Help me study for my Political Science class. I’m stuck and don’t understand.
Blog 1: Woodrow Wilson’s essay “The Study of Administration”.
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One of the founders of public administration is none other than President Woodrow Wilson. He wrote this article long before he was President – when he was an academic.
For this assignment, I’d like you to read “The Study of Administration” by Woodrow Wilson.
Click here for article: Wilson’s The Study of Administration-1.pdf
I’m asking you to write just 4 paragraphs, each paragraph addressing one of the following:
- What is Wilson’s main point about public administration?
- include a quote from the essay to support your point
- What are the three main sections of his essay?
- Wilson makes the following statement in his essay, “It is the object of administrative study to discover, first, what government can properly and successfully do, and, secondly, how it can do these things with the utmost possible efficiency and at the least possible cost either of money or of energy.” What do you think of this statement?
- What is Wilson’s point about politics and public administration?
THIS assignment does not need a title page or a reference page unless you use a source other than the article itself. Just simply write four well-written paragraphs. You may simply repeat the question and then provide your answer. If you quote the article just put the page in parentheses (p. 6).
To provide some context for yourself, you might Google a couple items….
- Who was Woodrow Wilson before he was President? (he was more than just President)
- Wilson wrote his famous essay in 1887. Provide some context – what else was happening in 1887? In Business, Communications, Transportation, Government, Culture, Art, Music?
We will discuss the essay in an upcoming class.
You will need to post something before you see other posts. If you enter the discussion without posting, you will receive a zero for the assignment.
Why are we reading this?
One of our objectives is to understand the evolution of public administration, after all, it has not existed as a formal discipline forever. Wilson’s article is typically pointed to as the start of the profession, so it is the baseline we work from as we discuss the evolution of PA.
How will this be graded?
The following criteria will be used:
- Did you address all elements? (the 4 topics)
- How thoughtful is your product? Thoughtful is defined as:
- solid rationale in your statements, no opinion (“I” should not be used)
- accuracy and explicitness of statements. What do I mean by explicit? Note the difference in these two examples of responses:
- Student 1: “States derive their power through the Reserve Clause on the Constitution.”
- Student 2: “States derive their power through the Reserve Clause on the Constitution. The Reserve Clause is the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. It states that all powers not given to the Federal government are reserved for the states and the people.”
- Which student demonstrates their knowledge of the Reserve Clause best? Which statement do you learn more from?
- where appropriate, examples are used – from your life, the newspaper, other valid sources.
- Writing
- full sentences with no grammatical errors
- essay organized well – it is clear and easy to understand
