Menu Adam R Brown

Syllabus

Poli 110 (fall 2024)

Professor Adam Brown (about me)
Email: brown@byu.edu
Office phone: (801) 422-2182
Office: 772 KMBL

Current syllabus: https://adambrown.info/p/courses/2024/fall/110
Syllabus version: October 11th, 2024

Office hours and review sessions. See the online version of the syllabus for current office hours.

Office hours and review sessions. Drop into office hours for one-on-one help or attend a review session for group help, ending when questions cease. Email for an appointment if you need to see a specific person whose usual hours conflict with your schedule.

Monday

8:30-9:30a, Emma
849 KMBL

9:30-10:50a, Megan
849 KMBL

11:15a-12:15p, Will
849 KMBL

12:30-1:30p, Isabelle
849 KMBL

2-4p, Emily
849 KMBL

4-5p, Abby
849 KMBL

Tuesday

12-1:15p Brown
772 KMBL

1-3p, Olive
849 KMBL

3-4p, Abby
849 KMBL

4-5p, Emily
849 KMBL

Wednesday

8:30-9:30a, Emma
849 KMBL

9:30-10:50a, Megan
849 KMBL

11:15a-12:15p, Will
849 KMBL

1-2:30p, Bennett
849 KMBL

4-5p, Rotating TAs
Int'l students only
849 KMBL

Thursday

12-1p, Bennett
849 KMBL

1:45-3p Brown
772 KMBL

3-4p, Isabelle
849 KMBL

Friday

9-9:50a, Review
B030 JFSB

10-11a, Abby
849 KMBL

11a-12p, Joe
849 KMBL

12-12:50p, Review
B030 JFSB

1-2p, Joe
849 KMBL

4-5p, Emily
849 KMBL

Teaching assistants. See the online version of the syllabus for TA names and contact information.

Teaching assistants. For quick questions that may be answered in a sentence or two, email whichever TA appears first; they shuffle with each reload. Please bring longer questions to office hours. Bring sensitive questions (emergencies, accommodations, etc) to Dr Brown. Out of respect for TAs' time, please do not address emails to multiple TAs.


Bennett
bthom34 <at> byu <dot> edu

Will
wthoma20 <at> byu <dot> edu

Emily
emileav <at> student <dot> byu <dot> edu

Joe
jbp75 <at> byu <dot> edu

Olive
oevanson <at> student <dot> byu <dot> edu

Isabelle
ilowe1 <at> byu <dot> edu

Megan
megan <dot> jacobs <at> byu <dot> edu

Abby
ajsymes <at> student <dot> byu <dot> edu

Emma
emmat24 <at> student <dot> byu <dot> edu

Cosmo
--

What's this course about?

The university catalog provides this description for Poli 110: "Origin and development of federal Constitution; national, state, and local governments and politics." To cover all that, I have organized this course into three major units:

Along the way, we will satisfy the social science general education requirement by discussing methods and theories used to study human behavior. Combined with a course on US history or economics, this course also satisfies the American heritage GE requirement. All the above motivates this course's official learning outcomes:

Required materials

All required materials are available at no cost to you.

Kernell et al., The Logic of American Politics, 10e. Free PDF through course reserve or Learning Suite. Referenced below as Logic. Buy it on Amazon if you like, but I will assign only part of it. Those desiring further background should read all of this excellent but dense book.

Backgrounders  and Readings . I used to rely heavily on Logic but will experiment this semester with two less dense alternatives that remain works in progress. Readings contains material from diverse authors. Backgrounders contains general overviews for topics that benefit from a textbook-style introduction. Both are ordered as you will encounter material in the syllabus. If this experiment succeeds, I may eventually expand these so I can stop using Logic at all.

Brown, Utah Politics and Government. We will read excerpts from this book as we use Utah's political system as a comparison point to the national one. Free PDF through course reserve or Learning Suite. Also at Amazon if you prefer hard copy. Referenced below as Utah.

Sign up for two daily newsletters: "The Morning" (New York Times) and "WSJ Politics and Policy" (Wall Street Journal). Peruse both daily. Both are free, but following links will lead to a paywall. BYU provides free NYT access. For the WSJ, consider a student subscription. The NYT and WSJ are the most widely read newspapers among national policymakers of both parties—particularly the NYT. Unlike other readings, political news will not appear on exams, only on in-class quizzes.

Optional: For more background, consider American History: A Very Short Introduction or American Politics: A Very Short Introduction.

Assignments and policies

11% Quizzes (in class)
20% Enrichment papers (download instructions  and submit online)
20% Midterm 1
20% Midterm 2
29% Final exam (29% = 20% new material + 9% comprehensive)

You are responsible for all information in this syllabus, recognizing that a syllabus is a plan, not a contract. Check Learning Suite and your email/spam daily for announcements. Visit me or a TA with questions.

Course website. You will submit assignments through this website. Using the menu at the top or bottom of this page, click "log in" then "what's my password" to reset your password. Contact me with questions.

Attendance. I expect but do not track live attendance. When needed, join by Zoom (meeting 977 2133 8471, code poli110) or get archived recordings via Learning Suite (click "Online" then "Cloud Recordings"). If the technology fails, get notes from a classmate. You will almost certainly earn a better grade if you attend live.

Keep your peers healthy. Stay home if you experience vomiting, nausea, coughing, fever, sore throat, muscle aches, fatigue, or other symptoms of flu, covid, strep, RSV, or other contagious illness. Overnight vomiting is usually norovirus, not food poisoning; stay home. A negative flu or covid test is not license to spread a bad cold; stay home. Wash hands often, keep vaccines current, and stay home when sick. Keep TAs and me healthy too; we will gladly meet with sick students via Zoom rather than in-person if you email for an appointment.

In-class quizzes. Research shows that frequent low-stakes quizzes improve learning. In-class quizzes emphasize readings, recent lectures, and political news. To keep stakes low, I award several points simply for participating. For flexibility with illness, emergencies, disability, pregnancy, and student athletes, I drop your four lowest (or missed) quizzes. If you have more excusable absences than this, contact me.

Using Kahoot. I administer quizzes using Kahoot. To receive credit, set your Kahoot nickname as the first two letters of your last name (as shown on my roster at the beginning of the semester), then the last 4 digits of your student ID number (found on your BYU ID card). If your last name were Brown with ID 12-345-6789, you would use br6789. If Kahoot crashes on you mid-quiz, re-join (from another device or an incognito tab) using a new nickname (e.g. br6789Again), and email me promptly with both Kahoot IDs so I can link your responses.

Enrichment papers. You will submit several short papers (instructions ). For each, you will complete a brief activity then connect it intelligently to course material. If your average after all submissions exceeds 87%, I will bump you to 100%, making functionally this pass/fail if you do good work. To even out different grading styles, you do not have a set TA; for each paper, TAs grade a random batch.

Late papers. Submit assignments as PDFs using this interface. I consider assignments due by the close of the business day (4:45pm) so I can help you if website issues arise. As a grace period, I do not assess late penalties until midnight. However, if a technical problem in the evening renders you unable to submit without my help, you will incur a late penalty. I deduct 10 percentage points per weekday, up to 3 weekdays and 30 points. If health, disability, or emergency delays you, contact me as soon as you can, since late penalties are only meant to keep you current, not to punish you when life happens.

Paper appeals. TAs and I are happy to discuss ways to improve future papers, which is usually more productive than revisiting past grades. Still, I value fair and consistent grading, so I take appeals seriously. Because an average above 87% gets bumped to full credit, I only consider appeals that affect your ability to stay above this average; any other appeal is moot. Appeals must come to me, not a TA. Wait 24 hours after receiving your grade; re-read the assignment instructions, your submission, and grader comments; then, within a week, send me a one-sentence email requesting a review, no justification needed. I will read the paper without checking the grade and assign a score—which stands, whether higher or lower. If there are many appeals, I may first refer your essay to a new TA, reviewing it myself only if the two TA scores differ.

Exams. Open-ended writing is confined to enrichment papers. Exams are multiple choice, untimed, and in the Testing Center. After each exam, I will review each questions's statistics and inform you if I drop faulty questions. The study guide  provides terms and review questions for lectures and readings. Expect a similar number of questions for each day's material. Expect also a similar number of questions from lecture as from readings. Lectures and readings overlap enough that you can probably get a C if you study only one or the other, but they are distinct enough that it will be hard to do much better.

Missed exams: Email me a week beforehand if you must miss for an excusable reason. If you miss due to emergency, contact me promptly.

Mercy rule: If you do better on the final than on one or both of the midterms, then whichever midterm you perform worst on will have its weight reduced by 5 percentage points and the final will have its weight increased by 5 percentage points.

Disabilities. You deserve an equal chance. Please find the "Inclusion, accessibility, and discrimination" heading below.

University-excused absences. I treat university travel the same as other excusable absences, such as illness. I do not need to see your travel letter unless you need to reschedule an exam. See also the dropped quizzes policy. Visit me with questions.

A tip. Some students unwittingly belittle my female colleagues by calling them "Sister" while calling men "Professor" or "Doctor"; don't. (Nearly all BYU faculty hold doctorates. "Doctor" means "teacher" or "learned one" and was used by scholars for centuries before physicians coopted the title. It is related to "doctrine," meaning "that which is taught," hence "doctorate.")

Getting help

Times and locations of office hours and review sessions appear at the top of this syllabus.

Office hours provide drop-in opportunities for help from me or a teaching assistant (TA), no appointment needed. If you need to meet a specific person whose hours conflict with your schedule, email for an appointment. TAs can help you with almost anything I can—test prep, studying, papers. Only questions about disability accommodations, emergencies, or other personal matters need come directly to me.

Office hours are not limited to course-specific questions. I especially encourage first-generation students and students who feel they are scraping by at the margins to come visit me or a TA, even if all you want is to introduce yourself. We are on each other's team.

Review sessions: We will hold several review sessions. We might open by briefly highlighting essential or confusing material, but we mostly take questions. Sessions adjourn when questions stop.

Help with papers. Come early, even with only an outline, since a good discussion early on usually improves your argument more than asking me or a TA to read a complete draft. If you mostly want help with grammar, visit the FHSS writing lab or the BYU writing center.

TA boundaries. It is inappropriate to ask a TA on a date or offer a gift before final grades are posted. It is also inappropriate to pay a TA for tutoring; their services are free. TAs are your peers; treat them kindly, directing any frustrations toward me, not them.

Difficulty, grade cutoffs, curving, and workload

Is this a weeder class? No. Weeders ensure only certain students enter a certain major. If your major requires "pre-major" courses, those are weeders. You can fail Poli 110 and still declare in political science. I am under no obligation to fail some percentage of you.

Can non-majors succeed? Yes. Only 5-15% of Poli 110 students are majors. Majors who take this course perform no better on average than non-majors, nor do seniors perform better than freshmen. In introductory GE courses, grades heavily reflect effort and dedication.

So grades are based on effort? No. But consider counsel from Thomas S. Monson: "Thinking is the hardest work anyone can do, which is probably the reason why we have so few thinkers.... What the public takes for brilliance is really the result of thorough, painstaking investigation and downright hard work" (from "Constant Truths," Pathways to Perfection).

Do you curve? Uncurved cutoffs are 93.0 A, 90.0 A-, 87.0 B+, 83.0 B, etc. I never curve down. At the end of the semester, I curve up if needed by lowering cutoffs to ensure at least a quarter earn an A- (or better) and at least two-thirds earn a B-. These are floors, not ceilings; I have cheerfully given more As and Bs when earned. Because this is an introductory course, I do not assign grades below C- to anyone who attends regularly and completes all work with evidence of sincere effort.

How much should I study? "The expectation for undergraduate courses is three hours of work per week per credit hour for the average student who is appropriately prepared; much more time may be required to achieve excellence" (source). BYU defines an A as "excellent," a B as "good," and a C as "satisfactory." Thus, an "average student" should plan 9 hours/week, but "much more time may be required" to "achieve excellence" (an A). College classes assume more work outside class than in; in high school, a typical AP US Government class has 180 hours of classroom time (5 hours per week, 36 weeks) to cover less material than we cover in 42 lecture hours.

Tips for success

Performing well requires (1) comprehending course material and (2) retaining what you have comprehended. Reexposure (reviewing notes, re-reading books, attending reviews) boosts comprehension, but research shows that retention requires different strategies.

Improving comprehension of lectures.

Improving comprehension of readings.

Improving retention. Retrieval aids retention more than reexposure does. Your study should include only enough reexposure to ensure comprehension; after that, emphasize retrieval as your study strategy. Retrieval means forcing yourself to try remembering something. Retrieval boosts learning even more when you retrieve regularly. Retrieving for 15 minutes three times a week is more effective than retrieving for 60 minutes once a week. Ideas:

Improving your writing. Writing in the social sciences usually requires defending a position. Enrichment papers are less rigorous than upper-division writing, but your analysis section should still have a point that you defend with clear logic.

General suggestions

A matter of a few degrees. Consider a true story related by Dieter Uchtdorf:

In 1979 a large passenger jet with 257 people on board left New Zealand for a sightseeing flight to Antarctica and back. Unknown to the pilots, however, someone had modified the flight coordinates by a mere two degrees. This error placed the aircraft 28 miles to the east of where the pilots assumed they were. As they approached Antarctica, the pilots descended to a lower altitude to give the passengers a better look at the landscape. Although both were experienced pilots, neither had made this particular flight before, and they had no way of knowing that the incorrect coordinates had placed them directly in the path of Mount Erebus.... By the time the instruments sounded the warning that the ground was rising fast toward them, it was too late. The airplane crashed into the side of the volcano, killing everyone on board.

It was a terrible tragedy brought on by a minor error—a matter of only a few degrees.... Remember: the heavens will not be filled with those who never made mistakes but with those who recognized that they were off course and who corrected their ways...

Though he had a different point, we can apply this story to school: Good scores don't go to those who never make mistakes, but to those who recognize when they go off course and take prompt corrective action. If an exam or paper early in the course comes back with a lower score than you hoped, then come get help. Don't wait for a volcano to fill your windshield.

Honesty, plagiarism, and artificial intelligence

Writing submitted for credit must consist of your own ideas presented in your own language. When appropriate, you may include ideas from others if clearly identified by appropriate introduction ("According to...") and citation. Direct language, including language generated by AI, must additionally appear in quotation marks. Take care while gathering material for your papers to track sources and to differentiate quotations you have jotted down from paraphrases you have written. Even unintentional plagiarism has consequences. Violations may result in a failing grade on an assignment or in the course. Serious violations may result in university action. Read more in the university catalog. A thesaurus does not eliminate plagiarism. Please review this short infographic about plagiarism  by Emily Myers.

Using AI in writing. You may have employers who encourage use of AI tools to speed your writing. Writing serves a different purpose in a business than in a classroom, however. Businesses write to efficiently accomplish a task; students write to master new ways of thinking. Unless specified otherwise, you must do your own brainstorming, research, writing, and revising. Using AI for these purposes without specific authorization violates the definition of plagiarism given in the preceding paragraph and will therefore result in a failing grade and referral to the Honor Code Office.

Other uses of AI. Do not treat generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, or Gemini as search engines or trust them to explain a difficult concept. AI tends to hallucinate (that is, make things up), especially when it moves from bland generalities to concrete details, but it writes so authoritatively that you may believe what it tells you. When I asked a well-known AI tool to answer a sample of questions from one of my exams, it did poorly. You will receive more reliable assistance if you come to office hours.

Inclusion, accessibility, and discrimination

"We strive to create a community of belonging composed of students, faculty, and staff whose hearts are knit together in love. ... We value and embrace the variety of individual characteristics, life experiences and circumstances, perspectives, talents, and gifts of each member of the community and the richness and strength they bring to our community" (BYU Statement on Belonging). "The Lord expects us to teach that inclusion is a positive means toward unity and that exclusion leads to division" (Elder Gary Stevenson).

Mental health and stress management

Many lifelong mental illnesses emerge in adolescence and early adulthood. If you experience frequent sadness, worry, fear, inability to focus, nightmares, forgetfulness, or mood changes; if you are withdrawing socially by avoiding friends and activities; if you experience significant changes in sleeping or eating habits; if you are abusing alcohol, medications, or other substances; or if you are thinking about hurting yourself, then please talk to somebody. Mental health concerns, crime, family problems, and stressful life events can affect students' academic performance and quality of life. BYU Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS, 1500 WSC, 801-422-3035, caps.byu.edu) provides confidential counseling and stress management services for free to full-time students. For immediate concerns visit help.byu.edu.

Marginalized groups

President Nelson has taught, "The Creator of us all calls on each of us to abandon attitudes of prejudice against any group of God's children. Any of us who has prejudice toward another race needs to repent! During the Savior's earthly mission, He constantly ministered to those who were excluded, marginalized, judged, overlooked, abused, and discounted. As His followers, can we do anything less?" He also taught, "Any abuse or prejudice towards another because of nationality, race, sexual orientation, gender, educational degrees, culture or other significant identifiers is offensive to our maker."

Elder Ballard has taught, "I want anyone who is a member of the Church, who is gay or lesbian, to know I believe you have a place in the kingdom and recognize that sometimes it may be difficult for you to see where you fit in the Lord’s Church, but you do. We need to listen to and understand what our LGBT brothers and sisters are feeling and experiencing." He has also taught, "We need to ... eliminate any prejudice, including racism, sexism, and nationalism. ... [T]he blessings of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ are for every child of God."

People may feel vulnerable or marginalized at BYU due to their race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religious views, age, and so on. Join me in creating a compassionate learning environment where "all may be edified by all." Please visit with me if I may help you.

Accommodating disabilities

BYU is committed to providing a learning atmosphere that reasonably accommodates qualified persons with disabilities. A disability is a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. Examples include vision or hearing impairments, mobility limitations, chronic illnesses, emotional disorders (e.g. depression, anxiety), learning disorders, and attention disorders. If you have a disability that impairs your ability to complete this course successfully, please contact the University Accessibility Center (UAC) to request a reasonable accommodation. The UAC can also assess students for learning, attention, and emotional concerns. Going further: If you have a disability, please visit the UAC to request an accommodation letter, which will spare you from needing to explain yourself over and over to each of your instructors. The letter will not disclose your disability, and I will not ask, but it will recommend to your instructors appropriate accommodations. Even if you are still waiting on the UAC letter, please talk to me about appropriate accommodations.

Title IX and sex discimination

In accordance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, BYU prohibits unlawful sex discrimination against any participant in its education programs or activities. The university also prohibits sexual harassment—including sexual violence—committed by or against students, university employees, and visitors to campus. Dating violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking are also prohibited forms of sexual misconduct. University policy requires all university employees in a teaching, managerial, or supervisory role to report all incidents of sexual misconduct that come to their attention in any way, including but not limited to face-to-face conversations, a written class assignment, class discussion, email, or social media post. (This means I am a mandatory reporter; if I learn you have been a victim or perpetrator of prohibited conduct, I must report it.) Incidents of sexual misconduct should be reported to the Title IX Coordinator at t9coordinator@byu.edu, 801-422-8692, https://titleix.byu.edu/report or (24 hours) 1-888-238-1062. BYU offers confidential resources for those affected by sexual misconduct, including the university's Victim Advocate. Find further information at http://titleix.byu.edu.

Reading schedule

Dates and deadlines are subject to change. You can also view the reading schedule in calendar format.