Political Linkage in America

POLI SCI 1, THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES

INSTRUCTOR: DR. KENNETH CHAIPRASERT

WRITING ASSIGNMENT = 30 POINTS TOTAL

Due by11:59pm on the deadline for the Theme 3 Module Assignments as

listed in the Syllabus

Write a 3-5 page essay (double-spaced, 12 point font) on Theme 3, “Political Linkage in America”. The

prompt for the essay is as follows:

Choose ONE political linkage topics from theme 3 in the syllabus. There are a total of six political linkage

topics in theme 3 to choose from: 1) Political Parties, 2) Elections and Voting, 3) Interest Groups, 4) Social

Movements, 5) The News, and 6) Public Opinion. In your essay, you must address both of the following two

parts.

Part 1: Identify a personal (real world) experience that you have with your chosen political linkage topic, and

analyze how your personal (real world) experience compares to what you have read in the assigned readings for

that topic. For example, let’s say you choose Elections and Voting as your political linkage topic from theme 3.

You will then describe in detail your own personal, real-world experience with voting in an election. You will

then compare that personal experience to what the assigned readings on Elections and Voting say about this

topic (as listed in the syllabus, the assigned readings for Elections and Voting are found in We the People,

Chapter 7). Is your personal real-world experience the same or different from what is presented in the assigned

readings? Explain. That is just one example. You can choose any political linkage topic from theme 3.

Part 2: Discuss in detail how you would use your overall knowledge about your chosen political linkage topic

gained from this class to respond to a specific political issue/event in the news right now. For example, let’s say

you choose Elections and Voting as your political linkage topic from theme 3. Identify a specific political

issue/problem that is currently highlighted in the news right now, and use everything that you have learned

about Elections and Voting in this class to create detailed strategies for taking action to respond to (or even

solve) that political issue/problem.

You are required to include specific ideas from the assigned readings relating to your chosen political linkage

topic. When doing so, you must include citations to the assigned readings. (Having no citations to the

assigned readings for your topic will result in point deductions.) Regarding citations, wherever you write

about something from the textbooks, you must immediately add a parenthetic citation at the end of the sentence.

The parenthetic citation should be in the following format:

(last name of author(s) and year of book, page numbers)

Example: An idea from page 159 in the 2015 edition of the Ginsberg We the People textbook:

Economic growth and climate change are two important issues in many countries around the world (Ginsberg et

al. 2015, 159).

If citing from any of the online links, for the purposes of this class, simply place the title of the link within

parentheses, for example (Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail).

2

Your 30 points will be based on how well you really, really explain your thoughts and examples, how well you

integrate specific ideas from the assigned readings (with appropriate citations), and how well you write your

essay to have no spelling/grammatical errors and/or readability issues. The more that you explain your

arguments and can support them with specific ideas and examples from both your personal experience AND the

assigned readings from this class, the better you will do on this essay.

You will be submitting this assignment through our Canvas module itself which will automatically process your essay

through Turnitin, a site that will check for any plagiarism/cheating. Note: you don’t need to do anything with

Turnitin.com itself; everything is taken care of here in Canvas.

Directions for submission:

1) Click the blue "Upload Submission" button below the cartoon tray. 2) In the "Submission Title Box", type in your name (last name, first name). 3) Click "Select a file to upload" and upload your file. 4) Review the info summary, and if it's correct, click "Continue". 5) After Turnitin takes a couple of seconds to process your request, you should see a preview of your

paper. If it's correct, click "Accept Submission & Save".

6) The final screen will appear with a green strip saying "Submission uploaded successfully" with your paper title and uploaded date and time displayed. (Make sure that you see this, or else you have not

submitted the writing assignment yet.)