Social Security
To describe how the Social Security retirement fund system works and craft a reform to ensure its ongoing fiscal soundness.
To demonstrate the ability to assemble a well-organized paper that is clear and mechanically sound.
To develop communication skills that will help you write persuasively in the future.
Your Social Security/Communication Skills portion of the Final Exam will require you to submit a typed essay describing your proposal to improve an existing public policy.
Below is the public policy:
Old-Age Survivor and Disability Insurance (OASDI) or as it is more commonly called, Social Security, faces an uncertain economic future given its trends in revenue and spending. Your task is to describe the reason why this concern is very prevalent and offer a solution. Your goal is to propose changes to the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) component of Social Security where your proposal:
maintains Social Security’s status as a social insurance (contributory) program • would be popular enough politically to be accepted
is fiscally (mathematically) sound
Fortunately, researchers have offered many changes to Social Security to meet elements of the above criteria, so you do not need to create one of your own. Your task (see Step Three: Supporting material below) is to choose among existing alternatives or combinations thereof and argue in favor of adoption.
There is outside help available for this assignment. Library staff have created a guide to assist you in this process. You can access the guide specific to this common assignment here: GOVT 2305: Common Assignment LibGuide
Overall question to consider: Besides raising the retirement age as scheduled by current law, what would you recommend be done to Social Security to ensure that the program is able to pay recipients the full scheduled benefits the program has promised while remaining a social insurance (contributory) program?
Scoring elements of Northeast Lakeview’s Communication Skills Rubric are listed in italics before the elements that comprise them below. Your score will be determined by how well you satisfy these elements. The Communication Skills Rubric is attached to give you clear descriiptions of what quality of submission will earn ratings of poor, fair, good and excellent.
Step One: Organization and Delivery: Structure your organization and delivery: Write in a manner that is appropriate for an academic paper in the subject of political science and follow a widely-accepted format for citing sources properly. Below are two helpful guides:
APA Formatting and Style Guide
MLA Formatting and Style Guide
A well-organized persuasive essay must include each of the following elements:
A descriiption of the issue to be discussed and its importance
Your position/solution on the issue, clearly stated
Evidence supporting your position
Responses to criticism of your position
A conclusion
Step Two: Mechanics: Be mindful of your mechanics: Ensure that your essay is free of spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammar and syntax errors. Do not let inelegance cloud your message. Use this guide to inform you on common style issues; it is crowded but searchable. The usage guide and the writing guides linked above have many examples on commonly used terms and proper citation methods.
Step Three: Supporting material: Gather and attribute your supporting material: Although you are expressing your opinion, to be taken seriously you must support your proposal with no fewer than three (3) relevant expert sources that are of the highest quality and credibility. You must cite each source both in the body of the essay and on a Works Cited page. Use sources with perspectives that are consistent with one another; your points must be clear and without contradiction. The table below will help explain evidence quality:
Strong evidence
Sources that are consistent with your argument and thus support your conclusion
Fair evidence
Information that merely describes your subject matter (in Step One) rather than supports your assertion (in Step Two); your course textbook is most likely in this category
Weak evidence
Work that is inconsistent with your argument or contradictory to it; superficial material such as dictionary definitions or encyclopedia descriiptions
Step Four: Central message: Ensure the strength and consistency of your central message: Analyze the nature of the Social Security solvency issue correctly and specifically. Describe your proposal clearly and explain how it is an appropriate solution to the problem you have described. Be sure to address any criticisms of your proposal that the reader may have and wrap up your essay with a conclusion.
Regarding format, your work is to be typed, double-spaced in 12-point font with 1” margins, left aligned and indent the first line of each paragraph one-half inch. Indicate the degree (not your major) you are seeking in the upper-right (this will be AA, AAS, AS, or AAT). If you do not know what degree you are pursuing, I can look that up in ACES for you.
You will be submitting a digital copy of your paper online via an assignment link in Canvas, to be checked by turnitin.com; papers with high likelihood of plagiarism may receive a grade of zero. Download an originality report when you submit to ensure your paper is unlike others’ work.
The page following the rubric described above is The NLC Communication Skills Rubric. This is how Northeast Lakeview College defines the various elements of Communication Skills core competency, and it is applicable to assignments from any subject taught at NLC.
Communication Skills Assessment Scoring Guide – GOVT
Follow this scoring guide created by government faculty at NLC to help you assemble a quality paper.
Each cell describes the score you earn for each element based on your paper’s quality; a score of zero is possible.
Excellent
4
Good
3
Fair
2
Poor
1
Organization and delivery
Your paper has the five essential elements of persuasion: statement of the issue, your position on it, supporting evidence for your position, addressing criticisms of your position, and a conclusion. Each element accomplishes its purpose successfully and distinctly.
Your essay has the five elements, but one or two of them do not contribute successfully to the paper’s central message or are noticeably weak.
One or more of the five elements is missing or contradictory to your central message
You may have some of the essential elements, but they are disorganized to the point where a reader cannot tell the difference among them.
Mechanics
You have very few if any errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation and syntax, and you follow the formatting requirements of the essay as instructed.
There are occasional mechanical errors (e.g. capitalization and some punctuation), but these mechanical issues do not obscure your message.
There are few mechanical errors, but they are substantial enough to require your instructor to reread the passage to discern meaning.
Your paper has many mechanical errors, and it makes it difficult for a reader to understand your central message.
Supporting material
You choose no fewer than the required number of expert sources, you integrate them into the essay properly, and cite them properly in the body of text and on a works cited page.
You have the correct number of relevant sources, and cite them properly, but you merely summarize them rather than integrate them to support your central message.
Your paper relies primarily on one or two sources and thus the sources support the message inadequately. Citation is likely done imprecisely and/or improperly.
Your paper has too few sources and it is unclear how what sources you do have support your central message. Citation most likely does not meet standards.
Central message
Your essay states the issue properly, advocates your position clearly and supports it with no fewer than the required number of expert sources.
You demonstrate that you understand the issue, but your position is either incomplete or inconsistent with your support.
You show that you have a basic understanding of the issue, but your position does not address the issue directly and thus your support is not relevant.
You demonstrate that you do not understand the central issue and take an unclear or irrelevant position.
Communication Skills Assessment Rubric
Communication skills include effective development, interpretation and expression of ideas through written, oral and visual communication.
Evaluators are encouraged to assign a zero to any work sample or collection of work that does not meet poor (cell one) level performance.
