Approaching the End: Good Proposals

"This proposal looks pretty much finished at first glance. (And congratulations, by the way, on having the first full proposal up for review--not that it's a race, but someone had to be brave and be first.) Your sources are rich and deep, especially for this stage of the game, and your passion for your subject has already produced a lot of evidence of hard thinking. And, as appears clear from your "To" line at the top, you already have your emphasis advisers on board. As far as the basic requirements of Cap One are concerned, you're done except for setting out a proposed timeline to completion of thesis from here, and perhaps also fleshing out your cursory outline. And, as you yourself noted above, it needs a bit of proofreading/copyediting still."
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"You're close to a completed proposal now. (I of course speak from having the benefit of also seeing the full draft of your proposal last week, in addition to your latest posts.) Once you've got your second adviser on board, I think it's time to write this up, wrap up Cap One, and move into full gear for completing the thesis itself. This is what we want--someone already fully into the project and running with it, advisers on board, by the end of Cap One. You'll find as you move into the next phase that some of your ideas keep shifting as you get more feedback from your emphasis advisors and find more interesting source material."
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Mark wrote these paragraphs as comments on Van's and Misty's latest blog posts. They are the first of many such comments, we hope. Each of you is progressing on your own timetable and in your own manner. What you'll all have in common as the course ends, at least all of you who will pass the course, is an acceptable proposal, one rich with research and informed by what you've thought about that research and well stated with clear indications of what you'll be working on during capstone 2. Additionally, the proposal will have been approved by two emphasis advisors.


I was very pleased this week when Jarry came by to see me. He showed me a thorough proposal complete with a good annotated bibliography, a comprehensive list of the dental terms he's translating into ASL, and a prototype DVD that demonstrates how his visual dictionary will work. Some of the pleasure came because Jarry hadn't been posting on the blog and I was unsure of his progress. He has made great progress.


That is, of course, all we care about. The blog postings have been a means to an end. There are other means to the end of a good proposal. 


Final postings of the final proposal are due on April 25, as stated in the syllabus. Additionally, please bring your signed advisor pages to either of our offices.