SONOMA STATE UNIVERSITY
Global Studies Program
GLOBAL STUDIES CAPSTONE SEMINAR
CAPSTONE
THESIS PLAN
Preparing to write your capstone thesis is, at
once, a greater challenge and a more fundamentally important process than the
actual writing itself. Good writing stems from good information made cogent by
good thinking and planning. Gathering information which is relevant and
organizing that information around a central thesis demands a level of
understanding of the topic which gives inherent value to the subsequent writing.
The Capstone Thesis Plan is the key tool we will use in the Seminar to achieve
the goal of good information made cogent by good thinking and planning.
1. The
Capstone Thesis Proposal. These five items will be submitted together as a basis
for planning your paper and for the approval of your project.
a. Thesis statement. This will be
a one- to three-sentence statement of the general conclusion of your paper. You
will begin by stating your conclusion even before you have done your research.
The statement will be assertive and specific. The statement may be modified as
research and the development of your perspective require.
b. Definition
of Scope. Controlling the range of information to be gathered and the
range of analysis to be applied will help in giving focus and direction to your
paper and help you to avoid a meandering and endless exploration without a
point. There are approaches you can use to define scope in your writing, and
these will be reviewed in the Seminar .
c. Disciplinary Perspectives.
Global studies is an interdisciplinary program of study. SSU expects its
Global Studies graduates to be able to look at complex international issues from
a variety of perspectives in order to see implications which a narrower,
disciplinary focus might miss. You will be expected to employ at least three
disciplinary perspectives in your paper. You must identify these perspectives
and explain how each will generally support your analysis. It is highly
recommended that the disciplinary perspectives chosen for your paper be based on
those disciplines with which you have become most familiar through successfully
completed coursework.
d. Relevance to Global Studies. You must
write a brief paragraph justifying the selection of your thesis as relevant to
the Global Studies Program. There is a very wide range of subject matter which
can fit under the Global Studies rubric, but your topic must retain a clear
element of international and intercultural interest in the context of the
purposes of the program. This step in the process will help you to relate your
work to an appropriate global audience.
e. Audience. You must specify to
whom you are addressing your paper. Knowing the intended audience(s) and its
(their) characteristics is a critical step for any writer. We will explore this
interesting subject further in the Seminar.
Capstone Thesis Proposal Plan
2 3. Outline. Before proceeding with the first
attempt at writing your paper, you will submit in writing and present orally to
the Seminar an outline of your paper. This outline will provide the headings and
subheadings of your paper so arranged as to reveal the architecture of your
paper. The outline forms the skeletal structure, so to speak, of your paper, and
provides a guide for keeping your writing on track. The outline must be approved
and successfully briefed to the Seminar before permission to move to the writing
of the first draft of your paper is granted.
4. First Draft. Each student will
prepare a complete paper and submit it for a first reading by the instructor.
The student will then meet with the instructor to review the paper in detail,
taking into consideration structural, grammatical, formatting, and content
aspects. The student will then have an opportunity to consider this critique in
preparing the final paper for evaluation. To meet the departmental requirement
for this paper, the student must present at least thirty (30) pages of
double-spaced text in the body of the paper, not inclusive of title page, table
of contents, or bibliographic pages. The text should not exceed fifty (50)
pages. Additional requirements for the draft and the final paper will be
provided in the Seminar .
5. Second Reader. The Capstone Seminar paper
which you will submit will be evaluated in the first instance by the instructor.
It will also receive a reading by another faculty member and the final grade for
the paper will be the result of averaging the evaluations of the two readers.
You will propose your second reader. You should choose a faculty member who has
some general or specific knowledge or expertise in your thesis topic area. This
person must also be willing to read and evaluate your paper using a standardized
evaluation template in a timely fashion. Finally, the instructor must concur in
your selection of a second reader .
General Observations It is absolutely required that each student
follow the set of steps prescribed above in developing the capstone paper. There
are no shortcuts to excellent research-and-analysis writing. Solid and timely
preparation yields the best final results with the least anxiety .The capstone
thesis project is more a test of each student's self-discipline than it is of
his or her factual knowledge or rhetorical brilliance. It is essential that each
student maintain the pace set by the Seminar for completion of each task in the
Proposal Plan. Dropping behind that pace in any respect might result in either a
delayed submission of the paper or the submission of a paper of less than
desirable quality .You will receive substantial support and assistance with the
development of your paper, but you must stay on
track in order to benefit from that support and assistance. Late
submission of Proposal Plan elements may result in a reduction of the grade for
the Seminar portion of the course. Late submission of the paper may also result
in a reduction of the final grade for the paper and may for some students also
lead to a delay in graduation. The writing project on which you are
about to embark should be the high water mark of your career as an undergraduate
student. You may count on the instructor, the Seminar student group, and the
Global Studies faculty at SSU to help you achieve a result which will challenge
you and give you a sense of high accomplishment.