Capstone Quick Start Guide
How to earn a stress free A on your capstone paper, Dr. Kelley Wood
I know many of you are relaxing or celebrating the end of the semester, and I do
encourage this! You need to be fresh and ready to go when your first capstone class meets. The
capstone can be compared to a marathon race. It can be a grueling test of stamina and endurance,
not to mention patience!
You will have one semester to complete your capstone. Preparing in advance is critical
to success in this course. Your instructors are facilitating, supporting, and encouraging you to
earn an A grade in this course. Please do not sell yourself short or sell yourself out by doing
enough to get through, and by settling for less than an A grade. The options are limited if you do
not complete your paper in the semester. Meeting the draft deadlines will be critical. All of your
goals for the program and the course will be enhanced by following the advice in this document.
What projects do students embrace in their capstone? In recent semesters, students have
planned seminars and tested their subjects before and after a training event that they developed
and implemented. They have held focus groups, surveyed large populations, investigated the
lived experiences of smaller populations with interviews, and they have conducted document or
content analysis. From their data, MSA students have developed new models of practice in many
fields related to leadership, management, and organizations. MSA and MA Communication
students have produced new understandings of theories as they are applied to new populations or
current issues. The aim is to develop an applied solution to a real world problem in your degree
field, and related to your interests.
The capstone is a large, complex and demanding project for which you as a student will
plan and meet deadlines, learn new strategies for expanding your knowledge, and show your
worth to potential or current employers. There are three challenges (or opportunities) to the
research paper: a solid and scholarly literature review, a relevant and accurate data collection
instrument, and a rigorous and thorough data analysis. You will become the master of each
these three sections.
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The literature review must support the argument that leads to and defines the
statement of the problem and delivers a comprehensive understanding of the
context that problem exists within, which develops the theoretical model,
framework, or construct.
The contents of the data collection instrument are determined based on the
knowledge you have developed concerning the factors or variables of the
theoretical model in the literature review, which leads to data collected related
to your problem and your model.
The data analysis, whether quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods must
apply rigor of analysis to develop a deep understanding of your results from
which you make conclusions, recommendations, and implications that are
relevant to the statement of the problem.
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Capstone Quick Start Guide
How to earn a stress free A on your capstone paper, Dr. Kelley Wood
This sounds like a great deal of work, and it is. However this will assist you in writing the
abstract and introduction, which are the roadmaps you will use to convert the challenges into
opportunities. This Fall we will have students in various stages of preparation for the capstone.
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Some will have a nearly complete proposal (the first three chapters of the research
paper: Introduction, Literature Review, Research Methods) from the research course.
o Remember the proposal will need significant improvement to be accepted in the
Capstone course
 The Literature Review will likely need to branch further out to be more
inclusive and complete
 The theoretical model (qualitative theoretical construct or quantitative
theoretical framework) might require further expansion
 The Research Method might require more detail and greater clarification
 The data analysis strategy might require more detail and greater
clarification
o I recommend these students review the proposal guide related to their research
method
o I will expect a complete Proposal on the first night of the course, and
o Meet with me at least once
 To review your progress and your written work to date
Some will have a clear topic and a nearly complete Literature Review
o I recommend these students work through the TPQS worksheet to clarify their
research problem
o Then review related research to determine the best fit for a research method
 Begin to outline the research method and the data analysis strategy
o I will expect a complete Literature Review and an outline of the research methods
on the first day of the course, and please
o Meet with me at least once
 To review your progress and your written work to date
Others will need to clarify their research topic.
o I recommend these students follow all the directions below and that they complete
the TPQS worksheet this summer
o I will expect a complete Literature Review and an outline of the research methods
on the first day of the course, and please
o Meet with me at least twice
 Once to clarify your topic and the factors/variables to investigate
 The second time to review your progress and your written work to date
I would like to share some tips with you so you can prepare for the opportunity to be
better prepared, to improve your capstone research (course grade), and reduce your stress.
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Capstone Quick Start Guide
How to earn a stress free A on your capstone paper, Dr. Kelley Wood
Students who have followed this advice are generally the first to complete the capstone. Some
even complete the capstone early and often have the best-written work. Earning an A grade a
little early sounds like a worthy goal to me! These tips are especially helpful to students who
need to narrow their research topic and clarify a research problem.
First, you need to have a very clear idea of your topic and problem. The research
problem you determine must be of a manageable scope. You will not be able to solve the world’s
problems in one research project and paper. To narrow your focus and accomplish your capstone
in one semester you must survey as much of the literature related to your topic as possible. This
is an important aspect of being informed well enough to make the decision that your research
topic is worthwhile and whether or not you have qualified the problem enough to make it
manageable in scope. It is also essential to knowing what is important to keep in, and what gets
cut out! So hit the library’s online databases, and begin searching, reviewing, and reading. You
can get a barcode password from the library staff that allows you access from any location over
the internet.
Trinity’s Free Online Databases
SPS Research Resources - make use of all the resources, and be sure to see the Research Rescue
Lab section near the end.
1. Read extensively - journal articles related to your topic to build your depth of
knowledge.
The research librarians at Trinity can assist you in this effort by showing you
relevant data bases and how to develop and extend your keyword searches. Note the
keywords and phrases listed in articles from your successful searches, and use them in
other database searches.
Once you have a clear idea of your topic, read section II (chapters three thru six)
in Booth, Colomb, & William’s text, The Craft of Research. There are several in the
library, both on reserve and in the stacks. It is priced under $20.00 online. Follow
along with the examples and complete those as you are able with your own topic.
This will help you develop a clear topic, actionable research problem, research
questions, a purpose statement. Use the TPQS worksheet while following along in
this text.
Many of your textbooks have references at the end of the chapters or in a
bibliography. These can lead to useful literature also.
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Capstone Quick Start Guide
How to earn a stress free A on your capstone paper, Dr. Kelley Wood
2. Develop an annotated bibliography of the relevant articles and texts you have found
and reviewed.
I recommend a minimum of 18-20 articles at this stage. Although the more the
better is the best rule at this point. Use Lester and Lester’s Writing Research Papers:
A Complete Guide, section 8F (Annotated Bibliography). Use Lester and Lester’s
Writing Research Papers: A Complete Guide, section 8G to see an example of a
narrative literature review. See also Writing Literature Reviews Examples –
Steinberg and Critical Thinking – Reece for excellent graduate level examples.
Add quotes or passages of interest with their citations and page references to your
bibliography. This makes them easy to find and easy to cite!
There are some of the Lester & Lester texts on reserve and in the stacks of the
library. The text is priced between $30 and $40.00 online. This will prepare you to
write your Abstract, Introduction, and Literature Review. I would recommend taking
notes from the text in the library since you will likely not need the entire text.
*This is a great time to review Chapters 6 & 7 in the APA Manual (2010, 6th Ed.)
3. Begin ordering your bibliography entries.
Order the references into a logical sequence from general context information to
specific information in a manner, which lead you to understand the factors or
variables relating to your research problem, using a set of folders in your computer.
This will become part of your theoretical model. Think of the theoretical model
as a working theory explaining the phenomena you are understanding or a proposition
describing and ideal end state.
4. Plan your argument
Use Toulmin’s Argument Structure so that you can be certain of a solid argument
and logical structure. Review the Toulmin Argument Structure. Then use the
Toulmin’s Worksheet to identify elements of your argument. It is designed to analyze
articles you are reading; however it can be helpful o use it to develop your own
argument!
Think of your literature review as one long Toulmin argument structure
comprised of sections that are also in the form of Toulmin’s argument structures,
strung together like beads.
5. Research the research methods you are most likely to use.
Search for and review four to six journal articles that utilize this method. Review
how the authors conduct the research, how they collected data, analyzed the data, and
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Capstone Quick Start Guide
How to earn a stress free A on your capstone paper, Dr. Kelley Wood
review how they write about it. If the articles happen to be related to your research
topic, it will be a bonus! See the brief bibliography attached below.
6. Prepare to present work that is as complete and error free as possible in each draft.
Practice paraphrasing difficult or complex work. Pre-write (practice) often. You
will avoid plagiarism and speed up your instructor’s response time.
7. Begin reviewing and editing your work using the SPS Publishing Guide, the Research
proposal guide, and the APA 6th ed. publication style manual.
The earlier you start setting your style headings and properly formatting your
paper the better. Editing and formatting can take hours to accomplish later on. Time
spent in this now will save much stress when you are trying to deliver a final clean
copy of your finished capstone paper.
This is a fair amount of work, but tackling it now while you can approach it in a
controlled and leisurely fashion will make a large difference in your final project and your
experience of the semester. You should feel welcome to make an appointment with your advisor
or with me to talk over your topic, strategies for finding good literature to include, and
appropriate research and analysis methods.
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Capstone Quick Start Guide
How to earn a stress free A on your capstone paper, Dr. Kelley Wood
References
These are not presented perfectly in APA format, purposefully. Can you correct
them using the APA Manual? Punctuation, capitalization, order of the authors,
and order of the elements of the reference are all very important.
Acton, Miller, Fullerton, and Maltby (2009). SPSS for social scientists. New York, NY: Palgrave
Macmillan
-Search for the authors’ chapter on linear regression published free on the web. It will be
helpful in understanding why you are running these tests to develop the results tables.
Booth, Colomb, & Williams (2008) The craft of research (3rd ed). Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press
Corbin & Strauss, (2007) Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for
developing grounded theory, 3rd Ed. Sage Publications
-Helpful if you are investigating a phenomena without a theory and later develop a theory
from the data (evidence). This is rigorous and rewarding.
*Creswell, John W. (2009) Research design, (3rd ed.), Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing
-Creswell is likely the most commonly used text in developing your research design
(strategy). He provides examples of the academic language and the research lingo that
you can use as a guide for your introduction, research methods, and data analysis chapter.
Creswell’s writing might appear to difficult for you at first so reread sections of the text
often as you are writing the sections of your chapters.
Higgins, J. (2005). The radical statistician. Author.
-Search for his chapters on correlation and linear regression on the web. They will be
helpful in understanding why you are running these tests to develop the results tables
Lester & Lester, (2010) Writing research papers: A complete guide. New York, NY: Pearson
Publishing
Mason, J. Qualitative researching, (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing
-This is an excellent source for understanding the diverse forms of qualitative analysis
and how to write up your research design (strategy) and data analysis.
Maxwell, J. A. (2004). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (2nd ed.). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing
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Capstone Quick Start Guide
How to earn a stress free A on your capstone paper, Dr. Kelley Wood
-This is an excellent source for understanding the diverse forms of qualitative analysis
and how to write up your research design (strategy) and data analysis.
*Merriam, S. B. (2009). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation (Revised).
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
-This is an excellent source for understanding the diverse forms of qualitative analysis
and how to write up your research design (strategy) and data analysis.
Privitera, G. J. (2012). Statistics for the behavioral sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publishing
-This text explains well why you are conducting tests of the data, which reveal
associations, correlations, and relationships. The author also discusses how to write the
results up, and gives basic advise in using SPSS.
Remler, D.K. & Van Ryzin, G.G. (2011) Research methods in practice: Strategies for description
and causation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications
-This is the text for the graduate research methods course and it offers a great overview of
the research process and discussions of design models of experiments.
*Saldana, J. (2010). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications
-The definitive source for options in coding qualitative data, don’t miss this one!
*Saldana, J. (2011). Fundamentals of qualitative research. New York, NY: Oxford University
Press.
-This is an excellent source for understanding the diverse forms of qualitative analysis
and how to write up your research design (strategy) and data analysis.
*Schensul, S. L., Schensul, J. J., & LeCompte, M. D. (1999) Essential ethnographic methods:
Observations, interviews, and questionnaires. New York, NY: Altamira Press
This is an excellent text for understanding the different forms of collecting primary data
(requires human interaction or intervention and is considered the most reliable data or
evidence) in the social sciences: Observation, interviews, semi-structured questionnaires,
and directed question surveys. The authors share tips for developing your data collection
instruments, for preparing, and conducting the data collection.
*Szafran, R. F. (2012). Answering questions with statistics. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publishing.
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Capstone Quick Start Guide
How to earn a stress free A on your capstone paper, Dr. Kelley Wood
-This text offers a great discussion of why specific tests such as frequency, crosstabulation, correlation, linear regression, and multiple regression are run, how to
understand and express the association, correlations, and relationships discovered, and
how to write up your results. Szafran also offers in depth and detailed instruction for
each set of tests in SPSS with diagrams.
Toulmin, S. E. (1958). The uses of argument. London, UK: Cambridge University Press
-You might have better luck finding references to Toulmin’s argument structure in online
formats.
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