For your final exam in this class, please read the following articles and book chapters over the weekend:
- Liptak: “Politicians in Robes”
- Sunstein et al. : Are Judges Political? (Read Chapters 1 and 2 only)
- Fischman and Law: “What is ‘Judicial Ideology’ and How do We Measure It?” (Only necessary to read the Introduction)
I highly encourage you to work in groups, take notes, and annotate the articles. The exam is open-book, open-computer, open-note. In fact, you will definitely want access to the articles on exam day. The exam will consist of a series of questions about the articles. I am not going to tell you the types of questions I am going to ask…you should be able to figure this out for yourself. In fact, thinking about the types of question that you should be asking yourself when reading “research” is the whole point of this course!
My advice:
1) Read the articles in the order above, and think critically about each article BEFORE you read the next one. Then consider how that subsequent article might make you think differently about the earlier one. (But don’t let that next article totally overturn what you previously thought…keep your notes from when you read the first and continue to reflect back and forth across the articles)
2) Take lots and lots of notes and annotations.
3) Try to predict my questions. And prepare answers accordingly.
4) After you have done all of this, I highly ENCOURAGE you to meet and discuss with other members of the class. If someone else thought of something you didn’t think of that’s great. If you get to a point where you all agree on a bunch of major points…that’s a good sign…the odds are against everybody being wrong, so you’re probably all on track for a B. If you get to the point where you all agree on the basics, but you disagree with some of your classmates on more subtle points…that’s even better, you might be on track for an A.
Good luck, and as always, have fun!