Comparative Federalism
Guidelines:
Be sure to follow all formatting guidelines provided in the syllabus. Your final work product must have a cover page with a word count, an essay that is 3-4 pages in length and a works cited page. The minimum writing requirement expectation is two full pages in your own words (excluding citations). If the minimum expectations are not met, the assignment will be marked incomplete. Be sure to provide a proper citation in MLA or APA format for all works consulted on a separate works cited page.
Background information:
Germany, Canada, India, and Australia are just a few nations that have a federal system of government. Conduct an independent investigation into one of these federal systems to gain a comparative perspective about American federalism.
Essay Questions:
– What are the similarities of the federalist system in the country you selected when compared to the US federalist system? What are the differences between the two systems?
– What can the US government learn from the other nation (possible reforms)?
– What can the other nation learn from the United States to improve their federal system?
– What is the public sentiment in each country regarding the current status of the State-Federal relationship? What conclusions can be drawn from comparing the public opinion on Federalism in each country?
• Each student is expected to utilize 2-3 scholarly sources (peer-reviewed articles from academic journals) for the writing assignments. There is a tool built into the course to help you obtain quality sources for your writing assignment, it is labeled “research center” on the main menu of the course. For current events related information, use a newspaper, news magazine, news website, a court case or an actual law. The course textbook, Wikipedia, internet search engines, blogs and similar items are examples of unacceptable research sources on the collegiate level.
• Only your own words will count toward the writing requirements. The writing assignments are intended to assess your comprehension of the material. Meaning, cited and paraphrased information should not be in your word counts.
• All assignments are expected to meet college level writing requirements; all answers are to be in essay format and the expectation is for each student to engage the topics using critical analysis. Please do not attempt to provide simplified or elementary answers if you wish to earn credit for your work. Take the time to fully explain your ideas and demonstrate the depth of your understanding to earn the grade you want.
• Failure to identify sources is plagiarism. Provide the full MLA or APA citation for all outside sources. All references are to be documented within the body of the assignment and on a works cited page.
• Do not use first person tones in the Mid-term Essay and Term Project assignments. The prompts are designed to help you think about the topic, not to generate a direct response. First person tone is inappropriate in a college essay, but may be used in discussion forum activities.
• The formatting requirements for all assignments are : typed / word processed, double-spaced, size 12 font, Arial or Times New Roman script, 1 inch margins (default setting), and a limited number of grammatical errors.
• All assignments are to be submitted as one electronic file to the appropriately titled online dropbox. Again, all pages of an assignment (cover page, body text, and works cited) are to be submitted together. Assignments will not be accepted via any other delivery method, unless prior approval was obtained.
• Assignments submitted online must be in one of the following file formats: doc, rtf or txt. Other document formats are unacceptable and will be rejected by the dropbox.
• There is no credit for partial work. The minimum writing expectation for each assignment or activity must be satisfied to earn a grade. Incomplete assignments will receive a zero.
• There is a specific course policy regarding late work. Chapter activities, discussion forums, extra credit, etc. are excluded from the late work policy and are always due by the stated deadline. Late work for the mid-term essay will only be accepted in a case where there are extenuating circumstances that the instructor was informed about in advance of the deadline.