Our federal system is built upon three core concepts. For your initial post, research the following key government terms: 

Briefly define each of the following terms: Separation of powers, Checks and balances Federalism.  Be sure and support your research with citations.

Discuss one recent example of each of these concepts in action.Again, support your contentions here with cited sources.

Are these principles being carried out as was intended by the founding fathers. Why or why not?

This assignment will be graded in two parts: your initial post (50 pts) and your replies (50 pts) to other classmate’s post:

Part 1: Initial Posts:

All initial posts must be written in Arial font, double-spaced, using 12 pt. font size. Your initial post  must be 8-10 paragraphs long minimum. Paragraphs should be a minimum of 3 sentences long. They should be no longer than 5-6 sentences. The general rule is when you move to a new concept or idea, you should start a new paragraph. 15 points will be deducted for papers that are either too short or too long. 

Minimal response length will receive a minimal score. Put some thought and effort into this post. You will be required to do some research for this assignment. Make sure your initial post addresses each of the questions posted above. 15 points will be deducted for each question not addressed. 

Proofreading and spelling/grammar checking will improve your overall score. Double and triple check your post before you submit your initial post, as you will not be able to edit them afterwards. 5 – 15 points will be deducted based on the severity of the errors noted in your post.

Within your initial post, you must provide evidence and citations to support your opinions. A minimum of 2 sources are required, but again, this is the minimum required for credit. Wikipedia does not count as a source and posts that use Wikipedia will have 15 points deducted from the initial post grade.

You must use in-text citations. You may use no more than 1 direct quote and that direct quote is limited to a maximum of 3 sentences. Posts with more than 1 direct quote will lose 15 points off of the overall grade. Posts that do not use in-text citations at all will have 15 points deducted from the overall grade.  

A works cited section, citing all of your sources in proper MLA format, must be included with your initial post. You must include a works cited even with use of in-text citations. Posts without a works cited page included will have all 50 points deducted from the initial post total.

Failure to submit an initial post and replies to classmates by the due date assigned will result in a grade of ‘0’ for this assignment.No extra time will granted for any reason.