Think of how video games work. This course works along the same logic.

1. 1.There are some things everyone will have to do to make progress. In this course, the readings, reading-related quizzes, lectures and discussion sections are those things.
   

2. 2.But game play also allows you to choose some activities -- quests, tasks, challenges -- and skip others. You can partly forge your own path through a game. So also in this course: the are some assignment types you may choose (because you are good at them, or because you like challenges) and others you can avoid (because your interests are elsewhere).
   

3. 3.In games, you can’t try everything at once: you need to advance to “unlock” new challenges, which can earn you a higher score or lead to “leveling up.” Same here: you need to do some basic things before you become eligible to try advanced challenges.
   

4. 4.When you mess up in a game, you don’t get kicked out. You can often try again, after trying to figure out what went wrong. And success in some activity can earn you “saves” or “power-ups” you can use to cover up messes elsewhere.
   

5. 5.And sometimes you earn mystery bonuses. Those are rewards that come after you’ve done something interesting, or something particularly well, without having tried to focus on it. Same here. The idea is people who do things simply because they care, and not because they want rewards, should be rewarded.
   

Now let’s consider this course’s specific set of assignments.

1. •Everyone will have to read the texts regularly.
   

2. •Everyone will have to attend discussion section regularly. Some of the most important work in the course happens in the discussion.
   

3. •It is also in everyone’s interest to attend lecture, either physically or virtually, and participate.
   

4. •But then choices kick in. There are three optional components in the course:
   

1. ◦“Conventional” academic papers. These are the kinds of papers you may be familiar with from your other college courses. There will be two papers. Everyone is encouraged to try writing the first one (assuming you become eligible to write it), but it’s not a requirement. (Follow the link for more details.)
   

2. ◦A blog. There’s a course blog you may contribute to. There are many ways of contributing to it; a separate set of instructions spells out how you can do it.
   

3. ◦A group project. The group project is both the riskiest and potentially the most rewarding aspect of the course. It’s risky because you only do one, due toward the end of the semester. It can be rewarding if you take it seriously and work well with your group. There will be earlier deadlines to make sure you’re not jumping into the deep end without knowing about it. More details are also available separately.
   

5. •Around midterm time you’ll need to commit to which two of the three optional paths you will follow. After that, you can’t make changes.
   

6. •If, however, something bad happens in your life and you completely mess up, we will offer an alternate path to finish the course. It will come with a cost: you will have given up the possibility of getting a high grade. But you can still pass. The details are available separately.
   

7. •Everyone is also required to do a couple of self-evaluations through the term. They will not be graded, but they will be required.
   

This may seem complicated, but that’s only because it’s different from your usual courses. We explain all of these in a different way in a different presentation. The principle is pretty straightforward: do the basic stuff, think about what you want to do, commit to it and practice it, and you’ll be fine.

GRADING

You’ll want to know what all this means in terms of grades. It’s relatively basic:

Put in the effort and go through the motions, and you’ll be guaranteed a B range grade. Put in the effort, focus on your learning, try hard on improving your skills, and you’re in the running for an A range grade. Do less, and you quickly risk a low grade.

Note one important principle: some things do not get graded, but they are necessary, anyway. For example, if you do not complete the syllabus review survey, you cannot do any further work in the course, or if you do not complete the midterm self-evaluation, you will not have access to assignments in the second half of the semester.

Below is how the different graded components in the course will count toward your final course grade.

The grading criteria for each component are spelled out separately.

Here is how we calculate your grade: each component receives a letter grade, which is converted to a number on the basis of UM honor points:

A    4.0

A-   3.7

B+  3.3

B    3.0

B-   2.7

C+  2.3

...and so on.

Then we take the percentage attached to that grade and multiply the number with it:

This formula produces a number, which we convert to a letter grade according to the following schema:

1. (a)The precision we use is two decimal places.
   

2. (b)The Michigan Honor Point is the cutoff for the corresponding letter grade: 3.00 is the lowest score for a B while 2.99 is a B-; 1.70 is the lowest C- while 1.69 is a D+; except that
   

3. (c)the cutoff for A is 3.90. This is because we don’t think that getting an A should require perfection.
   

All this might seem complicated, but that’s only because it’s different from what most of you are used to.

Still confused? Don’t feel bad; check out some of our examples of grade projections.

ACADEMIC COURSE POLICIES

Saves or “Power Ups”

Remember our discussion of video game logic for this course. Each student receives by default three saves, or power ups. You may earn them as you go, although we will not tell you in advance how you might get them. If and when you get them, we will tell you.

You can use the saves to make up for various things according to the following scheme:

4 saves:

1. ‣ raise your final course grade by one notch, that is, from B to B+ or B+ to A-.
   

3 saves:

1. ‣ become eligible for an assignment you hadn’t been eligible for before
   

2. ‣raise your grade on one paper by one notch
   

3. ‣raise your blogging grade by one notch
   

4. ‣raise your group project grade by one notch
   

5. ‣raise your section participation grade by one notch
   

2 saves:

1. ‣ make up for two blog comments
   

2. ‣make up for one reading quiz
   

3. ‣make up for one missed discussion section
   

1 save:

1. ‣ make up for one missed lecture
   

Alternate Path to Passing This Course, or Bailing without Failing

Things don’t always work out the way you hope, and you might discover at some point during the semester that you are doing as well as you had hoped. It might be you committed to writing two papers but didn’t get around to the second, or you realized blogging is not your forte, despite the heavy weight you put on it. If you feel you are at serious risk, or if your GSI files an Academic Progress Report with your LSA advisor, indicating he or she worries about you, you may consider an alternate path for passing this course. It allows you to cut your losses, but it will also cost you quite a lot in terms of grade. And you’ll still need to do a lot of work.

Here are the requirements of the alternate path:

1. ‣Your GSI must approve your taking this alternate path.
   

2. ‣You need to commit to attending the remaining lectures and sections.
   

3. ‣You need to produce or revise some piece of substantive work (revise an essay, write a blog post, for example).
   

4. ‣You need to write a short reflective essay on your learning in the course, on a prompt assigned by your GSI
   

Satisfactory work on this alternate path only guarantees passing the course; the highest possible grade you can expect if you resort to this path is a B-.

Academic integrity

Engaging in academic work is a tricky business. On the one hand, it is important that individuals do the work that is assigned to them, even if it means reinventing the wheel. On the other hand, all scholars stand on the shoulders of others — in other words, all meaningful academic work is collaborative in one way or another — so it is sometimes hard to draw the line.

There is another reason why citations are so prevalent in academic writing. For all their bloviating, academics are a modest bunch, and when they “Joe Schmoe says this,” they think it’s possible they’ve gotten Joe’s idea all wrong. So they want to give their readers a chance to get it out for themselves.

Putting this simply, the idea of citations in academic work is to

1. (1) give credit where credit is due, and
   

2. (2) allow the reader to check things out and pursue things further.
   

That’s why us academics take the practices of proper citation extremely seriously. If you engage in any form of academic misconduct, you will automatically fail this course. And that is only the first part. As the LSA Academic Judiciary Manual of Procedures specifies, a student may be expelled from the university for academic misconduct. So that we’re clear on this, for the purposes of this class, plagiarism will mean

submitting a piece of work  which in part or in whole is not entirely the student's own work without attributing those same portions to their correct source.

Meeting the learning objectives in this course requires that you apply your current knowledge and skills to the questions and exercises and, through them, improve that knowledge and those skills. Shortcuts won’t get you there, however appealing they might seem. Because of this, the use of commercial study guides such as Cliff Notes, Sparknotes.com, and other similar resources outside this course counts as academic misconduct. Using such resources will count as academic misconduct. (They also won’t do you any good in this course.)

Grade grievances

If you think you have been graded unfairly on any given assignment or component, you will need to do the following:

1. 1.Wait 24 hours after receiving the grade before approaching the GSI.
   

2. 2.Provide an explanation in writing for why the grade you received was unfair.
   

3. 3.If you are unsatisfied with your GSI’s response, you may write an appeal to the professor. This appeal must include your original explanation to the GSI and a written explanation for why it is unfair.
   

Departmental grade grievance procedures are outlined on the political science website on advising.

COURSE LOGISTICS

Accommodations

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

If you think you need an accommodation for a disability, please let us know at least two weeks prior to the time when the accommodation will be needed. Some aspects of this course, the assignments, the in-class activities, and the way the course is usually taught may be modified to facilitate your participation and progress. As soon as you make me aware of your needs, we can work with the Office of Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) to help us determine appropriate academic accommodations. SSD (734-763-3000; http://www.umich.edu/sswd) typically recommends accommodations through a Verified Individualized Services and Accommodations (VISA) form. Any information you provide is private and confidential and will be treated as such.

RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES

In keeping with the University of Michigan policy of respecting students’ religious commitments, all attempts will be made to accommodate conflicts arising out of religious observances. Please note that, according to the Provost’s policy on religious holidays, you must give notice of a religious conflict by the drop/add deadline. After that, requests cannot be honored.

REPRESENTING THE UM

We respect student athletes and other students who represent the University of Michigan in various ways outside, and we seek to minimize the conflicts such activities may cause. As with religious observances and disabilities, please contact us as soon as you know of a conflict and always at the latest two weeks before the event. Please note that prolonged absences cannot be accommodated, and we expect all work to be completed as specified in this syllabus.

Other policies

POLICY REGARDING EMAIL

We encourage you to use e-mail to communicate with us. Keep in mind the following:

1. ‣We will reply to e-mails within 24 hours during the week and 48 hours during the weekend.
   

2. ‣We will be happy to answer substantive questions about the course materials, but we will not read drafts of papers, partial papers, or blog posts submitted electronically.
   

3. ‣E-mail is a part of your performance in this course. It is also a means of professional communication. Dude, if u like cant tell the diff b/w dat n rting 2 ur friends, u r an idiot. ill fail u n ROTFLMAO. ;P
   

OFFICE HOURS

We really encourage you to take advantage of your GSI’s and the professor’s office hours. For any substantive questions, questions about political science, college or whatever else, you should feel free to come talk to us. It is a useful way of getting to know your instructors better -- and for your instructors to get to know you better.