TESU LIB-495 Liberal Arts Capstone Course

[mudball]

I'm on ch4: Results of the study. This has been the most time-consuming chapter. It now has 11 pages of text, 5 pages of graphs or charts, and a 1-page appendix. I still don't feel like I covered all I need to, but I am so burned out I'm not going to add anything. Admittedly, I do not have any experience with a paper of this sort, maybe that's why it is so time-consuming for me. Chapter2: literature review was the 2nd most time-consuming. I sure hope ch5 & 6 are easier.

I would like to know more about Ch.4 in particular. Did you actually conduct your own research/surveys to publish results? I am following another thread on this forum, and one of the members has posted that their Capstone instructor expected them to conduct firsthand research/surveys. While I see the significance of it, I have not heard other members on this forum post about it. Most of the posts I read about the capstone only allude to massive amounts of reading, gathering knowledge, and using it to substantiate one’s own hypotheses- kind of like writing a research paper for some of the study.com courses, albeit much more extensive. But now, I am learning that it is more than just that. Please clarify.

As of about a year ago, the capstone began requiring research using "primary sources". This can be interviews, surveys, raw data from various sources (like government data, internet data, financial data, etc) or using actual transcripts of speeches,  manuscripts, etc. Some of the mentors are more pushy about this than others. I never did interviews or surveys, but I did use some transcripts of congressional testimony and legislation.

Most of it is gathering information and data. I used peer-reviewed articles to gather knowledge and found studies that were conducted and provided graphs that I  made from that data. Part of it is addressing a "gap in knowledge". My mentor did not require it, but I did conduct interviews and questionnaires. I summarized this information and produced graphs and charts from that also. I did about 12 interviews/questionnaires and it was the most interesting part of my project. This chapter was the most time-consuming for me.