The Capstone is one of the hardest papers you will come across in Undergrad. It's not page requirements, the research, or even sticking to a topic, although those are difficult, it is the pressure you feel to write your heart out, to be the best, and maybe even get to present. This paper, for those of you continuing on to Graduate school, is your mock-thesis. The job of this paper is to prepare you for your thesis: the steps, the guidelines, the committee members, and deadlines. It is serious business and that pressure causes serious stress. My advice? Keep a list of topics you find interesting and meditate on them a while. The idea with the Capstone is to come up with an original idea and contribute something to the field of English. This is what you do with your Thesis and Dissertation. So try to think of a new angle on an old literary classic or use a literary theory to hone in on your topic. Do some research over the summer for your Capstone. Get an outline hammered out if you can and start researching as soon as possible. The deadlines come up fast and you do not want to be caught off guard. The worst thing is to have a topic that you soon realize won't hold up with research. You are on your own for this paper. Brainstorm by yourself, annotate, and evaluate your sources all alone. You finally get to see the education you have worked for all these years pay off. All those innocuous papers the professors gave you and the time delving into Literary Theory actually mean something. You have been working your way to this paper for four (or so) years. When the stress is too much to handle, take a walk, and for heaven's sake DO NOT have coffee if you are majorly stressed and are running on adrenaline. That is no good for your health or your writing. Make a schedule of times to write and stick to it. Then you will not feel overwhelmed or pressured. Get ready for the paper of your life, this is all you.
Read this article on Sigma Tau's Wordy By Nature Blog for another angle on the Capstone, aka Senior Thesis.
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The deadline to submit work to the Sigma Tau Rectangle and Sigma Tau Review is May 12 at 10pm. You must be a current member of the Alpha Tau Chapter of Sigma Tau Delta at Cal Baptist to participate. The Rectangle accepts creative pieces: poetry, short stories, novels, novellas, etc. and The Review accepts critical pieces such as essay written for class. Don't miss out this year, submit your writing soon! Follow this link for more information and guidelines.
Today's Monday Madness is in honor of Shakespeare's belated birthday. Here are 17 insult quotes from Shakespeare to use daily. It is for Britain, but I think they can be use here, too. Check it out here. Some examples:“Thou smell of mountain goat.”
“I do desire we may be better strangers.” “You are not worth the dust which the rude wind blows in your face.” “Out of my sight! Thou dost infect my eyes.” “Thou art a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker…” This one is my favorite, "hourly promise breaker," This should be used when talking about the weather forecast. The actors who play literary characters almost never look how we imagine them. Sometimes, they are much hotter than one could imagine. Here are a few of literary characters that the "beautiful" have played. Benedict Cumbercatch and Martin Freeman as Sherlock Homes and John Watson in TV's Sherlock (Also Freeman in The Hobbit) Cate Blanchette as Galadriel in Lord of The Rings Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice Miranda Otto as Eowyen in Lord of The Rings Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan in The Great Gastby Rachel McAdams in The Time Traveller's Wife Leonardo Dicaprio in The Great Gatsby Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games Daniel Craig as James Bond Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With The Drago Tattoo Matthew Lewis as Neville Longbottom in Harry Potter Nicole Kidman as Gertrude Stein (and Virginia Woolf by the way) and Clive Owen as Ernest Hemingway Mathew Macfadyen as Mr. Darcy in the Kiera Knightly Pride and Prejudice Crazed by grammar mistakes? Take the quiz from Buzzfeed and see just how irritable grammar mistakes make you. Read one-star reviews of literary classics. Some are funny, some are written poorly, and others have missed the point of the book. What do you think about these reviews? I recently presented at a Sigma Tau conference at Cal State Northridge. I was nervous about presenting and being smart enough to hold my own with other graduates from other Universities. There was a lot of doubt about my ability to write, speak in public, and the perception I was putting forth into the world. Would I represent CBU well? Does my abstract match my excerpt? Will the audience be able to see what I’m espousing in my writing? I had the opportunity to have a mock-conference with Sigma Tau the week before my presentation that I could work through what portion of my story to present, to choose the best piece to exemplify the subject of my panel and the greater conference, and to start talking about my piece to others. Because of this mock-conference, I had a majority of my edits done, but I still had a lot to do. It was the first time outside of class that I talked about my writing and I needed practice.
The paper I presented was a creative piece, which is unusual for an academic conference. Being that Sigma Tau includes both critical pieces and creative pieces and the CSUN conference was open to creative pieces, I submitted a short story I wrote for Advanced Creative Writing with Professor Tronti a few years ago. I knew I had something with this piece, so I took it and turned it into a screenplay for another class in my Creative Writing minor. In that class I perfected and changed what was not working and what was unclear. That helped with a majority of the edits I did this year. Instead of having one semester to work on this story, I had one year, and what a year in changes that was. It allowed me to meditate on my writing and what I really wanted to say with my piece. Writing outside of class is different from being forced into turning in something before a deadline. Having the opportunity to present and working through my story pushed me into having a dream of writing a novel. The conference had a breakfast and lunch that allowed extra preparation time and networking opportunities. The panel I was on had five students and one Ph.D. moderator. The presenters consisted of four CSUN graduate students and myself. Two of us presented creative pieces and the other two presented critical pieces. We had an hour and fifteen minutes to present five pieces. That left us each 10-15 minutes of presentation time with fifteen minutes of questions afterword. In my preparations, I planned for 10-12 minutes of reading. Two of the presenters had longer pieces and took the entire 15 minutes, and two of us had shorter pieces. We actually ended on time with exactly 15 minutes for questions. This is unusual and because there was actual time for discussions, we had good discussion between the panelists on anxiety, our panel subject, and the authors intent of writing and our deeper thoughts on the subject. A conference is a great opportunity and I had such a great time. I got back to CBU and wished I could present a paper every week, It’s a rush of confidence and academic advancement. I did learn that, as writers, we have to get over the feelings of embarrassment about our writing and that we need to take chances on our writing and ourselves. The new Sigma Tau induction Ceremony is here! Stop by Rosemary's office and take a look. All the photos from the induction ceremony are in it. Find yourself and your family. The book looks better in person so you'll have to come in and see. Starting Monday, April 14.
Follow the link to read the newsletter and read articles such as "The Writing Life: Count of Failure" and " For the Young Adult Lit Nerd: Dystopias and Fantasy Angst, Oh My!" among others. There is also an opportunity to submit critical pieces and book reviews to the Sigma Tau Newsletter (different from the Rectangle and the Review). The 2015 annual Convention is in New Mexico so check out that information as well. Keep in mind the deadline to submit critical and creative pieces to the Rectangle and the Review is May 12. Lets get published!
Just some English major memes to get your week started off right. It's Monday Madness today (yesterday)! |
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May 2015
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