Complete Idiot's Guide to American Government

Mary Shaffrey is the Washington correspondent for the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal. In 2004 she covered the presidential and later vice presidential campaign of U.S. Senator John Edwards. Before joining the Winston-Salem Journal in 2003, she was a metro reporter for The Washington Times and won several Society of Professional Journalists Awards. She has also reported for States News Service; The Hill, a tri-weekly newspaper covering Congress; and The Watertown (N.Y.) Daily Times. A native of Towson, Maryland, and a former high school government/history teacher, she received her B.A. in history from Providence College and her M.A. in newspaper journalism from Syracuse University.

Melanie Fonder is the press secretary for Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle. She most recently was associate editor for WisPolitics.com, an online political news service. Fonder is a former staff writer for The Hill, a tri-weekly newspaper covering Congress. The Grafton, Wisconsin, native is an award-winning journalist and former reporter for The Green Bay News-Chronicle and has written for numerous other publications. Fonder received her B.A. from St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, attended the Fund for American Studies Institute on Political Journalism at Georgetown University, and is working on her M.A. at the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.