Extra Credit

I will conduct course evaluations in class on Tuesday. If at least 50% of the students enrolled in a section complete a course evaluation, I will award one point of extra credit on the final grade of every student in that section. The extra credit opportunity is available to both sections.

Extra Credit Opportunity for Exam 3

So, this semester, I have placed new emphasis on The Federalist in the course. In the hope of inspiring you all to improve your understanding of that material and commit it to long-term memory (and to try to harness your creativity to help me come up with a better way to teach this stuff), students who produce a video explaining and demonstrating an original way to remember the arguments in Federalists 10, 46, 51, and 78 can win extra credit that may be applied to your third exam.

Here are the rules:

1. An entry may be no longer than 5 minutes.
2. Each entry must provide instruction on the four Federalist essays described above.
3. Entries may be the work of individual students or teams. (Students may collaborate across sections.)
4. Teams may be no larger than 4 students.
4. No student may be involved in more than one entry.
5. Entries must be burned onto a CD-ROM in a common video file format (e.g. .mpg, .mov, etc.).
6. All entries are must be physically turned in to me no later than the start of the entrant or entrants' class on Monday, April 30. Be sure to write the names of all students' responsible for the video on the physical disc.

I will select up to five finalist entries on the basis of three criteria: the usefulness of the video for helping future students learn the assigned Federalist essays (60%), creativity (25%), and production values (15%). I will choose one winning video and one runner-up from among the finalists.

• Individuals or teams who produce the three finalist videos will receive 4 points of extra credit (per person). 
• The person or team who produces the runner-up video will receive 8 points of extra credit (per person). 
• The person or team who produces the winning video will receive 12 points of extra credit (per person).

All extra credit will be applied to grades for the third exam prior to any curves or other adjustments I may make. By submitting a video, entrants agree to assign to me the nonexclusive right to publish and distribute their video (including posting it online, making it available for others to download, and showing it in present and future classes) and to incorporate ideas and material from the videos into lectures and other teaching products. Lastly, and as always, I am the dictator of the extra credit assignment. My interpretation of the rules is final, and I reserve the right to alter or amend its terms at any time with reasonable notice.

Please let me know if you have any questions about this opportunity. Good luck.

Office Hours Cancelled Today, April 18

I am *very* sorry for this last minute change, but I will not be able to make my office hours today in order to attend to a family medical situation.

I will hold extra office hours tomorrow from 2:00PM-400PM in my office on West Campus (in addition to my usual office hours from 10-00AM-12:00PM) and also on Friday afternoon from 1:00PM-4:00PM in Evans Library.

Again, I am very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause, and I hope you will be able to attend one of these makeup times. If not, please let me know, and I can schedule individual appointments as necessary.

SMD Video

Today, we talked about the relationship between a country's electoral rules and the number of political parties that enjoy significant levels of electoral support. This video may help you get a handle on the SMD system, which the video refers to as "first past the post," which refers to deciding elections by plurality rule.