• Don't be afraid to bring in half-baked ideas/writing to capstone seminar. You will only slow yourself down if you insist on perfection before getting feedback from your peers, capstone seminar instructor, or capstone advisor.
• Keep searching the literature and reading. You should be constantly searching the literature and reading papers relevant to your capstone report, both during the preliminary stages of choosing a project and during the final stages of writing your capstone project. You should make a promise to yourself to read "X" articles per week (I recommend a minimum of 1 or 2). Keep it manageable and keep it consistent. It's a much better strategy than creating a big pile of articles that you'll "read later." The more reading you do now, the easier it will be to write your final report, and the easier it will be to place your report in a larger context that makes sense to others.
• Keep notes on your reading. As you read articles, keep an annotated bibliography in which you summarize the articles you read and note each article's relevance to your work. It's easy to read things, put them down, and then forget just a week or so later what you've read. Taking a few notes will save you a LOT of time later.
• Don't give up on tough articles. Let's face it, not all articles are well written. If you run across a tough article that seems relevant to your capstone, don't give up on it. You may need to put it down for a week or two, and keep coming back to it later. You'll find that over time it will make more and more sense.
• Write drafts of capstone proposal or report sections well in advance of deadlines. Often it's best to write something, not look at it for a week or two while you work on something else, and then come back to it later with a fresh eye.
• Submit work to your capstone advisor at or before established deadlines. Deadlines are set so that your capstone advisor and other faculty readers will know when your work is coming in so they can budget time to read your work and get feedback to you in a timely manner. Most faculty members work on very tight schedules and if you do not get your work to them by established deadlines, it is possible they may not have time to read your work by the time you need it read, and this can lead to failure to receive credit for capstone seminar and/or delays in graduation.
• Budget your time. Most problems happen when students put off their capstone work until just before major deadlines, or even worse, until just before the end of the semester. Try to budget "X" (e.g. 4) hours every week to work on your capstone.
• Come to capstone seminar every week! It's easy to fall behind on your capstone, especially when you've got other classes going on. Preparing and coming to capstone seminar every week will help keep you moving along on your work.

* Taken from CSU Monterrey Bay - Earth Systems Science and Policy Capstone Website (http://essp.csumb.edu/capstone)