** The first reflection paper should cover material learned up until that point in the course.

Minimum requirements: Citations are not needed, but if citations they are used, they must be in text and a separate reference page at the end of the paper must all be in APA style. An acceptable range is between 3-4 pages double-spaced. The paper should not exceed 5 pages. A paper with fewer than three (3) full pages (1 inch margins on all sides) is not acceptable and will receive half-credit (50). A full page consists of text only; headers/footers, titles, name/date, and the like are NOT calculated in the full page requirement. Papers that fail to be comprehensive in integrating all of the material and do not meet the minimum requirements will receive half-credit (50 points). As the semester progresses, the papers will be expected to be more analytical and insightful.

Basically, students should answer the question – what have you learned in this class so far? In answering this question, students will be expected to integrate the material in an analytical and critical manner. As such, students should not summarize (e.g., in week 1, I learned about local government, in week 2, I learned about state government), but rather be reflective about what you learned by integrating, dissecting, critiquing, and analyzing the knowledge received from a variety of sources. Each paper should cover all information sources and attempt to describe how these sources fit together. In other words, these papers should not simply cover the readings, but must be reflective of the knowledge obtained from all sources. Students may select to do outside research in attempt to integrate and understand the material. Your opinions about what you are learning, what you are finding interesting, what you didn’t know, what you are now understanding better are key to successfully completing this assignment.

Answer preview

Secondly, many people expect economically stable economies like the United States of America to reciprocate its supremacy in the establishment of a robust political system based on democracy. However, this has not been the case. Democracy in its simple terms entails having a system of government that is for the people and the people. Ideally, it means having a type of governance by the whole population through elected representatives. Having this in mind, it is, therefore, right to say that the United States democracy is under significant threat. The democracy of the United States is nearing its demise. The uninformed electorate is a prerequisite for the death of democracy (Somin, 2004)…

 

(1000 words)