Preparing for the Final Project: Outlining Your Goals, Intentions, and Approach
Outlining Your Goals, Intentions, and Approach
If you haven’t done so recently, review the “Preview of Your Final Project” criteria sheet. For this assignment, provide an outline with your goals, intentions, and approach for your Final Project.
Identify the role of the Community Organization for your project. You should utilize all the information that you collected since the beginning of this course.
Please feel free to use any type of outline you would like, but keep in mind, you will need to cover the information below with consistency, continuity, and originality. Because this is an outline, you will have the opportunity to make changes to this as you progress through the project, but the more you can “nail down” here, the more you will be able to stay focused moving forward.
Note: If you use any resources in your outline, cite the publication(s), any direct quotations, and any summarized or paraphrased material. Use APA citation format for both your in-text and references page citations.
Keep in mind, any sources you choose should be no more than five (5) years old. This is part of the requirements for your Final Project.
- Title Your Project:Be concise; be catchy. Use your title to both draw your readers/audience in and to demonstrate what the project is about. Try to keep your titles within five or fewer words.
- Introduction: Describe the organization, the work they do, any key players within the organization, and why it may be interesting to your readers/audience. Include your thesis statement (a short description of the purpose of your work).
- Readers/Audience:Describe the readers/audience you will be directing your project toward. Consider what they know, what they might need from your work, and what they will expect. Briefly discuss how you will meet the needs of your readers/audience.
- Methods: Include a description of how you plan to gather and analyze your data (i.e. reviewing websites, reviewing related articles, interviews, analyzing similar organizations, and so on).
- Results:You likely haven’t found any results yet, but provide a description of what you hope to find or what you think you might find.
- Conclusion:Based on the information you have gathered so far, start identifying how what you’ve learned connects to your thesis and how it falls under the scope of service-learning and civic engagement. Write up a brief description of those connections.
- References Page:Include an APA style citation list of any sources you have used or are considering using in your project (this should appear on its own page at the end of your outline).
This week, we will be expanding on the work we started in week two of this course. Rather than just analyzing resources, this week we will be blending our resources into a larger frame, drawing connections between each of the resources and to our project thesis.
A literature review has two specific goals:
- To demonstrate that you, the researcher, has done his or her due dillgence in exploring the work other researchers have done in the area; and
- To ground the theory in the current research available.
You should think of your literature review as a way to tell a story about your research using sources as guideposts along the way. Think about your role in this as a moderator in a discussion between your sources, and your job is to keep them focused on your thesis (this is usually the first section of a research article, so you should use the literature reviews of your sources as a model for what we are doing here).
You will need a minimum of five (5) sources in your literature review (you will need a total of ten in your Final Project). Consider the following to help you gather these sources:
- Do a library search using Grantham’s EBSCOhostlibrary database or from Google Scholar
- Use key words to search (try different variations)
- Only use scholarly books or peer-reviewed journal articles
- Choose sources from within the past 5 years (you can set your EBSCO search to only show articles within this range)
- Read titles to see what looks relevant (don’t waste your time reading things that don’t look like they will work for your project)
- Read the abstracts and only choose the most pertinent articles (once again, don’t waste your time—if the abstract doesn’t seem promising, move on to the nerxt article).
Please note: information from the Internet may not be used for this project unless the source is from an e-journal (a peer-reviewed journal that is published on the web). The organization’s website is an exception to this rule, but it can only count as one of your ten sources.
Assignment
Create a literature review, incorporating each of your references (minimum of five), tying them to each other and to the thesis of your project in a single narrative. You should cite each source in the body of your literature review and in a references page at the end of your paper.
Your literature review should be arranged in the following way:
- Introduction: A concise definition of the topic and organization with which you are working. A clearly stated thesis of your project. A brief description about how this project might be interesting and/or important to your readers/adudience.
- Main Body: A discussion of each of your sources, including what they are claiming, how they relate to other sources you are using, and how they support your thesis (make sure you identify and cite each source as you use them). Each work should be summarized and evaluated for its premise, scope, and conclusion. In addition, address any inconsistencies, omissions, or errors, as well as accuracy, depth, and relevance you find compelling or think maight be useful to your readers/audience. Use logical connections and transitions to connect sources.
- Conclusion:The conclusion summarizes the key findings of the review in general terms. You may want to revisit commonalities and differences between your sources, whether favorable or not. Make sure you tie your work throughout this review back to your thesis.
References: As well as accurate in-text citations, your literature review must contain complete and correct APA citations for every source in a references page at the end of your review.
Throughout the course, you have been working toward your final project. This week, you will be submitting a rough draft of that project. Using the information from your outline, your bibliography, and your literature review, combine the information to create a rough draft (you will have the opportunity for this to be reviewed by your instructor and your peers). Pay close attention to the following criteria to ensure you covered everything.
While this is a rough draft of your project, keep in mind that the more complete your draft, the greater chance you have to receive relevant and constructive feedback.
Once you have completed your work, post it to “The Rough Draft” forum (we will return to this forum in our peer review activity in week six).
You have three options in how you can present your final project:
As a Paper
Your paper should be creative and interesting, and demonstrate what you have learned. It should be a minimum of 5-7 pages in length and you will use APA style formatting with a title page and reference section. You should use Times New Roman, 12pt. font, double-space your lines, and set your page up with one inch margins (See the APA Template included in the Course Resources folder)
As a Presentation
Like the paper option, your presentation should be creative, interesting, and demonstrate what you have learned throughout the project. Your presentation should be 8 to 10 minutes in length, include visual elements (graphics, pictures, etc.), be presented using a program such as PowerPoint or Prezi, and you should record yourself giving the presentation (consider using screen capture programs such as JING or Eyejot to record your voice—be aware, you may need to create more than one file).
As a Speech
As it is in the other two options, your speech should be creative, interesting, and demonstrate what you have learned throughout the project. Your speech should be 8 to 10 minutes in length and include a typed handout.
For All Assignment Types
Your assignment should be well-organized and demonstrate an orderly flow of information that clearly addresses the subject chosen. In addition to the above criteria, your final project should include the following elements:
The Community Organization: Clearly indicate the focus of the organization and the community needs that the organization. A brief historical background of the organization should also be included.
- Discuss any community partnerships that they have. Suggest additional partnerships that you feel they should have.
- Explore how the cross-cultural challenges and humanitarian considerations are involved.
- Demonstrate how the organization uses volunteers and the economic benefits associated with this (not just “free labor”).
- Illustrate any roadblocks that the organization has faced or potential could face and how they did or might find solutions.
- Describe the organization’s vision for the future.
- Indicate what areas in which you feel the organization could improve. What challenges (technological, political, economic, laws and regulations, community-based initiatives, educational, etc.) will they need to overcome?
- Discuss potential ways you might be able to contribute to the organization. How could your own interests, talents, and skills benefit this organization?
Research:
- You will need to include a minimum of ten (10) sourcesto support your project claims.
- Additionally, you will need to ensure the sources you choose are no more than five (5) years old.
Writing:
- Title your Project
- Introduction:Begin with the attention-getter, tie in the background information, and end the introduction with your thesis.
- Body:
-
- Clearly identify the topic of each section. The topic must be a statement, not a question, and should begin with your own ideas and your own words.
- After identifying your topic, use quotations or paraphrase from your sources to help illustrate the point you are making (be sure to identify the author(s) and source(s)).
- After you have given support, spend a sentence or two explaining how the example(s) support the section topic.
- A compilation of your research, your literature review, your methods, (how the data was collected or generated and analyzed), and your results should be included in the body of your project.
- Conclusion:
-
- Restate your thesis. This means that you say about the same thing as you did in your thesis, but you say it differently.
- After stating your thesis, restate the topics from each of your body sections and emphasize what is important for your audience/readers to remember.
- End your conclusion with a call to action that illustrates what your audience/readers should do with the information you presented.
Please note: You will have the opportunity to revise and perfect this project, but you should do your best to make each step as complete as possible so you can receive more relevant and constructive feedback from your instructor and your peers.
Week 6
Peer Review
Peer evaluations have proven to be one of the most beneficial and impactful methods of improvement. It is also one of the hardest things to do, as a peer evaluator walks a thin line between constructive criticism and harsh opinion. Nevertheless, you might be surprised at how helpful the advice of your classmates can be.
For this assignment, you are to evaluate the rough drafts of two different classmates based on the provided rubric below.
To retrieve these rough drafts, you will need to return to “The Rough Draft” forum in week five of this course.
Peer Review Rubric
A few parameters:
- Your individual rough drafts should have already been submitted in the “Rough Draft” forum in week five.
- Choose two different rough drafts to evaluate (when possible, please choose the drafts you will review that have not been reviewed by your classmates or that only have one review. By doing this, we can better ensure that each of your fellow students has at least one peer review on his or her work—simply put, choose carefully; don’t just pick the first two drafts you see).
- Each of these reviews should have your feedback provided in a Word or Open Office Document. Utilize the provided rubric (linked above) and include this with your constructive feedback, incorporating specific, positive remarks as well as helpful suggestions so your peer is able to see you genuinely evaluated their rough draft.
- You will provide this feedback as a reply to each of your two peers within this Peer Review Drop Box which will then be graded upon the close of this week.
Week 7
Final Draft
Throughout the course, you have been working toward your final project. This week, you will be submitting a rough draft of that project. Using the information you’re your outline, your bibliography, and your literature review, combine the information to create a rought draft (you will have the opportunity for this to be reviewed by your instructor and your peers). Pay close attention to the following criteria to ensure you covered everything. While this is a rough draft of your project, keep in mind that the more complete your draft, the more chance you have to receive relevant and constructive feeback.
You had three options in how you can present your final project. Check your rough draft against the corresponding requirements:
As a Paper
Your paper should be creative and interesting, and demonstrate what you have learned. It should be a minimum of 5-7 pages in length and you will use APA style formatting with a title page and reference section. You should use Times New Roman, 12pt. font, double-space your lines, and set your page up with one inch margins (See the APA Template included in the Course Resources folder)
As a Presentation
Like the paper option, your presentation should be creative, interesting, and demonstrate what you have learned throughout the project. Your presentation should be 8 to 10 minutes in length, include visual elements (graphics, pictures, etc.), be presented using a program such as PowerPoint or Prezi, and you should record yourself giving the presentation (consider using screen capture programs such as JING or Eyejot to record your voice—be aware, you may need to create more than one file).
As a Speech
As it is in the other two options, your speech should be creative, interesting, and demonstrate what you have learned throughout the project. Your speech should be 8 to 10 minutes in length and include a typed handout.
For All Assignment Types
Your assignment should be well-organized and demonstrate an orderly flow of information that clearly addresses the subject chosen. In addition to the above criteria, your final project should include the following elements:
- The Community Organization: Clearly indicate the focus of the organization and the community needs that the organization. A brief historical background of the organization should also be included.
- Discuss any community partnerships that they have. Suggest additional partnerships that you feel they should have.
- Explore how the cross-cultural challenges and humanitarian considerations are involved.
- Demonstrate how the organization uses volunteers and the economic benefits associated with this (not just “free labor”).
- Illustrate any roadblocks that the organization has faced or potential could face and how they did or might find solutions.
- Describe the organization’s vision for the future.
- Indicate what areas in which you feel the organization could improve. What challenges (technological, political, economic, laws and regulations, community-based initiatives, educational, etc.) will they need to overcome?
- Discuss potential ways you might be able to contribute to the organization. How could your own interests, talents, and skills benefit this organization?
Note: You will need to include a minimum of ten (10) sources to support your project claims. Additionally, make sure the sources you choose are no more than five (5) years old.
Other Criteria:
Title your Project
Introduction: Begin with the attention-getter, tie in the background information, and end the introduction with your thesis.
Body:
- Clearly identify the topic of each section. The topic must be a statement, not a question, and should begin with your own ideas and your own words.
- After identifying your topic, use quotations or paraphrase from your sources to help illustrate the point you are making (be sure to identify the author(s) and source(s)).
- After you have given support, spend a sentence or two explaining how the example(s) support the section topic.
- A compilation of your research, your literature review, your methods, (how the data was collected or generated and analyzed), and your results should be included in the body of your project.
Conclusion:
- Restate your thesis. This means that you say about the same thing as you did in your thesis, but you say it differently.
- After stating your thesis, restate the topics from each of your body sections and emphasize what is important for your audience/readers to remember.
- End your conclusion with a call to action that illustrates what your audience/readers should do with the information you presented.
Please note: You will have the opportunity to revise and perfect this project, but you should do your best to make each step as complete as possible so you can receive more relevant and constructive feedback from your instructor and your peers.
Week 8
Reflecting on Learning
For your final assignment in this course, go back through your experiences in this course and in your Grantham experience so far. Think about the ways your course work has helped to make you a stronger, better informed individual, and what rights and responsibilities come along with that growth.
Write a two to three page reflection paper addressing the following questions.
- What have you learned about the world around you?
- What have you learned about creating and maintaining relationships with others?
- What have you learned about yourself and the way you learn?
- What have you learned about your responsibility to others?
- What more do you need to know?
At the conclusion of your paper, create a brief, personal mission statement about what you value, what you want to accomplish, and your plans to achieve those goals.
