What does it take to be an effective teaching assistant in politicalscience? This is a subject of interest not only to first timegraduate teaching assistants, but also to the professors who makeuse of them, the directors of undergraduate studies who must livewith their results, and the directors of graduate studies who musthelp prepare them for their first teaching jobs. But while thesubject of training graduate students to teach is of live interestto numerous people, comparatively little direct attention has beenaccorded it. While 83% of graduate students say that “enjoyment ofteaching” was one of the factors that lead them to enroll ingraduate school, a significantly smaller percentage believe thattheir departments adequately prepare them to serve as teachingassistants, much less to take up the responsibilities of full-timecollege professors (Golde and Dore 2001).And while research on teaching has exploded since 1998, the chieffocus of this research and publication has tended to be on civiceducation, curriculum development, and the use of technology in theclassroom (Kehl 2002). Indeed, no articlein PS since its inception in 1968 has ever directlytaken up the topic of what sort of characteristics and practices, ingeneral, contribute to making an effective teaching assistant.The author would like to thank the KanebCenter for Teaching and Learning at the University of Notre Damefor providing the initial spark to this article by inviting himto participate in a panel discussion on becoming an effectiveteaching assistant. He would also like to thank Walter Nicgorskifor encouraging him to turn his presentation into an article andfor reading and commenting upon several drafts. Finally, hewould like to thank Steve Yoder of PS and thetwo anonymous reviewers whose suggestions have considerablystrengthened the final product.