Describes the historical and Constitutional basis of American Government’s structure and how this relates to the policy.

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Week 3 Final Research Paper Outline Worksheet

REMINDER:  Please be sure you have critically read the instructions for BOTH the Week 3 Final Paper Outline Assignment, and the Week 5 Final Research Paper.

Final Paper Outline

  1. Introduction

Your introduction should start with a hook to draw your reader in, establish your          topic, and create interest.  It should then provide very brief background on your topic before including your thesis statement and an overview of the main points of your paper.  It should be a minimum of one complete paragraph of at least five sentences in length.

  1. Thesis Statement

Your thesis statement, should come at the end of your introduction to fully address your topic and the four main points of your position.  Your thesis statement should be one sentence in length.  It should be a statement, not a question. It should clearly and concisely establish your topic, explain why your topic is important, and address how it connects to the four main points of the Final Research Paper.  The Ashford Writing Center has several resources that can help you develop your thesis statement.

  1. Heading for Main Point 1- Describes the historical and Constitutional basis of American Government’s structure and how this relates to the policy.

Each heading should address a specific topic or component of your paper.  This area will be the body paragraphs of your paper.  This is where you will explain your ideas and support your topic with the references you have found.  This section of the outline can be quite long and does not have to be condensed into only four headings.  Within your outline, you must cite (within the text) at least six references; four of which must be scholarly peer-reviewed sources obtained through the AU Library databases.  While this is an outline, all sentences must be complete thoughts and support your topic.

  1. Subheading 1– This should be the first main point to support your argument or assertion here.

This is where you will outline this point, and include the APA in-text citation when you are incorporating your research information.

  1. Subheading 2– This should be the second main point to support your argument or assertion here.

This is where you will outline this point, and include the APA in-text citation when you are incorporating your research information.

  1. Heading for Main Point 2 – Explains how the policy is involved within the process of checks and balances.
  2. Subheading 1– This should be the first main point to support your argument or assertion here.

This is where you will outline this point, and include the APA in-text citation when you are incorporating your research information.

  1. Subheading 2– This should be the second main point to support your argument or assertion here.

This is where you will outline this point, and include the APA in-text citation when you are incorporating your research information.

  1. Heading for Main Point 3 – Describes how the policy relates to public policy and elections and how the policy is portrayed by the media.
  2. Subheading 1– This should be the first main point to support your argument or assertion here.

This is where you will outline this point, and include the APA in-text citation when you are incorporating your research information.

  1. Subheading 2– This should be the second main point to support your argument or assertion here.

This is where you will outline this point, and include the APA in-text citation when you are incorporating your research information.

  1. Heading for Main Point 4 – Explains how the policy impacts voting and the election process.
  2. Subheading 1– This should be the first main point to support your argument or assertion here.

This is where you will outline this point, and include the APA in-text citation when you are incorporating your research information.

  1. Subheading 2– This should be the second main point to support your argument or assertion here.

This is where you will outline this point, and include the APA in-text citation when you are incorporating your research information.

  1. Conclusion

Your conclusion should summarize the key points, restate your thesis (but not verbatim), and establish a conclusion regarding your topic.  It should be a minimum of one complete paragraph of at least five sentences in length.

  1. Reference List

Full APA citations for all six sources referenced in your outline, should be included in this section.  Please be sure to use proper APA formatting and hanging indents.  You may click here to see specific examples of APA formatted references, provided by the Ashford Writing Center.

Explain five essential feature of the U.S. Constitution.

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Explain five essential feature of the U.S. Constitution. Give specific examples of each. Explain te relevance of each to the American political system today.

Identify the author and major thesis of the Yes side

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Discussion Posts

Guidelines: Read the two documents giving expressing divergent views. Research the issue and form your opinion on the issue. The first part of this assignment is posting your response to both of the corresponding readings associated with the Discussion topic. Your response should be structured like an essay, (use paragraphs) and make references to the reading. Reference to additional readings that you use for your analysis should be properly cited. At the end of your essay, please provide a question for further discussion, that your classmates may respond to in the second part of this assignment. See below an outline for writing the post.

You will not be able to see what your peers have posted prior to submitting your initial post (essay). This is to ensure originality and no copy-paste/filibustering mentality. Should your first post be an empty post (to circumvent this initial blocking view of others’ posts), it will count as zero (0) points. Keep in mind that your discussion postings will likely be seen by other members of the course. Care should be taken when determining what to post.

After you post your own, original comment on both the readings (reading others’ discussion posts is disabled until you post your own), you need to reply to, at least, two (2) discussion posts of your peers. Opinions and examples are valuable to your posts but you need to show that you have read the assigned readings.

The discussion post is graded with a rubric. Be sure to check out the rubric to maximize your grade.

Response/Reply post: should be substantive and analytical and not banal (“your post is very interesting, I agree with what you have said).”

Word limit: the initial post for each discussion must have a minimum of 400-500 words (not a hard limit).

Relevance to assigned material: the posted ideas indicate that the student has read the assigned material.

Clarity and coherence.

Critical thinking: there is evidence that the student has adequately analyzed, synthesized, and evaluated the assigned material.

The posting articulates a question for discussion that pertains to the assigned material.

Spelling, grammar: the posting must meet university-level standards of spelling and grammar.

A note about discussions:

These discussions are an excellent way to enhance one’s knowledge and develop skills for civil, social interaction. Living in the turbulent times when the term “fake news” has become passé. It is important to understand the difference between fact, opinion and belief, prejudice and develop skills to analyze them.

As Sen. Daniel Moynihan once said “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.

A fact is verifiable. This may involve numbers, dates, testimony, photograph, video evidence, etc. (e.g.: “World War II ended in 1945.”)

An opinion is a judgment based on facts, an honest attempt to draw a reasonable conclusion from factual evidence. An opinion is potentially changeable–depending on how the evidence is interpreted. For example, we know that millions of people go without proper medical care, and so you form the opinion that the country should institute national health insurance for the benefit of all.

A belief is a conviction based on cultural, personal faith, morality, or values. Statements such as “Capital punishment is legalized murder” are often called “opinions” because they express viewpoints, but they are not based on facts or other evidence.

Prejudice is a half-baked opinion based on insufficient or unexamined evidence. For example “Women are bad drivers,” “Men don’t ask for driving directions,” unlike a belief, a prejudice is testable: it can be contested and disproved on the basis of facts.

Outline for the discussion post.

  1. State the issue in your own words
  2. Identify the author and major thesis of the Yes side
  3. Identify the author and major thesis of the No side.
  4. Briefly state in your own words two facts presented by each side.
  5. Briefly identify as many fallacies on the Yes side as you can.
  6. Briefly identify as many fallacies on the No side as you can.
  7. All in all, which author impressed you as being the most empirical in presenting their thesis? Why?
  8. Are there any reasons to believe the writer/s are biased? If so, why do they have these biases?
  9. Which side (Yes or No) do you personally feel is most correct now that you have reviewed the material in these articles? Why?
  10. Did you find evidence of other logical errors on the part of the authors? Explain which of the following apply and where.
  11. Distortion of Information
  12. Faulty Analogy
  13. Oversimplification
  14. Stereotyping
  15. Faulty Generalization

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Explain how the use of international law or international institutions can play a role in resolving international problems

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How the use of international law or international institutions can play a role in resolving international problems

Discuss the differences and similarities between the presidential and parliamentary systems, including the executive and legislative branches.

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Discuss the differences and similarities between the presidential and parliamentary systems, including the executive and legislative branches. Which system do you feel serves its citizen better? Why? Use evidence (cite sources) to support your response from assigned readings or online lessons, and at least one outside scholarly source.

How was the Court’s decision in the Lemon case used to decide the Zelman case?

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Using the textbook and the Lemon v. Kurtzman and the Zelman v.Simmons-Harris case outlines,answer the following questions:
1. What was the constitutional issue in both cases?
2. How was the Court’s decision in the Lemon case used to decide the Zelman case?
3. In Zelman, what is the majority decision regarding private choice?
4. In Zelman, what was the dissenting opinion regarding private choice?
5. Explain whether or not you agree or disagree with the court’s decision. Discuss and give support for your position.

What is a federal system of government? Why did the founding fathers choose this type of system?

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What is a federal system of government? Why did the founding fathers choose this type of system? Which level of government (federal or state) has the most power? Is this how it should be? Provide your reasoning for your choices and support your positions with information from the readings.

Write a substantive journal entry that describes your role as an organizational-level leader in your current organization.

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Write a substantive journal entry that describes your role as an organizational-level leader in your current organization. Additionally, the journal will examine the ways in which leadership changes at the organizational level, the utilization of critical thinking in problem framing, and the role a SGM plays in influencing the development of the organizations and its leaders.
The journal entry must be between 400-700 words.
Adhere to APA standards .
Do not write in first person or passive voice

Evaluate in a 4-5 sentence paragraph the following claim: No system of government can be both, at the same time, democratic and tyrannical.

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Item 1. James Madison, Federalist 10. In a 4-5 sentence paragraph, complete the following thought: “In America, a direct democracy will be unworkable. A republic, on the other hand, offers several advantages, including _________________.”

Item 2. Alexis de Tocqueville, “Principle of the Sovereignty of the People of North America.” Informed by your reading of Tocqueville’s thought, evaluate in a 4-5 sentence paragraph the following claim: No system of government can be both, at the same time, democratic and tyrannical.

Item 3. Theodore Roosevelt and American Progressivism. In his essay, “Two Noteworthy Books on Democracy,” Theodore Roosevelt discusses the ideas of Herbert Croly and Walter Lippmann. In his remarks about Lipmann, Roosevelt explains that the former believed “There can be no real political democracy, unless there is something approaching an economic democracy.” What might the term economic democracy mean? What do progressives see as the relationship between the health of a society’s economy and the health of its democracy? Explain in a 4-5 sentence paragraph.

Item 4. (10 pts) American Civil Liberties. Recall (perhaps you’ll need to re-read this item) our discussion of (a very small portion of) Justice Jackson’s opinion for the Supreme Court in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943). Further recall that in this opinion Justice Jackson defends the Court’s decision to strike down a West Virginia state law. That law, you’ll remember, required school children to, at the beginning of each school day, salute the American flag. Now, then, how might we reconcile Justice Jackson’s position in the case with the principle that in America “the people are sovereign,” i.e., that law and policy should be determined by the collective voice of the people expressed through the mechanism of their elected representatives (in the state legislature or Congress)? Limit your response to two well-developed paragraphs.

What role has each interest group played in American politics? Provide two (2) examples for each group.

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Interest Groups

Background

For this assignment you’ll research at least two interest groups.

Pick one (1) interest group whose agenda you like and one (1) you disagree with to research. Start by finding the homepage for each interest group on the internet. Conduct further web-based research to see what news sources have reported about the two interest groups, what some of their recent activities have been, which politicians they support, which politicians they oppose, and so on.

Important Reminder

Remember to put the work in your own words unless you’re directly quoting one of your sources. Copying and pasting someone else’s work is considered plagiarism and is unacceptable. Always provide sources where you got your information. The point of a project like this is to get you comfortable researching complex issues and making an argument using the work of experts to support your argument.

Assignment Instructions

With this project you’ll answer some essential questions as you organize your findings.

Respond to the items below:

  1. What’s the main agenda of the two (2) groups you researched?
  2. What role has each interest group played in American politics? Provide two (2) examples for each group.
  3. How influential are these interest groups? Support your response with one (1) supporting fact for each group.
  4. Why do you like or dislike them? Provide three (3) reasons why you like or dislike each group.
  5. Was there anything in your findings that surprised you? Provide one (1) finding that either surprised you or that may surprise other individuals.

You should use research to form your opinions and support your arguments. The paper should address the central question and include the topics provided to help you organize and present the information. This project will be four to six pages in total.

Review your research and use supporting arguments to justify your position.

Length/Formatting Instructions

  • Length: 4 pages
  • Font: 12 point, Calibri font, 1″ margins
  • Program/file type: Submit in Word
  • Attachments: Attachments should be pasted into the Word document if possible.
  • Part of your grade will depend upon you following the proper style. If you need help with the formatting and reference page, please use the APA referencing system. 
  • You’ll be graded using the following rubric:

Interest Groups Rubric