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The Reflective Essay should address at least two of the following four topics. Plan to devote from 3-5 paragraphs to each topic (2000-3000 words total).
1. Summarize the evolution of your capstone
Don’t just list the predictable step-by step process. Instead, focus on the turning points of your capstone’s development: when you realized an idea wasn’t going to work, or found a different way to do it, or had an “Aha!” moment.
Try writing it outside of chronological order, with your paragraphs grouped by analytic category rather than what came first, second, and third. For example, instead of sorting your experiences in time order (such as January, February, March) you might sort them by characteristics (such as what went faster, what went slower, and what went nowhere).
Your account may include any or all of the following stages:
- Choice of research area
- Brainstorming an idea
- Architecting an approach
- Engineering a release
- Promotion
- Pre-alpha, alpha, and beta testing
- Feedback gathered
- Refer to images, charts, or other figures as necessary to show your project’s evolution.
2. Describe your capstone’s connection to new media
Explain how your project fits in the context of New Media as a discipline and field of intellectual enterprise. Pick one of the definitions discussed last term–or propose your own–and explain how your capstone exhibits or challenges contemporary criteria or methods of New Media, especially those to which you been exposed in the course of the undergraduate curriculum.
You will get a better grade on this section if you talk about technology only peripherally, and instead focus on the cultural significance of your capstone as a new media project. What do innovations like yours mean for the field of music/ politics/ community/ journalism/ whatever?
Your capstone is the crowning achievement of your undergraduate major–probably the only major project for which you can claim complete credit and responsibility. When you show it during an interview for a job/grad school/art exhibition, the person across the table may well ask, “Is this what you mean by New Media?” Your Reflective Essay can prepare you to answer this question.
3. Assess your capstone’s successes and failures
Give a candid and detailed assessment of your capstone. Why were existing solutions to the problem you addressed lacking, and how did your project hope to fill that need? Now that you look back, which elements work and which don’t, and why? Where would or will you take it next if given the chance?
You will not be penalized in your paper’s grade if you decide that your capstone was in certain ways a failure, as long as you explain what you learned from the experience–it’s the learning that counts as a success or failure, not an object.
Feedback from others can be a valuable part of this learning. You may want to include:
- Other faculty
- Other students
- The Pool
- A focus group
Use graphs and other figures whenever possible. If you may want to include feedback from capstone night.
4. Plot a future for your project
Is your project worth pursuing after graduation? Then describe in detail how you develop it further over the next 1-3 years. Include your original two-year budget and Gantt chart, updated as necessary. Explain any refinements you envision, such as:
- Additional features or bugfixes
- New venues
- New audiences
- Promotion beyond your original audience
- Funding
Finally, explain why you would choose to continue the project, now that you’re not doing it for a grade anymore. Which of these purposes might it serve?
- Convince someone to hire you
- Form the basis of a startup company
- Build you a killer portfolio
- Make the world (or your corner of it) a better place
- Make your life more enjoyable or meaningful
Figures
Integrate figures, photos, or screenshots into the text to help the reader visualize your work and process.. For those that are too big, include them at the end of your essay. Make sure you optimize images—so none is larger than 300k..Use preview to optimize–File–>export (low quality jpg or png), or Tools–>Adjust size.
May include, for example:
- Screenshots
- Gantt charts
- Surveys or other feedback
May be black and white or color, depending on how important you think color is communicating the concept.
Only include figures if they help support or explain the argument of your essay–not just to make the essay thicker.
Annotated bibliography
Include this as an appendix at the end of your essay.
You should be able to pull this from your preparations for last term’s research.
Roughly 5-20 items.
Style
Post your article with category “Article”, using your capstone title as the wordpress post title.
- Write for someone who isn’t familiar with your project but is well versed in new media in general.
- Don’t be vague; use concrete examples whenever possible.
- Spellcheck your document, and if possible get someone to read it for grammar, usage, and the flow of your argument.
- Use headings 2-4 to sort your post into topic area. Use the “paragraph” pulldown menu to find these. To do this make sure you do not use MS Word formatting, but compose in .txt format, copy to wordpress, then add formatting.