MLA Capstone Seminar

This one semester course is planned as a discernment process—a practical guide to improving your skills in research, writing, and thinking as you prepare your Capstone thesis projects. Three main units comprise the course: Reviewing the literature; Finding a model; and Framing your research. As the term progresses, these units will expand to structure your writing goals for your thesis. As a class we will cover a variety of writing concerns: warranting claims, conducting library searches, getting bibliographic instruction, writing from sources, creating a dialogue among different disciplines and scholars, interpreting and attributing sources, writing for an audience, analyzing data and methods, exploring structures of presentation, and improving clarity and style. We will also explore the challenges and values in designing interdisciplinary research projects, in order to improve your communication with your faculty advisor and to ensure that your Capstone project is an effective culmination of your MLA coursework. You must attend and participate fully in order to pass this course successfully or have the instructor sign off as your second reader. *N.B.: Before beginning this seminar, do review pages 24-26 of the MLA Handbook for information on preparing your Capstone proposal; it is helpful to attach a working bibliography revealing recent and relevant searches of multiple scholarly databases for peer-reviewed journal articles on your topic, in addition to books.).