Congress Quiz

Congress Quiz: Answer Key

In recent years, the rate of re-election for representatives seeking to return to service in the U.S. House of Representatives is about
a. 35 percent.
b. 55 percent.
c. 75 percent.
d. 95 percent.


ANS: D; REF: Page 177

This is a key feature of Congress and a major difference between the House and the Senate. House members can in effect “choose” their voters, rather than the other way around. More importantly, House elections are about local issues and what the member has done for the district. Because turnout is so low in House elections and voters chose on the basis of purely local issues, a member can usually put together a stable, winning coalition just on the basis of a district specific spending projects and helping people solve minor problems with the Federal Bureaucracy, like your Grandmother’s social security check. That is why House members devote 2/3 of their staff to constituency service.


A bill's opponents generally prefer that the Rules Committee decide to use
a. an open rule.
b. a closed rule.
c. a termination rule.
d. a commencement rule.


ANS: A; REF: Page 197

This follows from the discussion of the Arrow Impossibility Theorem we worked through in class Friday. An “open rule” would mean that someone could always propose a new alternative, a new bill to vote on (by introducing a new bill or, more commonly, amending the current one) and create a new winning coalition. Almost all the important, i.e., money bills in the House are introduced under a closed rule.


A rule allowing a three-fifths majority of U.S. Senators to set a time limit on debate over a given bill is called
a. Cloture
b. preemption.
c. a closed rule.
d. legislative veto.


ANS: A; REF: Page 198

i.e., providing “closure” to the debate. The word cloture is just the fancier sounding Latin version of the word.


A congressional representative’s statement to his or her legislative colleague that “I’ll support your bill if you’ll support mine” is an example of
a. whipping.
b. logrolling.
c. distributive tendency.
d. interest group bargaining.


ANS: B; REF: Page 210

Note how this often grows out of members having radically different concerns, the member from one district cares about farm products, the member from another wants a parking garage downtown. A coalition is a group of people that want to do the same thing for different reasons.

Reforms that may make Congress better able to act, such as strong central leadership, reduction of the number of committees and subcommittees, and retention of members with seniority and experience, should also make Congress much more representative.

ANS: F; REF: Page 168

Again, follows from the logic of the impossibility theorem and Principle 4. The group that can make a decision ends up having a dictator.



Among the most fervent supporters of creating districts in which members of racial minorities have decisive majorities were white Republicans.

ANS: T; REF: Page 182

Almost no one got this. The court decided that having more minority representatives was the goal of policy. This is best accomplished by having “majority-minority” districts, i.e., districts where a majority of the voters are minority members. Drawing districts this way insures that there are a good number of African American House members (around 10%, as opposed to only one African American in the Senate), most of whom win their districts by huge margins, but it also insures that there are more Republicans overall in the House than there would otherwise be.


36. Under Senate rules, members have a virtually unlimited ability to propose amendments to a pending bill.

ANS: T; REF: Page 198

This is why running the Senate is like “Herding Cats,” in Senator Lott’s memorable phrase.

Lecture Notes

Since I did not get through everything I wanted to talk about I am posting my lecture notes. If they don't make sense in this form feel free to ask me about them in class or in an email.

Congress:

What we want you to do is learn to ask questions like a political scientist. To do that you have to first decide that something is worth explaining.

In the case of the revolution and constitution chapter we had the fact that the richest and lowest taxed people in the world revolted over taxes so they could increase taxes on themselves. Notice that the RA model that the authors push does not do that great a job explaining it. Maybe we need another model.

We looked at the courts. The thing that needed to be explained there was the power of the courts. Why? Because the courts seem to defy the logic of a majoritarian system that would vest power in the median voter and instead gives power to a particular institution. Because it had no precedent in the British system or the world. Because it wasn’t written in the text of the constitution or envisioned by its authors. Because it seems to defy our normal understanding of R/D power in that the courts don’t have an army or anything they can take away from the political branches unless the political branches agree to it. The RA explanation model offered a good story of the short-sightedness of Madison in taking Marshall’s offer of letting him make appointments in exchange for letting Marshall interpret the constitution. But Tocqueville offers a different explanation.

Now we are at the Center of American government, the Congress. What needs to be explained here? What is different or odd about it? Well, the question can be posed as a number of comparisons, a number of things that one might reasonably expect the Congress to be similar to but in fact is not similar to.

Britain. Our Congress was designed by Englishmen who were almost all members of congresses that were patterned on the British Parliament. They have the same culture, language and legal tradition.

Other former colonies (Australia, Canada, New Zeland) are basically like the Mother country instead of us.

Other Congress/President (as opposed to Parliamentary systems) such as in most of Latin America and, well, not that many other places. The Countries of South America have Congresses but they are much weaker than ours; most of the power lies with the President. Other places that have Presidents are really parliamentary systems with a ceremonial head of state, just as the Queen of England is now mainly ceremonial (though she in fact has a lot of powers if she ever feels like using them).

The ideals of Classical Republicanism. The debate, deliberation and group decision making that one might have expected from people that patterned themselves after the ancients. Moreover, the equality that one would have expected has been replaced by hierarchical bureaucracy, that has no place in the Greek ideal or the text of the Constitution. There is little of the open debate that actually determined events in Greece (Themestocles and the Spartan Admiral).

The formal document: the powers given the Congress in the Constitution seem to be much more formidable than the body we see today. Externally it seems to have less power. At the same time, the formal document gives no hint of the internal hierarchy that determines most decision making in Congress.

The founders’ (Federalists) scheme: they thought that the house would be the most vulnerable to popular pressure and therefore closest to the median voter and the quickest to respond to changes in popular opinion. Accordingly they expected it to be the Congress to have the highest turnover and the most popularity. In fact, it has the lowest turnover and is profoundly unpopular.


History: at one time the Congress was what the Founders expected. It ran the country, it declared war and actually conducted them (though not very well—ask Jimmy Madison). It governed, making appointments. Lincoln’s speeches.

The expectations of resource dependency power theory (or, ‘the golden rule’): you would expect the institution that has discretion over almost all key resources would be the most powerful (which it may be) and seen as such (which it almost never is). This is the key question in American Government. Congress is filled with people that point the finger and run the investigations, but is it the real power? Does it just pretend to be powerless so it can do a Claude Raines? (I’m shocked! Shocked to find construction money not being spent on levees, torture, NSA spying). Is it just maintaining plausible deniability?

What causes all this? Demands of information? Demands of decision theory? Collective action’s effects on interest group politics? Human psychology? Institutional Competition in the face of historical contingency? (growth, war).


Do interest groups buy votes?

Why do House members have higher re-election rates than Senators? Why is Barak Obama different from Cynthia McKinney?

Why do Americans love to hate Congress? Tocqueville’s answer (Hibbing and These-Morris)?

Why is the Congress more afraid of used car sales men and funeral directors than millionaires?

For your information

The question of who bought Alaska came up in class a few days ago for some reason and an enterprising student went to the trouble to look it up:

For your enjoyment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska#History

U.S. Secretary of State William Seward thus urged, and the United States Senate thus approved, the treaty authorizing the purchase of Alaska from Imperial Russia for US$7,200,000 on April 9, 1867. The United States took possession and the American flag was raised over Alaska on October 18, which is commemorated as Alaska Day.

Russia still used the Julian Calendar in 1867, and the world had not yet been divided into standard time zones; thus, there was no international date line, and the day began in the morning instead of starting at midnight. So, while the American day now ends with sunset in western Alaska, the Russian day then started with sunrise in "eastern" Alaska. Thus, Friday, October 6, 1867, the day before the physical transfer of ownership, was followed by Friday, October 18, 1867 - which was Saturday, October 7, 1867 in Russia. The change in date was due to America bringing the Gregorian Calendar to Alaska, while the lack of change in day resulted from Alaska's shift from being the starting point of the Russian day to being the ending point of the American day.

The purchase was unpopular in the United States, where it became known as "Seward's Folly" or "Seward's Icebox." Alaska celebrates the purchase each year on the last Monday of March, calling it Seward's Day.

Congressional Races

Here is an interesting post on Congressional Races from Larry Sabato, the best predictor of election outcomes in the business.

Larry Sabato on Congressional Races

remember the website

www.wwnorton.com/lowi/

Are we going to discuss ABC's movie in class?

I think the writers, producers, and directors of the movie have extremely biased backgrounds. If they had been people who worked in the entertainment industry WITHOUT an agenda, I don't think there would be so much fuss. It's just a movie, after all. But when you start throwing any kind of "radical" or "extreme" activists into the production mix of a nationally broadcast "docudrama" about an issue as divisive as 9/11, lots of red flags go up.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060925/path_to_911

9/11 movie

Here is an interesting website that compares the edited and unedited versions of the ABC docu-drama about 9/11:





http://hotair.com/archives/2006/09/10/video-path-to-911/

Millsaps Introduction to American Politics: Continuation of our discussion

Koppel: The Price of Security tonight on the discovery channel at i believe 8pm, if anyone is interested

Continuation of our discussion

I wanted to add a few thoughts on what we discussed in class today:

Collective action problems, externalities, path dependence and free riding are closely related concepts. As analytic tools they can help us to understand the decision of whether to provide a good through the market or through the government. It also gives us an alternative way of understanding what people in a society do. Specifically, it gives us a way to explain why people may do something that does not seem to be in their interest, in other words, engage in behavior that does not seem rational.

What we want in science is a set of concepts and models that will explain a wide range of behavior and cover a wide range of situations.

Collective action problems. Suppose:

• Everyone agrees that the foreign car is better, but being the only person with a foreign car means that you can’t get your car repaired.
• Everyone agrees that waiting in line is a better system than just piling on but being the only person that waits in line for the bus in Kyrgyzstan means that you get on the bus last.
• Everyone agrees that Linux is a better operating system than Microsoft, but being the only guy to use Linux instead of Microsoft means you get no help from the help desk.
• Everyone agrees that having a strong central government is better than the system of having a bunch of warlords but being the only guy to pay the central government instead of the warlord gets you killed.

All of these situations are very different but they have in common the same structure. What we would do if we could act as one, as a group, is different from what we would do if we had to act individually, that is, be the first guy to act. What we seem to prefer as a group is different from we seem to prefer as individuals. The choice that makes us better off as a group makes us worse off as individuals. This is a collective action problem.

Collective action problems are a major reason we have government. Even if we all think we would be better off as a group paying taxes to have a national defense, we have an incentive as individuals not to pay taxes for national defense. Paying for a defense is a case where what makes the same people better off at the group level makes them worse off at the individual level.

National defense is a collective action problem because we get the benefit of a national defense just from being in the country, whether we have contributed to it or not. That is how collective action problems are related to another important concept in modern political science: public goods. They are non-excludable. You get the benefit of what the larger group is doing—paying for national defense in this case—whether you contribute or not. That is what gives you an incentive not to contribute, or free ride.

Now letting people act individually is just another way of saying leaving things to the market. If we let people decide whether to pay for national defense on their own the way we let them decide whether or not to pay for meals in restaurants we would end up with a lot less national defense than we would prefer as a group.

This is obvious in the case of national defense but it is partially the case in a lot of situations and goods where it is not nearly as obvious. Take the case of roads. Even if we paid through all roads with tolls so that people were able to ‘buy’ just as much roadway as they needed, we would have less roadway than we prefer as a group. This is because a lot of the benefit of roadway systems goes to people whether they are driving on the roads or not. All of the goods and services that come to me come to me partially by way of roads. To the extent there are people that don’t use the roads very much, under a toll road system they would be getting benefits that they don’t pay for. They are getting an externality (a positive externality in this case), a benefit from a transaction that they themselves are not a part of. Under such conditions we would expect less than the optimum amount of roads to be built, or, what economists call "underprovision."

That is why we see the government getting people to pay for things through taxes rather than through transactions in the market place. When there are benefits to third parties we often provide the goods through the government rather than through the market.

Notice how path dependence can come into this. Path dependence is when events in the past affect what choices we can make in the future. This is most interesting when what would make more sense today is somehow closed off by past events.

The Microsoft example is a good example of path dependence. If we were starting over today we would probably all be better off with a different operating system, say, Linux, but we don’t want to be the first to switch individually now that we are in a world where everyone else uses Microsoft’s operating system. An event in the past—the fact that Microsoft was used on IBM’s personal computers—has effected the choice we make today. In this case, the path dependent nature of technology adoption has set us up for a collective action problem. In this case, it is one that we have not solved.

So we can’t conclude from the fact that everyone in Afghanistan pays money to warlords instead of paying their taxes to the central government that they think warlords are better than having a central government anymore more than we can conclude from the fact that people pay money to Microsoft instead of using Linux (which is free) that they think Microsoft is a better operating system. In both cases they may be facing a collective action problem.

One last point. Notice how collective action comes in with the ancient republics and the problem of war. At the battle of Thermopylae, Xerxes had to use whips to get his men to fight. He needed an army behind his army to make it fight. Not so the Spartans. The ancient republics could solve the collective action problem of war—getting men to do what was in the interests of the group rather than what was in their individual best interests—through social solidarity, thinking of yourself as part of the group before thinking of oneself as an individual. This sense of doing what is in the group’s interest instead of your personal interest is the essence of what the founders meant by ‘republican virtue,’ and they thought it was far more important than voting procedures or individual freedom of conscience in the survival of the republic. They relied on social solidarity to solve collective action problems.

What do we rely on?

Major Concern in American Govt.

I believe that one major concern right now is the ever-present controversy of nuclear war. As of recent times, we have learned of countries maintaining nuclear weapons and these are not being controlled by the United Nations. The fact is that there are many unaccounted nuclear weapons in the hands of hostile countries that are refusing to submit and surrender set weapons to authorities. With the new threat from North Korea being a nuclear power, the united states should be leery of any activity from nations hostile to us. We should take any necessary precautions in order to secure the safety of our country and the safety of the entire free world. With North Korea’s refusal of disarmament, we as a country need to pursue the termination of their weapons in order to ensure that they are not hostile. Although North Korea insists that they have no weapons that are to be used in a hostile manner, I don’t think we can overlook the fact that we are not in good relations with North Korea and there is a threat of a catastrophe. The reason why the September eleventh attacks were not prevented was because we weren’t proactive with the warning signs of such an attack. I believe that if we take first action to provoke the United Nations to shut down their operation, then we will benefit greatly from such action. With the institution of the NPT, we must take control of undocumented weapons of mass destruction. The threat of a disaster is always something to be concerned with and the last thing that the US needs right now is another attack and another war, but in order to secure the safety of our citizens, I feel as if we should be proactive and immediately take action.

Problems with American Politics

Brady Jackson Jackson 1
Political Science
Dr. Reinhard
8-31-06
Problems with today’s politics
American politics in this day and time has a major problem; greed. The politicians that we elect today often turn into corrupt individuals, because they are taking illegal money from someone as a bribe to help the other party out. A politician’s greed these days can have a negative effect on our country by only allowing the wealthy people to benefit. I truly feel that a man who is willing to accept bribery from someone is not the type of individual that I would want calling the shots for our country. The American politics used to be a glorious title in the days of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson who had the best interest of our country first and foremost. Now our politicians are known for having sticky fingers and lying to the American people, the same people that put him into office. All because he wants to have more than he has now, but he is not willing to work for it.
The reason for all of the greed in politics today is the feeling that they are above the law and can do as they please. It becomes easy for a politician to be overtaken by greed once they see the opportunities they have at making a few extra bucks on the side. The main influence on a politician is when someone who has helped out with their campaign comes up and they need a little favor that only that person can do for them. Then if the politician refuses, well then that’s when the money becomes an issue. That’s where it all begins. Once this happens and they start thinking that they can do as they wish, they become completely consumed with greed.

website, announcements

This evening we discuss Lebanon: Monday on September 4, 2006 at 5:30 p.m. in the Leggett Center

The course website is listed on the syllabus for future reference, but go there now to take a look at the chapter quizzes: wwnorton.com/lowi

We can have quizzes at any time!

And thanks to Dave and Gary for this morning's demonstration.

The Biggest Problem In American Politics

I firmly believe that one of the biggest problems in American politics is the addition of concepts such as giving welfare to people who have no source of income. I do not believe that the government should give money to a person who is to lazy to get out and work for themselves. There is not a single person in this country who is not qualified to work at McDonald’s or pick up garbage. If a person can prove that they have a job that does not pay enough to support them or their family, then they deserve a certain amount of money. If someone was just fired from their job, they should be given enough money to support them until a reasonable amount of time has passed in which they should have a job by. But, someone who has no source of income and is too lazy to work deserves no help from anyone especially if they can’t even attempt to help themselves. So, I definitely believe that the welfare system the way it exists now is one of the biggest problems with American policy.
I understand the need for a welfare system when it was created by President Roosevelt during the Great Depression. There weren’t enough jobs in those days to go around and people needed a little bit of help. But, the caliber of American society has changed in the last couple decades. In the 1940s and 50s, everyone wanted a job and very few were too lazy to go find one. In today’s world, people are much lazier and don’t have the same drive and work ethic as people used to. So, the problem definitely started because of the recent sense of laziness in the last few decades.

America's Problem

After careful thought and revision, I have decided that there are too many things wrong with the American political system to properly use in the scope of this memo. The speed at which the government makes decisions and enacts legislation is incredibly slow, and there may not be anyway around this without curtailing some of our personal freedoms, unfortunately. Beyond that, dismantling the current bureaucracy would cause sever economic backlash as it employs hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people. As for the freedoms we have received under this government, people largely take them for granted. The system would work far better if our voter turnout wasn’t so abysmally low every election, as policy would probably work out better for everyone. Speaking of policy making, the incumbency rating is much too high, making new faces in politics a rare sight. In many cases politicians end up returning for another term even after doing a terrible job in their previous attempt. As for the presidential elections the crop of candidates to choose from seems to be increasingly weak, resulting in a choice between the lesser of two evils, as was the case in the 2004 election. In my personal opinion, neither Kerry nor Bush were particularly good candidates, and looking at our current debacle of an administration I’d say I was probably right. Internally, events like Katrina have demonstrated how woefully unprepared we are for emergency situations and how truly corrupt our government is.
So what is the cause of all these problems? One large part is the American way of thought, as evidenced by the abysmally low voter turnout compared to almost anywhere else in the world. As far as the speed and efficiency of our government is concerned, the bureaucracy is far too entrenched to deal with in any useful way. Beyond that, events over the past couple years have demonstrated that the government is unbelievably corrupt, which does nothing to help the American people or the government. Really this list could be much longer and better developed, but for most things the cause of our problems comes down to a real simple issue: incompetence. This incompetence starts with low voter turnout and escalates as it reaches corrupt officials and even our current President, perhaps the most paramount case. America needs to really take a good long look at itself before we get to the point where we just need time to fix things.

…Biggest Problem, Greatest Failure…

To: From: Subject:

Dr. Reinhard; Anyone Else Who Cares Heather Phillips …Biggest Problem, Greatest Failure…

When asked what I think the American political system’s biggest problem/greatest failure is, the first thing that comes to my mind is…low standards. The American public sets low standards for what it expects from itself as far as active political involvement is concerned and low standards for its leaders when it comes to holding them accountable for their actions (or lack of them.) Why does this happen? In a word—time.

In order to really know what politicians are doing and how they are motivated, a person has to devote an enormous amount of time and energy to really investigate. You have to read articles from all different perspectives so you know which special interest is asking for what from whom. You have to listen to different news sources. You have to read transcripts from actual legislative sessions and read actual proposed bills and amendments. Not only is the language in these documents very far from conversational speech, actually finding the documents to begin with (even in the internet age) is definitely not easy or intuitive. Besides, unless it’s your chosen career to stay on top of the full political spectrum those kinds of activities can easily deprive you of having an actual life. You know—that thing the politicians are supposed to be trying to make better for everyone?

At the time our nation was founded, the concept of “leisure time” as we know it was basically unheard of. Farmers, craftsmen, tradesmen, even wealthy land owners worked when the work needed to be done and not during any set hours of the day. If something came up (a visitor, a fire, a loose cow, a political debate or pamphlet) they would simply break from work when they needed to and get back to it as time and energy allowed. That flexibility granted them opportunity to ponder and debate with their neighbors and peers, and hear and meet actual candidates. The idea we have now that work and home should be separate and that half the day should be allotted for each would have seemed crazy to them. I think there’s a good reason for that.

With the advent of industrialization came the need for factory workers who would stay in the same place for long periods of time. Naturally, abuses occurred and protective activists rallied support for putting limits on the amount of time an individual could be expected to be “at work”. Thus evolved our modern concept of the eight hour day.

The trouble with that idea is that the eight hours we are expected to be at work doesn’t really make up all the time that our jobs require. Decent, affordable housing is usually well outside the city limits. Even in relatively small towns, it’s not unusual for people to have 45-90 minute commutes from work to home and vice-versa. Add in an hour for lunch and you are talking about a twelve hour day just for work. At home there is just enough time to manage the very basic necessities (shopping, cleaning, bathing, dinner) before sleep.

Couple the long hours with the overwhelming amount of entertainment and marketing stimulus pointed into our homes, and it’s no wonder the average citizen relies on “someone else” to be responsible for monitoring and working out our political problems.

Sure, two or three days a year we think about voting and we try to vote well. Where do we get the information we rely on to help us make informed decisions? Commercials, paid political advertisements, political parties, or some other interest group we may identify with. We might trust some sources more than others, but even then what you’re getting is still just someone else’s opinion. What you’re not getting is all the stuff that will really tell you if this is someone you want to hire to manage the affairs of the nation.

What’s their full voting record? Who are they getting money from? Do they walk the way they talk? Have they practiced good business ethics in other areas of their lives? Are they people of good character? And most importantly, what do they really believe? After all, no one can get elected if they alienate sections of their constituency so they pay lots of money (money people with special interests have given them in return for later favors) to campaign managers and speech writers to shape their images. “Shaping their image” usually means making them a) as bland as possible so they won’t offend anyone and b) as much like their opponents as possible so they won’t lose voters to the other side.

Who are they really? Are they the good guys or the bad guys? If they get caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar (or even just building $500 million dollar “bridges to nowhere”) what consequences do they face? I mean, have you ever heard of a politician going to court…and then actually going to jail? Don’t get me wrong, I think that most people start out in politics for the right reasons and with their hearts in the right places. We have let our political system devolve, though, to the point where most of the public really feels the election process is a charade, and they vote for the lesser of two evils rather than for someone they feel they can really trust. What’s the most fundamental difference between the two candidates? Who is giving them money and why.

The reason that “outside investors” play such a large role in our current political system is that voters are very hard to reach and even harder to persuade. Candidates need huge amounts of money to wage successful campaigns. Local political groups won’t even consider a candidate for mayor until they can show that they can raise enough money to be competitive. Fortunately, there are opportunities for us to influence the course of politics. The status quo can be upset. We do have a louder voice than the money, but most of us just aren’t saying anything.

Years of vicious political fighting have split the nation so much that large numbers of us coming together in accord on even such basic issues seems like a fairy tale. That’s going to have to change for real political reform to happen. We have to decide amongst ourselves as citizens what our priorities are and make it clear to our leadership what we do and do not think is acceptable practice. We have to raise our collective standards. We have to expect more of ourselves and of our leaders. After all, you have to play the game to win it, and right now most of us just don’t have the time.

One of the biggest problems in America today is the number of people still on death row. There are too many people that are sitting there today that were convicted many years ago. These people should be put to death as soon as possible because these murderers are there on American citizen’s tax dollars.
I am a believer in the death penalty. I do believe, however, that a person that is sentenced to death should have DNA evidence and at least two witnesses in the case against them. I know that there were many people in the past that were wrongfully executed and now people shy away from the death penalty, but today this possibility is no longer a factor because, for the death penalty to be issued, there must be DNA evidence in the case. People say that killing a murderer is just double murder, but I see it as just punishment. I believe that the US Government should execute the prisoners as soon as possible after their trial, or completely get rid of death row altogether.
Many people also say that a believer in the death penalty can’t also believe that abortion is wrong. I say bull hock. One is killing of a murderer as just punishment, the other is murder of the innocent.

First Writing Assignment, Continued

Thanks to Caitie and Phillip for their well argued papers. I think they stimulated a lively discussion.

For Monday I would like those of you who have not posted yet get your papers up. As was suggested in class, I think it would actually work better if people just put their papers up as a comment on this link. That way they will all be in one place and we will be able to navigate the website much more easily.

Writing is very difficult. Even when you know what you want to say it almost never comes out that way on paper the first time around. Of course, you are always able to go back and explain what you meant, but the goal is to be able to express yourself so that the reader can tell what you meant the first time. The skill writing clearly, so that your meaning is not open to question and the reader’s train of thought is not interrupted by awkward phrases is quite rare, that is why it is so valuable. And that is why we will continue to give it so much attention.

For Monday I would like to discuss the memos by Carrie Boone, Nell Knox and Matthew Black. Make sure you have those papers with in class Monday. Read them and see if you agree with my comments on their writing. Ask yourself if you have fallen into any of the same traps or wish to emulate any of thier virtues.

By the way, you feel free to comment on my writing as well.