Muskingum College - Center for Advancement and Learning (CAL)

Information Organization

Several organizers are useful in political science courses. Three are described and illustrated here: flash cards, matrices, and flow charts.

Flash Cards

Flash cards (concept cards) are an excellent way to learn vocabulary for any political science course. Limit yourself to one word per card. Lists, people and their contributions, and similar information can also be organized on flash cards. Review the cards daily. Use flash cards to prepare for identification questions and other objective test questions.

Matrices

Matrices are useful for assimilating a large amount of related information. They help one to prepare for and answer essay questions on exams. Examples of completed matrices are provided below.

ANCIENT GOVERNMENTS

ATHENS	ROME
Democracy	Republic
sanctity of the polis - interest of the whole group as opposed to individual interest	Roman Senate and people - sovereignty rested in people themselves and not in any particular form of government
decisions made in principle by majority vote - free, male, citizen	decisions made in principle by: assemblies of people - express will Senate - actual business
also a tyrant/ruler	rich ruled via Senate - oligarchy
no naturalization process	as conquered territories, conquered males given citizenship

(E. Granitsas, CAL)

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACIES

	UNITED STATES	GREAT BRITAIN
Separation of Powers	separation of personnel checks and balances	overlap of personnel supremacy of Parliament
Function of Legislature	Constitutional amendment by Congress only chooses President if electoral college has no majority	sole agency that can ratify constitution basically elects Prime Minister
Number of Houses	bicameral (equal power of houses) Senate (upper) House of Representatives (lower)	bicameral (upper has little power) House of Lords (upper) House of Commons (lower)
Legislative Way of Life	independent operator, not as beholden to party, local constituent functions very important	party soldier, back benchers, little power but through speeches, low pay, local constituent functions are important

(M. Hartman, CAL)

Flow Charts

Processes in political science lend themselves to the flow chart form of organization. For example, one might use a flow chart to organize the steps in how a bill becomes a law or the process of ratifying the Constitution.