This exercise is divided in two sections or parts and you will have to answer both parts:
Part One:
- First, take the quizzes to find out your political ideology at one or both of the following websites:
- Advocates for Self Government a libertarian web-site: www.theadvocates.org/quiz
- Pew Research Center for People & the Press: www.people-press.org/typlogy/quiz
- Then, write a paragraph (250 words) explaining the results of the quizz(es). Do you believe that these quizzes accurately measured your ideological leanings? Why are why not?
Part Two:
- The second part of this assignment requires that you select a topic in ONE of the chapters covered by this module and conduct research by visiting one of the websites listed below under the heading of Options.
- Then, write an essay (300 words):
- explain why you decided to research that topic;
- how does it relate to the chapter you selected;
- discuss whether you consider this site a good tool for learning about American politics.
Options:
Chapter 5: Public Opinion and Chapter 6: The Media
If you choose to cover these chapters, begin by visiting either pollingreport.com or RealClearPolitics.com,
- PollingReport.com is a nonpartisant source on current trends in public opinion: http://www.pollingreport.com
- Real Clear Politics is a source for comparing polling results from several sources. It also aggregates the result from election polls: http://www.realclearpolitics.com
Next, visit the following websites and identify whether it leans to the left or the right; or whether the site represents academic viewpoints that are non-partisan (neither left nor right leanings). Compare and contrast the two groups of sources.
- Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com
- The National Review: http://www.nationalreview.com
- Truth Out: http://www.truthout.org
- The Monkey Cage: http://www.themonkeycage.org
Chapter 7: Political Parties, Participation, and Elections: compare and contrast the information from the following websites:
- League of Women Voters: http://www.vote411.org
- Project Vote Smart provides information on elections, candidates; and elected officials : http://www.votesmart.org
Chapter 8: Interest Groups: compare and contrast the following websites.
- For a list of the ten most important interest groups in America visit: http://listosaur.com/politics/10-powerful-special-interest-groups-america/
- The Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative organization provides excerpts on lobbying investigations: http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Lobbying
- The Center for Responsive Politics provides the most comprehensive list of interest groups and lobbyist: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/
- American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), one of the most powerful associations of legislators and private sector interest groups: http://www.alec.org/
- For a full expose on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), visit: http://billmoyers.com/2015/07/24/dark-cloud-of-alec-converges-at-annual-corporate-political-lovefest/
- Essays must be submitted through the proper dropbox. Scroll down the page and you will see the instructions and the dropbox.
- Upload your work in the dropbox below as a Word document. Work that is not submitted through the assigned dropbox or that is submitted using other software will receive a grade of zero.
All essays must be written using proper English grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Points will be deducted for each spelling, grammatical, syntax, capitalization, and/or punctuation error. Work that that does not meet the minimum word requirement will receive a 0.
Essays are automatically submitted to SafeAssign. Work that SafeAssign identifies as having more than a 10% rate of similarity (plagiarism) after quoted material and small matches (10 words or less) are excluded will not be read and will received a 0.
Attached are the chapters for additional information