Capstone Guidance

[Westerner]

Westerner, your paper is helping me get the flow of the layout better than I would have hoped! I appreciate you giving me a copy. It looks like Module Three: Methodology is going to be easier since it doesn't appear to have near as many citations and it isn't as long as Literature Review.

Glad to help! Yes, the Methodology chapter is pretty much the procedure you used to study the topic and write the paper. What helped me most were the instructions "Imagine someone else wanted to follow your steps and do the same research you did. Write the chapter to help them do that." I didn't use any citations there and that was fine.

I am not a TESC student, but you have me curious. Have you tried easybib? I used it for all of my BYU writing and loved it.

Wow, I checked out that site: it's awesome!

[corpsole2]

I am not a TESC student, but you have me curious. Have you tried easybib? I used it for all of my BYU writing and loved it.

I have used EasyBib in the past for MLA citations, but if you want to do APA, you have to pay for it. If you stick with MLA, though, it works just fine.

For my APA citations, I use either the Citation feature on Word 2010, or Son of Citation Machine.

[clep3705]

I started off using Son of Citation Machine and later switched to Google Scholar for formatting citations. If I can find the publication through a Google Scholar search, I copy the APA citation from it. Otherwise, I use Citation Machine.

I also use Google Scholar for finding articles in the first place. Ebsco, Ovid and all of the academic search engines are dreadful. I use them only to get access to the full text of what I find with Google Scholar.

[corpsole2]

To those of you who have taken the capstone course: do you recall the mentor taking a while to grade the discussion topics? Or have any of you "failed" the topics or not gotten a good score? Does that jeopardize the final course grade at all, or is it all cumulative?

In the instructions for the module, it says I had to post a response to the question, and then reply to at least two classmates' responses. I take that to mean it doesn't have to be their responses to my original posting, just my taking part in their posting.

Although I am working my way through this minefield, I am doing fine. I just want to get as good a score as I can, and I hate to not hit the mark on any assignment. Dr. Haydel has proven to be a very understanding mentor, so I guess I am just needlessly worried. I have never written anything quite like this before, so I am obsessing about it.

The thing is, once I complete this course, I am done with my B.A. I don't want to do anything to mess this up at all. I have dreamed about earning a degree for about a dozen years, and I am close to achieving that goal.

Sorry to dump on you, but it's been a long journey to this point.

[Westerner]

To those of you who have taken the capstone course: do you recall the mentor taking a while to grade the discussion topics? Or have any of you "failed" the topics or not gotten a good score? Does that jeopardize the final course grade at all, or is it all cumulative?

My Capstone mentor was pretty fast in grading discussion posts but I've had other TESC professors who took weeks to grade those. Depends on the mentor. I always got good grades on the DPs—they're more informal than the papers, basically you discuss the topic rather than expound or reflect on it And with the Capstone, it's all about your topic anyway, so I don't see how you could fail a DP about that! As far as affecting your grade, it depends on how heavily the DPs are weighted, which is usually not very heavy.

In the instructions for the module, it says I had to post a response to the question, and then reply to at least two classmates' responses. I take that to mean it doesn't have to be their responses to my original posting, just my taking part in their posting.

Right. When it says to respond to 2 or more classmates' posts, you go to their threads and respond. Do that twice or more. You probably should also respond to people who comment on your own thread

Although I am working my way through this minefield, I am doing fine. I just want to get as good a score as I can, and I hate to not hit the mark on any assignment. Dr. Haydel has proven to be a very understanding mentor, so I guess I am just needlessly worried. I have never written anything quite like this before, so I am obsessing about it.

Totally understand, I was stressing about doing well in my first TESC courses too. Well, I continue to stress about my current ones too, but it was more so during the first ones.

The thing is, once I complete this course, I am done with my B.A. I don't want to do anything to mess this up at all. I have dreamed about earning a degree for about a dozen years, and I am close to achieving that goal.

Sorry to dump on you, but it's been a long journey to this point.

Not a problem! You're almost to the goal line—finish strong!

[corpsole2]

Westerner, thanks. I've done all that it says on the instructions about commenting on two or more classmates' walls. All I can figure is that she is waiting for a couple more students to comment. She seems to be very flexible as to deadlines.

And come to think of it, I think there was a similar issue when I took War & American Society. I think it was the second or third module which took Dr. Lansdale nearly a week to grade. I remember it because I called the college about it, and they said this happens sometimes. Can't imagine how I'd fail a DP.

I know that the DPs make up 23% of the total grade; the writing assignments, 45%; the ETS, 2%; and the compiled capstone the remainder.

Oh, well, I guess the only lesson here is I am obsessive.

[Westerner]

Yeah, in my first courses I was getting nervous when weeks passed and my DPs from Module 1 had yet to be graded. Patience, it's a virtue

[corpsole2]

Since I am going to conduct a survey, I chose to use Survey Monkey and have already posted the survey to my Kindle author group. I love how Survey Monkey sets up the surveys and the data is already broken down into bar graphs. This will make it easy for me to incorporate it into the paper. The survey has been up an hour, and already I have six responses, out of an author group of over four hundred. Dr. Haydel said it would be unusual if I got a ten percent response.

Did any of you use Survey Monkey for yours?

[Westerner]

Did any of you use Survey Monkey for yours?

Yep! http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6726CYL I had it running for about a month and got about 35 responses. But it worked

[corpsole2]

Yep! FOR AMERICAN FEMALES ONLY: What are your main sources of fashion inspiration? Survey I had it running for about a month and got about 35 responses. But it worked

I started mine today, and already I have fifteen responses, with about half from outside the U.S. But then, my author group has well over four hundred members who actively surf the group, so it is fairly fast.

I'm not sure if I should shoot for a certain number of responses to give a large enough sample for my study. I am hoping for between thirty to forty, but Dr. Haydel told me I'd be lucky if I got a 10% response. I guess it doesn't have to be a large response for it to be good enough for the study.