All Global Studies majors must complete a final capstone requirement in the form of a scholarly research paper or artistic project that reflects the best application of students’ analytical, writing, and research skills. To this end the course will help you clearly formulate your research design, plan the writing or creative development of your project, and allow you to learn from your colleagues. The course is heavily interactive—we will work primarily with materials provided by you, the students. Using secondary texts and your own work we will cover issues such as formulating a research problem, defining your concepts, situating yourself in the existing literature/field of practice, finding, using and presenting data, evidence, ideas, and the writing/creative process. The senior project may take slightly different forms for each person, but for all students must reflect the ability to synthesize complex information, present ideas clearly and creatively, situate your ideas in a larger context, and convincingly make an argument that is relevant to this field of inquiry or creative practice. It is a scholarly endeavor that reflects knowledge and experience obtained both inside and outside the classroom. Students will develop a scholarly research paper and/or an artistic project for an individual project on a topic of their own choosing. Those who wish to develop and expand the project as a thesis can apply for the Senior Thesis Seminar (3 credit) in the Spring, which will require submitting their project to the department for approval and having fulfilled the requirement of a research methods course.