 In this particular class that I've been experimenting with a couple of times called Applied Skills in Political Science, what I have them do is I send them in groups of two to investigate a particular widely respected data source so they might be looking at the data provided by an organization called Transparency International on a perception of corruption across the world or I might send them to the website of the United Nations Development Project, which measures human development and measures various indicators of human development. So those are just two examples of large cross-national data sets that are used very, very widely in both political science scholarship as well as in policy applications. And what I have them do in these groups of two is to make about 15-minute presentations of the class where they're telling us about what the data set explains to us, but they're also telling us what the organization behind the data set is all about, like why is Transparency International spending so much money and just so many resources and collecting data on corruption, what's in it for them, who's funding them, what is their political position, what is their political philosophy, what are some of the ways in which maybe they have errors in the way they measure corruption, but what are some of the really tangible benefits that they provide to their clients who are actually looking at that data set. And by doing that, I'm getting students to think both about the benefits of using an organization like Transparency International or the United Nations, but also thinking about the limitations that, you know, if I'm looking at the UN and it's telling me that the Human Development Index for India is poor, then that's an area of concern. But are there things that they're missing out? Are there things that are promising about India's economic development that this particular index doesn't tell us? So really kind of being critical about a data set in a way that helps us understand both its value as well as its limitations and applying that to a particular situation. Well, the learning goals of the class place a lot of emphasis on clear communication, both in written and in verbal format. So when they're making student presentations, that's really one of the central assessment modules of the class. So it's not presentation, not something that they do just at the end of the class. It's something that they're doing throughout. So, you know, every week, two or three students are making presentations and then towards the end of the course, they're making again. So essentially, every student is making presentations at least twice in one quarter period. And part of their grade is based on how much they've improved between the first presentation and the second presentation. So I would say for the applied skills class, that is really one of the central tenets of the assessment module. And I tell them that I do this in part because it'll really help them build up their interview skills and their presentation skills when they go into the workplace. Because as a scholar, of course, I give a lot of presentations at conferences and teaching is also about public speaking. But also when I was at the State Department, I realized that much of what you do is really kind of fighting to get someone's attention for the ten minutes that they've given you. And you know, you only have those ten minutes and you know that somebody else will be coming to the room in the next ten minutes to talk about something else. So you really want to have the skill to get that person's attention without being too dramatic because at the end of the day, you are talking about facts and presenting facts and as accurate and as concise a way as possible.