Course Requirements: Options is a better word than requirements since you have a variety of choices to make in terms of accumulating the necessary points for the grade that you desire. Like most students I assume that you want an "A" in this course. To achieve it, follow this basic formula: substantive knowledge + time expended = points. You can accumulate these points by writing solid essay exams, by doing well on the objective exams, by completing group based case work, by writing thoughtful praxis papers, and by participating in on-line discussions. You are not required to complete each assignment; instead concentrate on doing well on those that you select and keep an eye on the points that you need.

Participation in the second forum on the Discussion Board is designed to provide you with an opportunity to broaden your horizons in terms of bureaucratic politics. Since such politics is a sub-set of government and politics, most any topic is valid. It is also a means for you to participate in the class if you are a distant education student or you just happened to miss a class or two. Whether you post questions or respond to questions posted by others, the key to success is response depth and appropriate citation support. Eighty points have been allocated to this phase of the class. For my part, I check these boards on a regular basis meaning two or three times a day during the weekdays and at least once a day on the weekends so in a sense the class has a 24/7 element. This can be significant for a class that only runs six weeks. As long as you are posting comprehensively at least twice a week, those eighty points can be had.

The six praxis papers are worth twenty-five points each and should be the equivalent to three to five double spaced, type-written pages. I highly recommend that all your written work be prepared and saved with MS Word not only as a back-up in case something goes wrong, but also because the word processing capabilities of Blackboard are quite limited. The key to success in these papers is directly proportional to the time devoted to linking these artistic films with relevant course material as specified in the individual praxis assignments. Remember, these are not research papers; there is no need to go beyond the material specified in the assignment unless you have a burning desire to do so. Appropriate response boxes are provided for the posting of these papers on-line.

The fourteen cases derive directly from the associated fourteen chapters in the Kettl and Fesler text. They are set-up as ad doc group assignments so if you miss a class you will need to complete them individually. While the questions are rather straight forward, be sure that you engage in some theory-practice integration in one of your response. In short, make a formal linkage to some aspect of the corresponding chapter in at least one of the case responses via the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) methodology; and that is, (Kettl and Fesler, p. #).

The objective exams are set-up to be straight forward assessments of what you have read in a particular part of the main text. Outside of the discussion board and the case work (which are more a matter of time than fixed dates), this is the only part of the class in which access is limited. Due to software constraints, these exams are only open for three day periods; you can take as long as you want to complete an objective exam (within those three days but don’t stay on for too many hours or the system will force you to re-logon thereby burning your one and only chance) but you cannot save and return. The following is the schedule for those forty point exams:

And finally, the five essay exams are just another straight forward assessment of the material that you read from the main text, but instead of true-false statements and multiple guess questions, short answer essays are employed. Unless you feel a need to do so, there is no reason to go beyond the Kettl and Fesler book when searching for relevant citations. All of the essay questions were taken directly from the publisher’s test bank for these types of exams. The equivalent of two or three, double spaced, typewritten paragraphs per question should suffice. Just use the above mentioned KISS method … (Kettl and Fesler, p. #) … when placing citations for these essays. Such citations are critical since without them no points are awarded. As in the case of the praxis papers, use the appropriate response boxes provided for posting your work.

Since the assignment response boxes are linked directly to the course gradebook, all written work must be "copied and pasted" to these boxes; do not email me your work. If you want me to review your written work before it is officially due on Friday, August 8^th (keep in mind that the course web page itself shuts down at 5:00pm on that date), simply post and notify me. I will than review your work and if necessary provide constructive feedback in the instructor comments box that you can access via your gradebook. If you provide me with enough lead time (say at least 48 hours) I should be able to provide you with enough time for you to make changes and hence improve the quality of your work. If you decide to make changes, all you need to do is clear your attempt on Blackboard (BB) and repost your entire assignment; that is, even if you only redo one question for an essay exam you must repost the entire assignment because BB erases all previous responses and they cannot be recovered. Obviously with this in mind there is no "best of test taking" when it comes to the essay exams; once you redo an assignment the previous grade is lost and cannot be recovered. In addition and though this point may be common sense, citations from either the Kafka novel or the six films do not meet the citation requirement. Since such artistic work is the subject of your analysis, to attempt to derive linkage or generalization citations from them is both circular and illogical. As far as I am concerned, you can meet all your citation requirements by simply utilizing the Hudson, Kettl and Fesler, and Mommsen books and by using the KISS method. If you care to utilize other sources, read on.

As previously noted, proper citations are required; without them no points will be earned for either entire papers or specific essay responses and by proper I mean one of the following three formats … no alternate formats are accepted. You do not need to provide many, one or two will do per essay exam response and around four or five for the praxis papers 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. Keep in mind that citations are not references; if you don’t know the difference, simply ask. References are used in a general sense such as in a "List of Works Consulted" and posted at the end of a particular response. Given the rather open ended nature of most of the written work for this class, the primary means for me to determine the strength of your argument lies in the inclusion of appropriate citations … and you do not need to look beyond the main text or the supporting Hudson and Mommsen books. Citations are specific evidence, in the form of direct quotes, paraphrases, and acquired facts, that are integral parts of a given sentence; as such, I expect to find such citations included at the end of each appropriate sentence and in the required format. If I see them at the end of your written work, chances are you are missing the point especially when I can determine that they should have been placed at the end of a previous sentence.

All citations must be in a parenthetical format such as (Kettl and Fesler, p. 123); in other words the format is (author’s last name and page number) including the parentheses. Footnotes/Notes are not accepted for credit. Based on previous experience, these citations assume one of three formats.

1. Most students simply use the three course books when citing so the format is (Hudson, p. 123), (Kettle and Fesler, p. 456) or (Mommsen, p. 789). Under no circumstances are you to omit the author’s last name and go with just the page number … even if you just mentioned the author’s name. In other words, if you simply use the main text for all your citations and place them in this format … (Kettle and Fesler, p. #) … this will be fine; no outside sources are necessary. Remember, include the parentheses and place such cites at the end of each relevant sentence. For this citation and the next do not cite more than two pages at a time. I want specific page numbers that I can look up and not general references to a bunch of pages in order to reveal the specifics of your various positions; multiple page citations simply work against this objective so break them down. Regardless of various style considerations, for purposes of this class your citations from the three course books must be in this format and no other so as I previously stated don’t even think about taking short cuts and dropping the author’s name even when you mention his name at various points in your work. If I don’t see (Hudson, p. #), (Kettl and Fesler, p.#), or (Mommsen, p. #) it doesn’t count.

3. Internet citations are the third format; in this case I want you to embed in your written work the very specific web page/URL that you utilized. As with all citations, place these at the very end of each appropriate sentence and not at the end of your essays. In short, I also want these in a parenthetical format with no exceptions. If I can’t "click" on these cites and bring up the specific page that you utilized (and not general indices or search engines) they don’t count. Again, I don’t see a need for such citations but some students just love to use them and include them in their work. Do not, however, use Wikipedia or any of the associated cites as a formal source. I will not recognize them given the rather open nature of their code, so Wikipedia citations are not valid. Remember, it is your responsibility to post these citations correctly so be sure to test them once you have posted them to Blackboard. 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 but be sure to test what you embed.

So now ends my anal fascination with citations or the tedious (I should have chosen a career in writing software manuals). Since this is a quasi-legal document I must state for the record, don’t cheat unless you are shopping for a quick "F" from me. I don’t curve or provide outside extra credit (why should I with all the options that I provide?). And give yourself enough time when making your final postings on Friday August, 8^th. Since I can’t extend the time be sure that you have everything posted well before 4:00pm on the 8^th. So pretend that you are a voter from Chicago, post early and often.

The numbers breakdown is as follows:

Essay Exams (Five exams worth forty points each):                                                       200

Objective Exams (Five exams worth forty points each):                                                 200

Case Work (Fourteen sets of questions worth five points each):                                  70

Praxis Papers (Six papers worth twenty-five points each):                                             150

360+ = A

320-359 = B

280-319 = C

240-279 = D

<240 = F

Course Outline:

July 2^nd – Classical Theories & Cases One & Two

July 9^th – The Nature of Governmental Activity

July 16^th – Organization Theory & The Role of Government’s Structure & Cases Five & Six

July 23^rd – People in Government Organizations & Cases Seven & Eight

July 30^th – Making & Implementing Government Decisions & Cases Eleven & Twelve

August 6^th – Administration in a Democracy, Cases Thirteen & Fourteen, & SamBs