Bruch, Patrick and Richard Marback. Eds. Reading City Life. New York: Pearson Longman, 2005.

Clucas, Richard A. Ed. Readings and Cases in State and Local Politics. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.

Smith, Kevin B., Alan Greenblatt and Michele Mariani. Governing States & Localities. 2^nd ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2008.

I will post four essay exams and four multiple choice exams covering the four major parts of this course. Each exam will be worth 50 points. The objective exams are based on the Smith et al book while the essay exams are based on the Clucas book as well as other resources. The objective exams are only open and available for taking during the specific time frames noted below, while you can work on the essays a bit longer with periodic due dates. Together, all eight exams total 400 points. The 22 readings from the Bruch and Marback book constitute extra credit assignments worth six points each or 132 in total (however, I have been known to award more points if I find particular essay to be strong for these city life exercises). An additional 68 points will be set aside for student class participation on the noted Discussion Board on Blackboard; hence the grand total for assessment is 600 points but only a 400 point grade scale is used for determining grades … the difference (200 points) is considered extra credit. It will be up to each student to determine how they will be evaluated on this four hundred point scale (this obviously means that there is a considerable margin for error; it also means that students will have choices to make when tackling particular assignments). In other words you will have 600 points worth of work displayed but you really only need 360 to earn an "A" in this class. Hence we are working with a 400 point grade scale where 360-400=A, 320-359=B, 280-319=C, etc. I post the essay exams early so that you can plan your work schedule accordingly. Each set of essay exams are due as noted below; these due dates obviously correspond to the end of each of the four major parts of the course. While these essays are opinion based, you must formally support your positions as noted below; this is not a requirement to be taken lightly (no proper citations = no points). In addition, all your work must be posted to the appropriate sections on Blackboard; no other method is acceptable unless there is a publicized university outage or you present me with a formal memo regarding your own personal PC or ISP issues from your appropriate vendor (in general, I require formal documentation whenever you cannot post on time; this doesn’t equal an automatic pass … just that I will consider it). With the exception of class participation, all work has specific due dates as noted below (discussion board participation is not calculated until the end of the class). The extra credit assignments are based on the Bruch & Marback readings; they require that you respond to the three Stabilizing and three Mobilizing questions in detail that are found at the end of each article. They are due according to the time frames noted below. In general, simply accumulate the number of points for the grade you desire and you’re golden. You will be able to redo or retake all exams without penalty (within the allotted time); however, if you start an objective exam ... finish it even though you will have the option to save and comeback since I have no way of "rescuing lost exams" on the university system. If you do change your essays, be sure that you repost the entire product since Blackboard does not retain your previous work. For the objective exams, you will know quite quickly if you completed them properly because they are instantly graded and your grade will appear in your grade report. Don’t bother playing "games" with the objective exams either by retaking such exams and saving numerous low score completions in order to determine the correct responses; the exam questions and responses are randomized each time you attempt such an exam so if you plan to "freeze" your responses … I’ll just delete them (I tend to monitor such exams carefully for the few days that they are open) … try defending such behavior before the Dean! As noted below, I have little tolerance for cheaters. This issue obviously doesn’t apply to any of the written work since you should simply write such work in your favorite word processing program and than "copy and paste" it to the appropriate response boxes. Be sure to save copies of all your work until you receive your final grade and make sure that your PC is in working order since the due dates are firm and I don’t accept "problems with my PC or the internet as excuses" … they are simply the 21^st century equivalent of the "dog ate my homework". Of course, if the university suffers an outage and I’m so notified by technical support that is a different matter. For the record, I don’t employ a "grade curve" (no reason to do so with the generous extra credit opportunities provided) and I obviously don’t accept late work, so plan your work schedule accordingly in terms of the latter point. As previously noted, the only time I will even consider accepting late work is if you provide me with written documentation from an objective third party concerning your problem or issue (btw, parents are not considered objective third parties in my book).

For your protection I strongly recommend that you prepare all your essays in a word processing program and then copy and paste them into the appropriate response boxes. I use MS Word and suggest the same just in case you find it necessary to submit work late; I use the encrypted creation and update dates and times to make a determination on acceptance so you would be wise to use the same software. Do not work directly in the response boxes without adequate backup and save this backup or files until after you receive your final grade. Citations/references are required for your essays and in the format that I precisely specify. Obviously I’m not that anal about citations even though it may appear so and I certainly do not short change substance; my point is quite simple: you must formally support your positions. This is a very basic social science requirement. I require a rather simple approach and if you don’t comply the penalty will change your mind quickly; obviously, you are only making more work for yourself if you do not comply. To say the least, you would be foolish to overlook this requirement. You do not need to provide many, one or two will do per essay but all must be correct in order to receive credit. In other words, it is an all or nothing grade when it comes to citations. There are three likely sources for your citations. One, the Case/Readings book so just cite as (Clucas p#). I realize that this is an edited book and that the actual article or case authors should be cited but I’m trying to adhere to the old military adage that I heard years ago when I taught at the Pentagon: KISS or Keep It Simple Stupid so you can forego that nicety. For this reference and the next do not cite more than two pages at a time. I want specific page numbers that I can look up not general references to a bunch of pages. Two, traditional sources outside of this class; remember keep them two pages and just use a style guide for the posting of complete and formal references and citations. Don’t know the difference between the two (references and citations) … simply ask. (I use Kate Turabian’s book … A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (6^th or 7^th edition) Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996 or so) but you are free to select your own). Keep in mind this is only for citations not found in either the Clucas or the Smith books. The PowerPoint Notes that I provide are from the publisher so don’t cite them, cite the Smith et al book. For all three class books, just use the author’s last name and page number for all quotes, idea references, or paraphrasing and place such cites between parentheses as in : (author, p.#) … it is that simple. Remember, I’m not looking for a "list of works consulted" type bibliography; I already assume that you will be consulting the main books (as a matter of fact, it is virtually impossible to answer the questions without reading the Clucas articles). Instead, I want detailed citations that support your positions … just make such citations "formal" if you decide to use "other" non-class material. And finally, Three, internet references; in this case I want you to embed in your essay the very specific page/URL that you consulted and not search engine indices. Given the rather open nature of the site and its code, Wikipedia citations are not valid. If you haven’t done this before consult tech support or follow my instructions. Go to the top of your browser and copy the specific URL by right clicking and selecting copy from the menu, paste that address into your essay and move your cursor to the last character of that address and tap your space bar. Your word processing program and Blackboard (you may need to repeat this last step once you post to Blackboard depending on your software) will automatically produce the link (it should turn blue and get underlined). This last method is actually a piece of cake once you do it a couple of times. Again, for web links to count, they must be formally embedded. In other words, if I can’t click on the link and be directly taken to the specific page that you consulted, they are not valid. In short, if your link turns blue and gets underlined after tapping the space bar, chances are you did it correctly from a technical viewpoint; substance is obviously a different matter!

Simply accumulate the points necessary for the grade you want based on the noted four hundred point scale. As the following indicates, there are specific due dates for most of the work. Don’t miss those dates because I don’t do extensions. In addition, I have no intention of automatically assigning "Incomplete" grades at the end of the semester but instead will simply use the "F" grade. "Incomplete" grades will only be assigned in response to unusual circumstances, with short deadlines, and what I will deem to be sufficient written documentation. For the record, each assignment has been programmed with a specific shut-off time and date so don’t be late. In general, you should post at least an hour or so before the shut-off time just in case you encounter problems.

Part One: Foundations

Part Two: Participation & Local Government

Part Four: Policy