PUB AFF 70
Information, Evidence, and Persuasion
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Examination of sources and varieties of knowledge produced in social sciences. Evaluation of types of evidence, arguments, and persuasion on social problems and public issues. Examination of public life of evidence and arguments by different actors in social policy-making, persuasion, and propaganda process. Letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2022 - The class material was not connected to the assignments at all. While the lectures themselves were interesting and the professor did an okay job with that, the assignments were very poorly designed and arbitrarily graded. All of the assignments were graded by the TA (as per usual for most lower divs), but the TAs, at least for my section, did not provide any sort of rubric or information on how grading would occur. Rather, they just assigned grades without any explanation. I heard from several other students in the course that they spoke with their TAs at length about assignments, trying to perfect them before submitting only to receive a B with no explanation. Something similar happened to me as well in a few of these assignments. The class just seemed to be badly organized in my opinion and the professor was not really open or available to making the class more accessible. Would not recommend the course to anyone with this professor, or especially the TA Niamh.
Spring 2022 - The class material was not connected to the assignments at all. While the lectures themselves were interesting and the professor did an okay job with that, the assignments were very poorly designed and arbitrarily graded. All of the assignments were graded by the TA (as per usual for most lower divs), but the TAs, at least for my section, did not provide any sort of rubric or information on how grading would occur. Rather, they just assigned grades without any explanation. I heard from several other students in the course that they spoke with their TAs at length about assignments, trying to perfect them before submitting only to receive a B with no explanation. Something similar happened to me as well in a few of these assignments. The class just seemed to be badly organized in my opinion and the professor was not really open or available to making the class more accessible. Would not recommend the course to anyone with this professor, or especially the TA Niamh.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2025 - i have mixed feelings about this class. i really enjoyed lectures and thought manville was very engaging but the lectures felt very disconnected from assignments. the writing assignments were graded harshly with little feedback. when i asked for clarification my ta's explanations made little sense and it made me feel discouraged to ask for further clarification. i understand why manville chooses to grade harshly so that we can learn and improve but its hard to learn when the ta's feedback is confusing. discussions felt useless, they occurred a couple hours after lecture and my ta basically spent the whole time reiterating points that the prof made in lecture earlier that day. the readings were interesting and imo very easy to skim so i wouldnt feel worried about the pop quizzes but once they occurred a lot of them felt like they were purposely worded to confuse even those who did do the readings. all this to say, lecture was genuinely very interesting and i think every student regardless of major should take a class like this because manville makes a lot of important points. i just wish grading was handled differently
Spring 2025 - i have mixed feelings about this class. i really enjoyed lectures and thought manville was very engaging but the lectures felt very disconnected from assignments. the writing assignments were graded harshly with little feedback. when i asked for clarification my ta's explanations made little sense and it made me feel discouraged to ask for further clarification. i understand why manville chooses to grade harshly so that we can learn and improve but its hard to learn when the ta's feedback is confusing. discussions felt useless, they occurred a couple hours after lecture and my ta basically spent the whole time reiterating points that the prof made in lecture earlier that day. the readings were interesting and imo very easy to skim so i wouldnt feel worried about the pop quizzes but once they occurred a lot of them felt like they were purposely worded to confuse even those who did do the readings. all this to say, lecture was genuinely very interesting and i think every student regardless of major should take a class like this because manville makes a lot of important points. i just wish grading was handled differently
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