Final Paper

Link to Final Paper

Trigger Warning

The moment I finished answering my final oral defense question, my mind just went numb. I was done. Full-on Senioritis kicked in immediately. I did not want to do anything. My IQ dropped by a 100 points. My sanity suddenly returned to me. Stress became a foreign concept to me—waiting to be rediscovered during my college days. AP Research immediately ended...UNTIL I REALIZED I HAD TO WRITE ONE LAST BLOG. In the words of Mrs. Haag: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. So here I sit drunk off of Froyo and high off of Youtube videos, debating whether or not I want to write this last blog. Do I want to feel Mrs. Haag’s wrath or do I want to watch another Youtube video? Man, that’s a tough decision...alright, so that is it for this week’s blog, thank you for reading, I will be wasting away my life watching Youtube videos until COLLEGE.

Finally we are done.

HA! Just kidding. Did you really think that I would do such a thing like that? Well, if you did, you are right.

Ok. I was kidding. I am for real this time. Or am I?

Ok. Ok. I’ll stop. In all seriousness though, this has gotten me to 200 words, so I am already halfway to the word requirement. FINE. I will actually stop trolling. I am actually going to be serious now. Like actually. Trust me.

AP Seminar, in my opinion, was a lot tougher than AP Research. It was the learning curve—that transition from 10th grade level of thinking to Seminar level thinking— that we had to go through that ultimately made Seminar so tough. The techniques that I learned in Seminar ultimately made my life in Research a lot easier, since Research was essentially a larger, more comprehensive, more independent version of Seminar.

For me, AP Seminar improved my thinking and my writing skills. First, I learned new techniques on how to think about an argument or a topic through different perspectives (or lenses). It forced me to think about potential counterarguments and also taught me to address such counterarguments. Seminar changed the way I looked at and formulated an argument, but most importantly it improved my writing. I learned how to properly formulate an argument, organize my line or reasoning, and word my claims.

AP Research was essentially Seminar on steroids. Most of the tools that I had gained in Seminar were used in the literature review of my paper. Everything else in AP Research was another brand new learning experience. But, although the independent research part of AP Research was incredibly difficult, it was not as steep of a learning curve as the one we had in Seminar.

Research essentially took the tools we learned in Seminar out of the “bubble” that was the BASIS Scottsdale classroom and forced us to apply everything we learned to “the real world.” Also, Research really forced me to up my presentations skills. Yes, Seminar taught me a lot about presenting, but it was Research that really took it to the next level.

Last, but not least, the OG, the BAWS, the Ms. Hol—I mean—Mrs. Haag. She worked her butt off for us. She really helped us all the way through the process. If it weren’t for her, I might be out on the streets begging. Mrs. Haag literally killed it this year with everything, she was there every step of the way and helped all of us feel confident about our Research experience.

But the best lesson I learned was how to plagiarize and get away with it.

Ok. Ok. I’m just kidding. I think I just gave Mrs. Haag a heart attack there. I did not plagiarize (I actually got a 5% on my Originality check so everyone calm down).

But, the biggest lesson that AP Capstone taught me was…how to procrastinate.  

Jk. AP Capstone was a really valuable experience and I am really confident that it taught me skills useful for college and beyond that other classes could not teach me.

Word Count: 666 (I swear this was totally on accident...so...Happy Easter?)

So Close, Yet So Far...

Less than a week left!!!! Oh, I can’t wait for when I’m eating the delicious pizza (or whatever I paid  23 buck for) at Oregano’s. Man, we are soooooo close to being done. Anyways, the biggest hurdle that is left is that dreaded 15-20 minute presentation.

I have given two practice presentations in front of Mrs. Haag and other teachers (who I can’t thank enough for spending their precious free time to watch me ramble on about anime). During my first presentation, there were quite a few things that needed to be changed. First, the text on my slides was too small and the color scheme made it very hard to read, which was really distracting. Also, I realized that there was a few key links that I was missing. I did not provide a definition for anime in my speech, and my explanation of the methods was confusing.

So I tried to fix all of that before the Saturday re-do. First, I changed my color scheme (which did not really help at all), and increased my font size. My text, although much bigger, was still hard to read, so I am thinking of changing my background color. Also, originally when I explained the methods, I went through my steps very vaguely. But I then decided to use an example to explain my methods, which turned out to work beautifully. Finally, I added a definition for anime. BUT! Even then, after all these changes, my presentation on Saturday (which was a little better than the one on Monday) still had a lot of issues.

The biggest issue, as Dr. Helmers kindly pointed out, was that my timeline for literature review was not clear. So in order to address that point, I decided to put an actual timeline into my slideshow, which I found, surprisingly, cut down a lot of words in my script because the timeline gave me a much more streamlined approach to talking about the history and rise of anime in America. Two other issues that Mrs. Haag, Dr. Helmers, and Mr. Molk pointed out on Saturday were that I did not cite my sources often enough, and that my conclusion was slightly off topic. I still have to work on those two parts, but I am confident that by Monday, I will have a presentation and script that will be close to perfect. My next meeting with Mrs. Haag is Thursday afternoon, so I am aiming to have everything tip-top, on point by the next meeting, because it will be too late to change anything by that time if I have any major issues on my presentation.

Overall, after the practice runs and the feedback, I am more confident than I was a week ago. And I am really looking forward to this all being over.

Word Count: 469

Practice, Presentation, Perfect...

I’m not gonna hide it. The presentation that I had when I met Mrs. Haag this week was terrible. No animations, nothing. Just a dump of haphazardly thrown together pictures. No transitions between slides. A deplorable color scheme. After editing for a week and thanks to the incredibly helpful comments that Daphne, Rema, Kimy, and Mrs. Haag provided, I think my slideshow is in much better shape.

To me, an ideal PowerPoint is one that adds to, not distracts from, your presentation. Originally, I had no animations on my PowerPoint, and I found that I was projecting ideas and bullet points before I had even gotten to that point in my presentation. Animations were great tools, they allow you to project bullet points as you go and help the audience to follow along with your speech through your presentation, rather than be distracted by it.

I feel pretty confident about my overall presentation and script. I think that the editing process as a whole has been great and the past week has really helped me to improve both my script and my presentation. Even though I have practiced it, I am a little worried about my speech being a little too long because many times I hit very close to the 15 minute mark. But, like everyone else, I think, my biggest concern is actually standing up there and giving the presentation. I just don’t want to mess up, so I am using different tactics to help me with my speech. The first thing I did was write down a list of bullet points that represented the flow of the main ideas within my speech. I then memorized this list, rather than my script. Then I familiarized myself with my script. Now, when I practice my speech, I try to use my memorized list and my familiarity with a script to “improvise” my presentation.

I found a cool little trick that was super helpful. I recorded myself saying the speech, and when I was busy doing something else, I just put on my headphones and listened to myself speak over, and over, and over again. It was a little painful at first, but it did a VERY good job in helping me remember my material.

I think our presentation is pretty different from our Seminar presentations. Our Seminar presentations were essentially our literature review and did not have the same complexity that our Research presentations have. We have a lot more moving parts in our Research presentations, because we have to articulate the similar arguments we had in Seminar along with our methods, results, and discussion. Also, Seminar was a straightforward solution-problem argument and presentation. In Research we have a more complex structure where we show a problem, then go into detailed about one solution (which is our research) and argue for why it works and helps fix the problem.

Overall, my biggest fear is just messing up in front of an audience. But I know that with two weeks of practice, that will not be very likely—but it still would be a possibility. So.I can’t wait for it to be all over.

Word Count: 524

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Remember those TED talks we used to watch in classes, and still sometimes do. Those were some of the most interesting and effective speeches and presentations that I have seen. I decided to watch some TED talks and try to make my presentation as interesting as theirs.

Ken Robinson's TED talk "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" is regarded as one of the best speeches ever given on TED.

What I realized is that their speeches are a series of stories. Now, I can’t simply tell stories, because the College Board will destroy me for that (see title of Ken Robinson’s speech above). So I decided to convert my literature review into a story, but keep the basic structure of the other parts of my paper the same. I had to rewrite and reorganize my entire literature review in a way that I could show the academic gap and context around the question, while still “tying evidence to claims” as the College Board’s rubric wants.

Like I said, my literature review was the only part of my paper that really needed to be modified for my presentation. The other three sections in my paper followed a similar structure in my speech. But, in order to satisfy Rubric Row 3, I decided to add an entire section talking about my original hypothesis/ideas and how they were changed/challenged by my results. Another thing that I added was a terrible story at the beginning of the presentation which I am hoping to use to hook my audience. It is supposed to be funny, but if you don’t find it funny, please just say so—it is not really a necessary part of my presentation, I was just hoping to add some flavor to my presentation (for Rubric Row 4).

My biggest concerns for my script is its length. I currently have around 2800 words, which I think is too much for 15 minutes, so please feel free to point out any places that are unnecessary or too wordy. Also, I am worried that because I know so much about my topic, that my speech could be too confusing. So again, if you feel like I am missing some parts or claims, just point it out and I will try my best to fix it.

Overall, I am very happy that we have moved on from our paper. Although my paper is not perfect, I think my paper is still a lot better than it was two weeks ago, thanks to all the feedback I got from my peers. Although I am extremely nervous for the presentation, I can’t wait for that day to come so it can all be over!

Word Count: 444