Got a B on the midterm but somehow salvaged my grade with the final. He let us change the weight of the midterm on the day of the final which was sooo generous. The quizzes are easy if you pay attention to the details of the story rather than the main messages of the story. Just read and re-read everything and you should be good!

Very informative professor, who definitely knows what he's talking about. Readings were long, but some of it was material that you probably wouldn't find anywhere outside of his course reader. One of the weeks readings was audio of Zaller interviewing a political 'king maker' who controls Louisiana's congressmen and in it he explains how he's able to wire money to candidates to by pass election finance rules.

Every week there's a quiz on the reading and lecture, but they are pretty easy, just skim your notes on previous lectures or readings (Most people got 100% on all of them). Most lecture quizzes are based on whatever chart or diagram he presented in class previously. These make up like 40% or something of your grade, so it makes doing the readings important. The 2 big readings are Acts of Congress and The Righteous Mind (only parts 1 and 2 of RM)- I'd recommend finding the audio books of these 2 in advance cause they're pretty long reads.

There is 1 midterm and 1 final that are about 60% of the grade and are both essays. Zaller has a weird grading system that's constantly changing, so it's a little hard to keep up with it. The core concept (as of when I had him, he may change it again) is that he assigns 'points' for every concept you mention in your essay, (Our class the highest points a person got was 70 'points', but most people got like 40). Then he'll choose the essay he thinks is the lowest 'A level paper', and that paper's point number becomes the dividing line between who's assigned an A and who gets a A- or below. It's kinda a weird subjective curve, but most people seemed to do ok with it. Main point, during the midterm/final, just keep writing as much as you can.

Extra credit is provided based off if his graduate students need any social experiments done on his undergrads. Super easy points, for my class made up 7% of our grade, but it fluctuates per class.

Over all fun class, bit of work, but over all learned a LOT about our party system.

I'm selling the Course Reader for this class for cheap. Text me! 818-675-1262

This is one of the best political science courses I've taken. Professor Zaller leads great discussions on the material and is always open to debate and take questions. It is reading heavy but it isn't hard to keep up and so long as you do the readings all the work (quizzes, midterm, final) are fairly straightforward. I'm selling The Righteous Mind which is used for this course, email me at iliana.ibarra1@hotmail.com

I learned a lot from this class; interesting material. Highly recommend to go to office hours. He's a great professor; intelligent, knowledgeable and I found him very funny.

I am selling Act of Congress and Righteous Mind, 562.334.6503.

The workload is heavy and expect to read a lot of pages per day. Although he says his quizzes are easy if you simply read them, it helps if you quickly review them right before class. Thankfully he uses Bruincast and is very relaxed with people leaving in the middle of class. All in all just pay attention to class and be familiar with the interesting events that occur in his readings and you will be fine.

There are reading quizzes every week that make it easy to stay on top of the material.

For the midterm and final you don't have to read ALL the documents if you are able to broadly tie in ideas with evidence you pick out from the texts and from the lectures. Midterm and final are in-class essays; the game is to write an essay that's as comprehensive as possible, wherein you include as many building-blocks of evidence as possible.

Professor Zaller is very understanding and is actually smart, so it's a fun and interesting class. Highly recommend.

Professor Zaller is an extremely talented researcher and very knowledgeable of this subject matter. His lectures are not riveting (although he has a dry sense of humor that some found enjoyable), but you'll be able to pay attention if the course material is at all interesting to you. The weekly reading/lecture quizzes are easy enough if you read carefully/attend lectures and pay attention, and the assigned books (The Righteous Mind, Act of Congress) are good reads. Like the quizzes, the midterm and final are manageable if you're doing the work required of you. They are graded on a forgiving curve, and extra credit opportunities throughout the course will add a boost to your grade. I'd take this class again if I could.

Zaller is an entertaining professor, even if a little awkward in how he presents some things. I also think he is funny, but in a dry sense of humor kind of way. Also note that he is politically democrat and can be biased toward that view (this is relevant for a class about political parties) but he discloses this in the beginning anyway. For whatever reason, people complained about the midterm because student felt it didn't evaluate their ability to construct an argumentative essay. It was super easy so I can understand maybe not being challenged, but Zaller rectified this in class by making the final even easier? It was questionable, but honestly you don't really need to study for this class. The lectures themselves can be kind of boring, but Zaller is super knowledgeable and has a lot of interesting anecdotes to help you grasp the material. And be sure to read too because he does have quizzes at least once a week (this is all in the syllabus). The quizzes are super easy though, as long as you read and can remember random details. I like Zaller a lot!

Professor Zaller is a highly intelligent professor with a strong background in public opinion. Although he uses slides heavily, he does not simply read off the slides, he expands on what's on the slides. There is a quiz almost every week on the weekly readings that he assigns. It is a MUST that you do the readings otherwise you will not pass the quizzes which take up a large percentage of your grade. On average there was about 70-100 pages of reading each week, so if you have other classes with heavy workloads, you might not want to take this class. If you do take this course you will learn a lot of things about the US political system that you probably did not know. Zaller cares a lot about his students and he heavily encourages students asking questions throughout lecture.