Author: Shaylyn Austin

I joined the minor in writing because I knew that I love to write, and I recognize how important and powerful good writing can be. But going into Gateway, I hadn’t yet figured out how to write without being a student. I hadn’t even realized that the way I’ve been taught to write was to fulfill such a narrow, boring purpose. As soon as this was made apparent to me, I noticed changes in my personal as well as academic writing. I took more risks. I used more rhetoric. In particular, I liked to spice up my conclusions.

The same semester as Gateway, I took a Medical Anthropology class (which I loved) that required me to write four papers analyzing medical cases using medical anthropology theory. For the third paper, I explained how all of the reactions to a sudden widespread development of ticks in teenage girls in a small New York community all stemmed from the mind-body dualism theory of Descartes, and therefore potential treatments coming from non-Western medicine were ignored. Here are the final two sentences:

“Whether the parents of the girls accepted certain diagnoses or not, each proposal was rooted entirely in a concept of mind-body dualism that emerged in the 17^th century. Therefore, the answer to one of the parent’s vehement opposition to the diagnosis of “conversion disorder” and mass hysteria – “what are we, living in the 1600s?” – could be ‘in a way, yes’.”

I know, it is not ground-breaking prose, but it’s different from the dry summary of a conclusion I was used to, and even taught to do.

Also, here’s an example of where I wrote another paper for this class as a story, rather explicitly. In the paper, I offered an alternative narrative for an article about a kid named Richard who became addicted to ADHD medication.

“My story does not begin with a character named Richard. My story begins with a setting – the society in which Richard lives, where biopower constructs an image of an ideal individual who lives to serve as a productive citizen.”

 Since then, I’ve written papers beyond the goal of making my papers good. I want them to be enjoyable. And I thought that I had at least made some progress in cracking the academic code. I could write creative, fun papers with the same amount of intellectual rigor as something straightforward and dry. But then I started my capstone project, and I’ve had a really hard time jumping out of the mindset of a student.

I realized that even if I had come a ways in writing ‘not boring’ school papers, they have still always been for school. No matter how far I strayed, I had guidelines that kept me in line. Now, I’m in capstone and writing a thing with no greater purpose than to be written by me and read by someone else. It’s also really long. In a project as daunting and never-ending as this one, I find myself reverting back to the instincts of a student I’ve tried so hard to rid from my writing.

It’s especially hard because my project is rooted in scholarly thought, so I’ve struggled to find the correct line between necessary, interesting analysis for my audience and going way too in depth. The last thing I want is for it to come across as text-booky or preachy, so I’ve done my best to go back and edit any sections that could be written with a better tone, or explained in a more exciting way. I’ve definitely developed a stronger admiration for mainstream science writers. Pushing myself to write my capstone project not as a student has been one of the hardest parts of the entire semester. It’s also been the most rewarding.

In my English 124 class freshman year, I wrote a personal essay about my understanding of ‘family’ via my experience growing up with divorced parents. It wasn’t a purely self-informed essay. I was supposed to incorporate countrywide statistics that related to my story. I was happy with what I wrote, but I think I could have produced something much more meaningful had I had thirteen weeks to write about it with consistent guidance from a professor.

Divorce is a huge issue in the United States, in regards to the number of people it affects. If I had thirteen weeks to write about it, I could imagine it turning it into a thought-provoking meditative analysis on divorce and family. Not only would I have had more time to reflect on my own experiences and therefore articulate them more thoughtfully, but I could have included more studies on the quantitative and qualitative effects of divorce to connect my experience more substantially to some sort of larger condition.

Also, this would have been an ideal time in my life to think and write about this topic. I had just moved out of my homes in my hometown and “started a new life” in Ann Arbor. Like most freshmen, I spent a lot of time reflecting on my upbringing. Having the opportunity to think deeply about at least one aspect of my childhood in this guided manner probably would have been quite enlightening for me.

This essay included several personal anecdotes that helped express how ‘family’ played a role in my life. One of my favorites is about a time I ran into my dad’s freshly ex-girlfriend at Starbucks:

“I got up from the table, hoping to make it to my car without getting into any type of conversation with the woman who was in the process of moving out of my home. But Susan saw me and got up too, making her way over with a beaming smile, espresso in hand.

“Hey, Shay.”

“Hi, Susan. I thought that was you”

“I just wanted to come over and say that I’m sorry things didn’t really work out.

Thank you for everything.”                                                                   

I formed a smile. “No, thank you.”

“You know, I love you.” Her glossed lips gave out a small quiver around her glaring white teeth.

I held the smile. “Yeah, I’m gonna miss you too. I’m sure I’ll see you around.” And then I turned toward my car and drove away without taking one glance back.”

For a capstone project, I think it would be fun to start off each section with a specific moment like this and then expand upon the greater implications and significance of that moment in the prose.

This English 124 class was one of the first times I was asked to write about myself, and I loved it. I feel like writing comes more naturally to me when it’s rooted in what I know and comes from a place of vulnerability and honesty. That sense of personal investment and subsequent growth is something that is missing from my capstone project simply because of the nature of the work. That’s made writing my capstone pretty challenging. In personal essays, like this one on family, I tend to assess whether a section of prose is working by the feeling that it provokes when I write it and read it. I can’t use that same intuition for my capstone project, so I’ve had to be more creative to make sure my writing delivers the intended effect.

Well, for a project centered on the issue of human-caused extinction, the worst possible outcome is rather bleak – Human beings will continue along the general trajectory of placing their own immediate well-being above all else. As a species, humans will always be too individually selfish. This will lead to the extinction of nearly every species, whether completely or just in the wild. Soon (evolutionarily speaking) after that, humans will face their own consequences of the destruction they caused, and may even cause their own extinction. Changing this would require a massive shift to understanding how inter-species cooperation is critical for our own survival. Sure, there are smaller movements to counteract this general trend, but when and how will they become large enough to actually change this outcome? Like, I said – bleak.

In light of this “worst possible outcome,” I think my project has the potential to come off as defeatist. It may inspire hopelessness and dread, as opposed to the meaningful critical thinking that I am hoping to elicit from readers. So, in my project, I attempt to counteract this trajectory myself by taking a pause to think about the types of questions humans need to be asking about ourselves in order to change our behavior. I discuss ways in which humans should be thinking about ourselves that are counter to the way that we think about ourselves right now. I hope that delivering the problem in this way will allow my readers something substantive and useful to contemplate.

This isn’t the first time I’ve chosen to write about something with no clear solution – especially one I’m not capable of offering. That Primate Conservation Bio term paper from last semester was about whether upholding indigenous rights while also achieving rainforest conservation goals in Indonesia is possible. It’s a complicated issue. In 22 pages I barely scratched the surface. I remember going in to talk to my professor toward the end of the semester struggling with how to conclude such a complicated topic. My prof helped me understand that wrapping it all up with a shiny red bow was not expected in a paper like this and that instead, I had to be honest about the limitations. I could acknowledge that there is no easy solution and instead leave the reader with a new way to think about this issue that they may not have considered before. This is what I came up with:

“Indigenous peoples are not just stakeholders of their land. They are increasingly recognized as rights holders. While mutli-level partnerships among indigenous peoples and actors on the national and international level are considered more likely to succeed, conservationists may have to learn to accept the likely potential of failure if Western conservation methods do not align with the traditional culture in that place and time. Understanding what is important to the local indigenous peoples in their environment and rooting conservation strategies in those principles will most likely give the land the best chance, for forest and people alike.”

There are some things I would change about these final sentences, but I’m overall happy with how I urged this conversation in a different, more productive direction. I hope to do the same with my capstone, but even better.

Web of Science is one of many online databases for scientific papers that Michigan students have full access to. When I choose to open Web of Science, I do so understanding that I am entering a bottomless cyber pit of scholarly papers and that within five minutes I will have so many tabs open my eyes will start spinning from inside my head. Eventually, I’ll choose to shut down Google Chrome altogether and start over. I’m lucky if I salvaged one useful title from the twenty tabs that are again lost in cyberspace waiting to be stumbled upon by my indiscriminate clicks. This cycle repeats until I finish my research.

This has been my process for nearly every research-focused paper I’ve written. I get lost in links, traveling so deep into the labyrinth that even the author is probably surprised when they get that notification that their paper was actually downloaded. I don’t know when to stop. I waste time chasing unhelpful leads. I click on things that have nothing to do with my topic just because they sound interesting when I should be focused on refining the relevant research I have done to produce an articulate paper. Then again, there have been a select few times when I have found pure gold hidden behind cobwebs in the depths of the black hole. It’s just hard to know what amount of chaos is worth it to get there.

The thing is, I actually do make use of a lot of this research. The longest research paper I’ve written in college was 22 pages. It was the term paper for my Primate Conservation Biology class and, similar to capstone, I was able to write it in any format of my choosing on literally anything under the sun (that related to Primate Conservation Biology). I used just over 53 sources in this paper, and I do believe every piece of information was necessary to propel my argument forward. I don’t think its necessary to include a snippet of that paper here, but as you can imagine a lot of the prose is broken up by random last names and years hugged by parentheses.

My capstone project is also heavily research-based, and I’m having a hard time figuring out how to incorporate the sources I used into the prose without it coming across as to science reportey. I’m turning to mainstream scientific news outlets who tend to cite academic papers for help on this one. I think at this point, I need to focus in on what research is absolutely necessary to get my point across to the general reader and not include too much information that clutters the argument. I don’t want my capstone project to become a web in and of itself.