PAA 652 Fall 2018
Individual Interview Project: Paper Guidelines
One informational interview is required for this course. You must identify an elected official (the choice
is wide open! You will write this up and present your findings to your classmates. The paper must be
between 4-6 double spaced pages, excluding the cover sheet and references. A minimum of 6 journal
and/or professional articles must be included as references you have cited in your paper. You must
present a brief (no more than 6 minutes long) PowerPoint, Prezi or another presentation format that suits
you to the class of your topic and then post both the presentation and the paper on Blackboard.
Within the context of this class, you are learning how health, politics, and policy affect a variety of
circumstances. Please be sure and identify the person you would like to interview early! Develop your
list of questions and estimate how much time you will have to ask your questions. Carefully take notes
or record (with permission) your interview. Generally, you are requesting an informational interview.
Generally, people appreciate being asked and even they can’t make time, they will often send you to
someone who does. Start with a phone call or email to a prospective interviewee. Explain who you are
and why you’re interested in speaking with them- don’t just say it is for a school assignment!! Ask if
they have 30 minutes to talk in the next week or so, thank them for their time, and say good-bye. If you
emailed or left a voice mail, follow up in two weeks if you haven’t heard back.
You will be writing up a paper based upon your interview. A minimum of 6 journal and/or professional
articles must be included as references you have cited in your paper. For those of you who have had me
before, this is different!! You may use additional scholarly articles, but you might be better served with
professional articles. The purpose of this paper is to delve deeper into the state of health, politics, and
policy today. Therefore, you have a great deal of flexibility in selecting how you frame your paper to
suit your interview.
Copying language directly from another source without acknowledgement via quotation marks and a
footnote is plagiarism. No more than 10% of your paper can be in quotations, indicating that it was from
another source. If papers are found to be plagiarized, the penalty will be a grade of zero for the paper
and a grade of F for the course.
Paper Formatting
Each paper must be between 4-6 pages long (excluding the cover sheet and references), utilize APA
formatting- it is required in the Public Administration Department. APA is always double-spaced and
in the third person! Please refer to the APA style guide for additional formatting. Also in the section
below, some guidelines have been provided, which you are responsible for following. It is expected that
this must be a very well written paper that is free of jargon and is clearly written. Good leadership skills
for public managers require the ability to make a convincing case, and learning how to do this will be an
important part of this course. The paper must be between 4-6 double spaced pages, excluding the cover
sheet and references. The position paper should cover the key areas of the public administration/public
management topic under discussion.
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Potential Interview Questions (choose from among these or design your own…think about the time
you’ll have with the person and what is most important for you to know.)
1. How long have you been serving as an elected official?
2. When you first ran for office, what were your reasons for wanting to serve? Have your
reasons for funning changed since your first term?
3. Tell me about a typical day. What are your daily duties? How much time do you spend each
month on your duties as an elected official?
4. What area or areas of municipal or county operations interests you the most?
5. What areas do you find the most complex?
6. What is your favorite part of serving the public? Why?
7. What is your least favorite part of serving the public? Why?
8. What accomplishment are you most proud of why?
9. Did any aspect of the job come as a surprise after you took office? Is there something that
you wish someone had told you about the job before you were sworn in?
10. Did any aspect of the job come as a surprise after you took office? Is there something that
you wish someone had told you about the job before you were sworn in?
11. What kinds of problems do you deal with? What kinds of decisions to you make? What is
the toughest decision you have ever had to make as an elected official?
12. What is your perception on how the media covers local government? Do they do adequately
spend time covering the issues of the communities?
13. Has your perception of state government changed in any way since you took office?
14. Has your perception of federal government changed?
15. What if anything, would you suggest as a prerequisite for serving as a local government
elected official?
16. What is your position on term limits for locally elected officials?
17. Why do you feel citizens of our community do not turn out for local elections?
18. Should we reform the electoral college or keep it as it is?
19. How would you propose to make citizens in our community more active in local
government?
20. What are the major qualifications for success in this occupation?
21. What were the keys to your career advancement? How did you get where you are and what
are your long-range goals?
22. What are the skills or talents that are most important for being effective in your position?
23. Which associations do you belong to?
24. How do you ensure results are measured in real time?
Questions on Health
1. Do you think that all Americans should have health insurance?
2. Should the federal government help people who don’t have health insurance?
3. Do you favor a specific proposal to reduce the number of uninsured Americans?
4. Should the country move closer to single-payer/government-managed health care?
5. What do you view as the problem with our current health care system?
6. What do you see as the most pressing needs in health care?
7. How have you contributed to creating or changing policies in relation to health care?
8. What are your views on Medicare and the rising health costs?
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9. What are your views on imposing work requirements for people on Medicaid?
PAA 661 Individual Paper Interview Paper
Grading Rubric
Student Name: Potentia Points Comments
Required Headings Appear Here in Bold (you must use these l Earned
headings in your paper) Points
Be sure to address each bullet for full credit within each
section.
Introduction 15
Create an introduction. This first paragraph should include a
lead in and thesis statement and clearly present the main idea
of your paper. Many writers prefer to place the thesis at the
end of the first paragraph, but this doesn't have to be the case.
Identify the interviewee, their affiliation, and their
title that you interviewed.
Inform the reader about the layout of the paper (this is
the roadmap statement. (Tell me about the different
sections of your paper. One sentence is fine.)
What Did you Learn?
In paragraph form, summarize your answers 25
Describe how the interview itself was conducted, with
details (how long it lasted, where it took place, how
the interviewee behaved, etc.)
Describe how you felt about the process
Explain whether or not you would handle the process
itself any differently.
Explain how the interview was helpful, or not, and
what you wished you had asked, but didn’t (questions
ok? Select someone different? Etc.)
What Trends are Relevant in health care? 25
Identify the trends that are relevant citing the
literature
How does this new knowledge (trends) compare with
what your interviewee was saying?
If you’re currently working in healthcare, how has
your organization been keeping you informed about
these trends?
If you’re not currently working in healthcare, but plan
to be, how will you keep informed?
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If you’re not planning on working in healthcare, how
do these trends translate into your discipline?
Reflection
What did you learn about the political process? 25
What did you learn about health policy?
Based on your interview, what did you identify as
important for changing in your professional
development plan as it relates to what you learned?
Identify two goals you plan to incorporate after this
interview and include a time-line for achieving them
Conclusion 10
End with a concluding paragraph.
Summarize for the reader what you learned, what
your key findings were, and any recommendations
you make, what you thought about this project, and
any other concluding comments you wish to share.
References
Includes the minimum number of 6 professional or
scholarly resources- make sure you know what this
means! Hint: You will mostly use them in your
Trends section.
You will lose points if you don’t have these 6 sources.
Media articles will be considered extra, but will not
count toward your required scholarly sources.
Additional Grading Criteria:
Logic, Flow and Understanding of Material
The quality of writing reflects graduate level work
demonstrating clarity of ideas and an integration of concepts.
The use of subheadings and transitional sentences between
the subsections is required. You synthesize the literature and
integrate your concepts carefully to present a coherent
message about the key issues of your policy discussion. No
points will be given, but up to 10 points will be deducted for
poor implementation.
Grammar, Spelling, APA Style
Points will not be given for this!
However up to 15 points may be deducted for poor
grammar, poor spelling, and not following APA
format.
This is your exception to one part of APA, which is
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that it is written in the 3rd person (no “I’s” or “You’s).
You may use the first person (I, Me, mine, etc.)
Total Points 100
Citing a Source
Within the body of your work you must cite your source each time you use the work of another. This
refers to paraphrasing the literature in your work. You cite within the body of the paper in two ways.
The following is used if one author is referenced:
Brown (2009) indicated that an annual audit conducted by an outside auditor is the baseline for
creating accountability in a nonprofit organization.
If more than one author recommends a practice cite the multiple authors in this way:
The literature indicates that an annual audit conducted by an outside auditor should be the
baseline for creating accountability in a nonprofit organization (Brown, 2009; Smith, 1999;
Jones; 2001).
Quotes
The use of quotations is to be very, very limited! However, you may use a quote once or twice for
emphasis. You must always use quotation marks and provide the page number for a quote along with the
authors name and the year of the publication. There are again two ways to do this:
Brown (2009, p. 15) states “An annual audit by an outside auditory is crucial in establishing
accountability to funders.”
“An annual audit by an outside auditory is crucial in establishing accountability to funders”
(Brown, 2009, p.15).
Secondary Source
This means that you did not read the original article, but are citing an article that another person read and
cited in their article. Putting an article you did not read on the reference list is a form of plagiarism!
When you cite from a secondary source you give the original author’s name and possibly the name of
the article or study in the text of your paper and state it was cited in the article you are reviewing. The
secondary source is referenced in the text. On the reference list only the article you read is cited. For
example:
The Jones Model (as cited in Smith, 2008) indicates that....
In the reference list only the Smith, 2008 article is listed.
