Geography Capstone
GEOG 401
2010 Spring Semester

GEOG 401 Capstone Course Requirements

Submitting Assignments. All assignments must be completed and submitted electronically through D2L by midnight of the day before class. Send assignments as word documents. Name the document with your last name, followed by the number of the project. The subject heading of your email should be "GEOG 401 Assignment #X."

Grading assignments: On all your work in this course, you will be graded on content, creativity, organization, syntax, grammar, diction, format and overall work. For format and style, follow those requirements of the Professional Geographer, the AAG's Annals , and the Geographical Review. These links include explanations and examples of how to reference, and all of these journals follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. (Physical geographers may also want to be familiar with the stylistic requirements of the Geological Society of America).

"I was not sure what you wanted" is an unacceptable statement or excuse in this course. If you are unsure about any of the assignments, or of how to proceed, it is your responsbility to see me or another faculty member for clarification or understanding far enough in advance to be meaningful. I and the Department want you to do well.

ASSESSMENT
Participation: Active engagement in class discussions, field trips and group events. This means that you have read and critically reflected on the assignments before class, and, as appropriate, share them and engage your classmates in a discussion of them during and after class. There is honor in having, "She/he likes geography a little too much," said of you. As part of this, students should be prepared to lead discussion. In-class participation represents 10 percent of the course grade.

Assignment #1: What is Geography? Read Peirce Lewis' 1985 Presidential Address and Wilbur Zelinsky's (2001) little treatise on geographer as voyeaur.
a. Who are Wilbur Zelinsky and Peirce Lewis and what are their contributions to geography?
b. Identify another famous (as in, especially influential within the discipline of geography, and not introduced in this class) geographer, this time one that has meaning for you and your specific interests in geography. Present his or her contribution to geography and how this geographer's work informs or inspires yours (including how). What does this person have to say about geography?
c. Drawing from the work of the above two, as well as Peter Jackson (2006), William Pattison (1964), and any others from whom you wish to draw, and from your geographic training to date, write a two page essay on what geography is, why you are a geographer, and the unique contributions you expect to make to the world/society/community because you are a geographer.

Make sure that you cite all sources, use solid and reputable sources, (which, in this case, would lean toward academic sources and away from Wikipedia and other things that will pop up from a Google search on "what is geography"). In fact, include a footnote on the process you used to conduct and complete this essay. Browsing hard-copy geography journals and searching academic data bases are time-honored approaches in doing such research.Assignment #1 represents 10 percent of the course grade.

Assignment #2: You, Your Work and the discipline of geography. Read the National Geography Standards thoroughly (click here for the standards). Which standards are relevant to the research project you are developing and finalizing in this course? Once you have identified them, use them to help you understand the geographical significance of your research project. To do this implies that you have an idea of your research topic.
a. Based on class presentations, discussion and background readings, and using our text as a guide, develop what you believe is the research problem/question that you will be pursuing all semester. Some refer to this as the research hypothesis. Be very clear about what you are stating, and properly support your argument, and make it very clear what your research project is and what you will be analyzing.
b. Why are you doing this? What are the significance and implications of this research?
Pull the above together in a single essay. As in all essays, you need to support your argument with evidence, develop your argument so that the essay is value-added and works toward a proper conclusion, cite all sources, and include a list of references. your grade will reflect how thoughtfully and well you do this. Assignment #2 represents 10 percent of the course grade.

Assignment #3: What is your research project? What is your research project? What are you going to do? For this assignment, you are to put together an outline of your proposal and a final abstract of your project, using the format required by the Association of American Geographers (250 words or less, title, keywords, etc. -- see examples from programs of past AAG annual meetings ). These should help you see the whole picture of your project. This introduction and commitment to your research project must be done in cooperation with your geography advisor or research mentor. His or her signature approving this homework assignment will attest to that, and to its feasibility. No credit will be given to a homework assignment without the sign-off. Assignment #1 represents 5 percent of the course grade.

Assignment #4: Finding and using literature. Find two recent (past 10-12 years?) academic articles (or chapters) -- published in peer reviewed geography journals, or journals used by geographers -- that inform your research or provide a model for understanding, analyzing and/or presenting your research.
a. Explain, with details, how the articles contribute to your work. For example, does it support your argument (and how), does it validate your methods or provide a template for how you will proceed, does it serve as a foil for you to refute, does it create a link to a line of inquiry.
b. Write an annotated bibliography of each of these articles. An annotated bibliography is not, simply a summary of the article, but a presentation if its most important elements. You should always be able to refer back to your annotation and know what the article contributes to your work. Click on the following hot links for help and advice in writing annotated bibliographies: UNC, Cornell, Wisconsin, UCSC.
c. Look at the literature review sections of the two articles and how each article draws from "the literature". Toward what purposes do the two articles draw from their literature to support their arguments, methods, approaches, conclusions.
d. How valuable were the bibliographies of these two articles to you and your work? This assignment represents 10 percent of your course grade.

Assignment #5: Research Design and Data Needs? What data will you use, how will you use it, from where will you get it, how will you analyze, and how will you present it? In a 2-4 page informative paper, you are to provide the following to help you understand the methods and data you will be using. As this is a proposal, the data may or may not currently exist.
a. What data will you need and use, and how are you going to get it?
b. What research methods are most central to the research that you are conducting. Describe them, what they involve, what they contribute, and how do you know that these are legitmate methods for gathering and analyzing data. Distinguish between those research methods involved in gathering data from those involved in analyzing the data.
c. Provide evidence with an actual example of how you know your data does/will exist, that your methods work, and that your output will show meaningful results. Assignment #3 represents 10 percent of the course grade.

Assignment #6: Your Literature. Using appropriate literature search tools, including those we have discussed and learned in class, put together compile the set of articles and resources that provide the state of knowledge for the research project that you are pursuing for your capstone. This is a list that may still grow, and evolve, and serves as background and places your work in the research world in general, and the geographic discipline in particular. For each article -- or groups of articles -- write a brief annotation or provide a heading for how or what it/they contributed to your proposal. This represents 10 percent of the course grade.

Assignment #7: Final Project. Final paper or poster of your project or proposal, with accompanying power point presentation. If a poster, intended to be presented at a conference, if a paper, to be submitted to a journal and with intent to be presented at a conference. Posters will not be printed without approval of the student's geography advisor or research mentor. All students will give power point presentations of their research, open to the public at a small venue to be developed by the students. Examples of proposals can be found through the following hot links: CHupy, Faulkner1, Faulkner2, Kaldjian. The final project represents 35 percent of the course grade.

Final Exam: Are we now geographers?