just \u201cSave As\u201d every time I went in to make changes or continue writing.<\/li>\n
  7. You do<\/i> have enough information.<\/b> Don\u2019t over-research. Write! So what if you have some holes\u2014get the paper down and see what kind of Swiss cheese you\u2019ve made and then<\/i> go back and look for specific answers. But what if you don\u2019t have enough information<\/b>? Go back to your main sources: who are their sources? Go find them. It\u2019s a good place to start if you haven\u2019t already been there, but get it all down on paper first to find out<\/li>\n
  8. Take breaks.<\/b> Writing for 16 hours is impressive but highly unproductive. Set timers, use other homework as the balance, and tell yourself, \u201cI\u2019ll do 30 minutes of capstone, then 30 minutes of [blank].\u201d After a 45-minute session with your capstone, stand up, walk around, and stare at something farther away than your computer screen. It will help you stay focused, and you won\u2019t feel like your trapped under the never-ending project.<\/li>\n
  9. Use technology for good.<\/b> Install a blocker on your search engine that gives you five minutes to surf the Web in-between 25-minute blocks of Internet lockdown.<\/li>\n
  10. Breathe<\/i>.<\/b> You\u2019re going to do this.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Elisabeth Meindl resides in Bellville, Texas, and is a current MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts student at Goddard College. Last semester she completed and turned in her religion major capstone at Principia College.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    by EliSabeth Bancroft Wessel Meindl Capstone. We\u2019ve all heard it, a lot of us know it as an old friend, or sordid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,21,109],"tags":[60,61,59,42,44],"class_list":["post-1149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-getting-started","category-revision","category-writeherewritenowwriteon","tag-capstone","tag-focus","tag-prayer","tag-research","tag-writing-process"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5DI6r-ix","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1198,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions\/1198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}