Outline the challenges that social media (i.e. Twitter) has for a politically neutral public service in Canada.
Q. Describe the powers of the First Minister (Premier or Prime Minister) and his/her Cabinet in Canada. First, take the view that power is too heavily centralized in the hands of the First Minister and Cabinet. Then, take the view that power is not too heavily centralized in the hands of the First Minister and Cabinet. Provide your assessment of where you stand on this debate.
The essay will be 1500 words, about 6–8 pages, typed, double-spaced, 12 point font. This assignment is an argumentative essay to assess your understanding of how government works in Canada. The essay is worth 30% of your final grade.
PROCEDURE: The essay must include an introduction, thesis statement, conceptual definitions of key terms (i.e. politically neutral), description of the issues, a critical assessment, a logical and coherent argument, conclusion and bibliography (i.e. peer-reviewed journals and books in addition to non-peer reviewed sources like websites, newspaper articles, etc.). A minimum of eight sources must be cited in the paper and entered into the bibliography and of these, at least four must be peer-reviewed sources. A peer-reviewed source, such as an academic journal or book published by a university press, will provide you the depth that you need to critically assess these issues. While non-peer reviewed sources will give you some information (i.e. newspaper article), they don’t have the same depth of analysis that you need to succeed at this level of study!) You may use any citation system as you wish so long as you use it consistently throughout the paper.
EVALUATION CRITERIA: The essay will be graded on the following:
- quality of the introduction,
- Presence of a clear and forceful thesis statement;
- outline of conceptual definitions of key terms (i.e. politically neutral),
- quality of the assessment (i.e. did you look at all sides of the debate);
- The formation of a logical and coherent argument and conclusion;
- the degree that the bibliography is sophisticated with at least eight cited sources, and