CJ 499 Senior Seminar capstone assignment

CJ 499 Senior Seminar

Major research paper on approved topic under direction of department chair. Final course of student’s program in criminal justice. Prerequisite: Senior standing.”
Textbook: None.
Resources:
There is no assigned textbook for this course. You will be required to research and obtain necessary information – from form to substance. You are also responsible for checking Moodle regularly for course updates and to review materials provided there.
Instructor’s Belief:
This is a capstone course for your degree. What that means is, your work in this course must prove to me that you have developed the knowledge, ability, and writing skills necessary to represent yourself as a St. Martin’s graduate. That will require hard work and a significant time commitment.
Purpose of the Course:
This course likely differs from the other courses you’ve taken in two ways:
1. The bulk of your learning will be the product of your own research and work. You are choosing a topic yourself. Basically, you are choosing the substance of this course and then educating yourself on it. This is your chance to “spread your wings and fly.”
2. The entire course is focused on producing your senior thesis. If you wish to pass the course, your thesis will be a thoroughly-reasoned, professionally-written, error-free final work. Unlike most courses, where midterm exams provide you real-time feedback on where you’re at in the course and the quality of your work,
2
the bulk of your grade in this course is based upon the final paper. I will provide exercises, mileposts, and feedback periodically to assist in guiding you. However, ultimately, you must take the initiative and have the dedication to assure your own success. As the capstone course to your degree, the time for freshman hand-holding is long past.
The Not-Scary Part of this Course:
Sure, you have control over your wild success or disastrous failure in this course more than you’ve ever had during your undergraduate studies. That’s stressful (which isn’t a bad thing – stress is a biological imperative designed to motivate you to avoid disaster. Listen to your stress; work hard and work early to alleviate it.)
However, this isn’t some class where you’re not particularly interested in the subject matter and just have to drag your feet through it to get the credit. Here, YOU choose your own academic adventure!* Fascinated by some sociological study of prisoner behavior? Cool, go for it! Want to argue law, sociology, or psychology on the increasing reports of the use or abuse of force by police officers? Great! Want to address that issue by explaining how to fix it? I’m looking forward to reading your paper!
Point is, YOU get to create your course! This should be the most interesting course you’ve taken (because why would you choose a boring topic?).
*Your topic must be at a college-level and strongly relate to criminal justice—so no “Superman v. Batman” papers, despite its relation to criminal justice.
How to avoid choosing a boring topic:
If you’re bored, you will do poorly in this course. Why? You’ll be bored and procrastinate, avoid sufficiently researching, and end up producing an uninspired paper that will be as boring for me to read as it is for you to write. Entertain me, please!
Do not just choose a topic you already think you know enough about to write a paper. You’ll end up not doing enough research, miss the nuances of the topic, and produce what will read like a poorly-developed Wikipedia entry…and likely fail the course. (Also, see the plagiarism section about not re-using topics you already wrote on for previous classes.)
Choose a topic that interests you, one you feel you want to or should know more about. Think about what

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