1.Analyse reasons why managers are interested in having motivated Essay

1.Analyse reasons why managers are interested in having motivated workers - Essay Example Salary raises are acceptable but are not the motivating factor for employees to do their best to their duties. Thus, most managers prefer dealing with motivated workers rather than employees who need to be motivated before they can handle their duties effectively. The essay critically analyzes the reasons why most managers are interested in having motivated workers. Motivation describes the forces that act on an employee and initiate a certain behavior in the workplace. The type and intensity of motivators vary widely among employees since each brings different goals and needs to the workplace (Singla, 2004). Thus, managers prefer working with motivated employees since they strive to find the best way to perform their roles and responsibilities in the workplace. Motivated employees come to work early, can stay late, and have the ability to take on additional work whenever there is the need. They have individual characteristics that touch on their values, personality, abilities, needs, and interests in providing a wonderful work environment for the other co-workers. In contrast, the average worker considers handling the minimum amount of work outlined in order to get their daily pay. The ability and willingness to work effectively affects the efficiency of a worker. Also, the ability to work is obtained with the help of training and education while the willingness to deliver quality services is influenced by one’s motivation (Trehan & Trehan, 2006). Willingness to work is more important than ability since it improves the performance level within the organisation. Even though a worker is educated and recruited on this basis, it is not essential that he will do outstanding work in improving the performance of the organisation. One has to be motivated to do outstanding work. Thus, motivation improves one’s efficiency, which is reflected in decreased costs and

Practical Business Analysis Essay Example for Free

Practical Business Analysis Essay 1. Re-do all problems in Practice Problem Set 1. 2. Dollar Car Rental Co. was originally named Dollar a Day Car Rental because they charged $1.00 per day to rent a car, plus a charge per mile driven. Many customers complained that the odometers on Dollar’s cars recorded more miles than were actually driven. To evaluate these complaints you take a random sample of 6 Dollar’s cars, drive them on a carefully measured 100-mile course, and record the miles driven as registered by the odometers. The results are 100, 105, 109, 102, 107, and 101, with the sample standard deviation around 3.578. a. Using these sample results, construct a 95% confidence interval for the population mean miles recorded by all Dollar cars for a 100-mile trip. b. As a legal consultant hired by the group of the customers who complained about the odometers, do you have enough evidence to support your clients’ claim? State your hypotheses (H0 vs. Ha), rejection region and both statistical and substantive conclusions. 3. The grades on the final examination given in a large organic chemistry class are normally distributed with a mean of 72 and a standard deviation of 8. The instructor of this class wants to assign an â€Å"A† grade to the top 10% of the scores, a â€Å"B† grade to the next 10% of the scores, a â€Å"C† grade to the next 10% of the scores, a â€Å"D† grade to the next 10% of the scores, and an â€Å"F† grade to all scores below the 60th percentile of this distribution. For each possible letter grade, find the lowest acceptable score within the established range. 4. The weekly demand for General Motors car sales follows a normal distribution with a mean of 40,000 cars and a standard deviation of 12,000 cars. a. There is a 5% chance that GM will sell more than what number of cars during the next week? b. What is the probability that GM will sell between 20 and 23 thousand cars during the next week? 5. A department store is interested in the average balance that is carried on its store’s credit card. A sample of 40 accounts reveals an average balance of $1,250 and a standard deviation of $350. a. Find a 95% confidence interval for the mean account balance on this store’s credit card. b. What sample size would be needed to ensure that we could estimate the true mean account balance and have only 5 chances in 100 of being off by more than $100? 6. A marketing research consultant hired by Coca-Cola is interested in determining the proportion of customers who favor Coke over other soft drinks. A random sample of 400 consumers was selected from the market under investigation and showed that 53% favored Coca-Cola over other brands. a. Compute a 95% confidence interval for the true proportion of people who favor Coke. Do the results of this poll convince you that a majority of people favor Coke? b. Suppose 2,000 (not 400) people were polled and 53% favored Coke. Would you now be convinced that a majority of people favor Coke? 7. BatCo (The Battery Company) produces your typical consumer battery. The company claims that their batteries last at least 100 hours, on average. Your experience with the BatCo battery has been somewhat different, so you decide to conduct a test to see if the companies claim is true. You believe that the mean life is actually less than the 100 hours BatCo claims. You decide to collect data on the average battery life (in hours) of a random sample and the information related to the hypothesis test is presented below. Use this information to answer the following questions. a. You believe that the mean life is actually less than 100 hours, should you conduct a one-tailed or a two-tailed hypothesis test? State your alternative hypothesis. b. If you use a 5% significance level, would you conclude that the mean life of the batteries is typically more than 100 hours? State the rejection region and calculate the test statistic. c. If you were to use a 1% significance level in this case, would you conclude that the mean life of the batteries is typically more than 100 hours? Explain your answer. 8. Q-Mart is interested in comparing customer who used it own charge card with those who use other types of credit cards. Q-Mart would like to know if customers who use the Q-Mart card spend more money per visit, on average, than customers who use some other type of credit card. They have collected information on a random sample of 38 charge customers and the data is presented below. On average, the person using a Q-Mart card spends $192.81 per visit and customers using another type of card spend $104.47 per visit. Use the information below to answer the following questions. a. Given the information above, what is [pic] and [pic] for this comparison? Also, does this represent a one-tailed or a two-tailed test? Explain your answer. b. Using a 1% level of significance, is there sufficient evidence for Q-Mart to conclude that customers who use the Q-Mart card charge, on average, more than those who use another charge card? Explain your answer. 9. Suppose that you were asked to test H0: ÃŽ ¼ = 10 versus Ha: ÃŽ ¼ 10 at the [pic] = 0.05 significance level and with a sample of size n = 10. Furthermore, suppose that you observed values of the sample mean and sample standard deviation and concluded that H0 be rejected. Is it true that you might fail to reject H0 if you were to observe the same values of the sample mean and standard deviation from a sample with n 10? Why or why not? 10. Stock-market analysts are keenly interested in determining what factors influence the price of a stock. After some examination, a statistician hypothesized that a stock price (Y in $) would be affected by its quarterly dividends (X1 in $), its price/earnings ratio (X2), and the interest rate of treasury bills (X3 in %). The values of the relevant variables were observed for a period of 40 quarters. When the data were run on STATGRAPHICS PLUS, the accompanying printout was created.

Post War Cultural Revolution in the UK

Post War Cultural Revolution in the UK The Emergence of the Teenager Consumer in the 1950’s A turning point in history the post-war cultural revolution gave rise to one of the most interesting and powerful phenomenon of that time: the youth subculture. Supported by an uprising economic and cultural change, the teenagers of the 1950’s, left their mark in history by being the ones that turned away from tradition and started their own culture. Influenced by American style, film and music, British youngsters created a world where they could do anything they wanted because they had everything: they had the money, they had the time, and everything around them was built to fit their desires and pleasures. Nothing was going to stop them having the time of their lives. The Youthquake Osgerby explains that â€Å"youthquake is a phrase charged with connotations of deep-seated generational upheaval†. It is a term coined by cultural commentators like Richard Neville, Kenneth Leech or Peter Lewis in the 1970’s. Apparently, the term â€Å"youthquake† was used to describe â€Å"the seismic transformations (†¦) occurring in young people lives during the 1950’s and 1960’s† (Osgerby, 2004: 16). Since the World War Two ended, cultural changed divided the world into â€Å"two generational armed camps† (Neville, 1970: 13, cited in Osgerby 2004: 16) and Leech (1973:1) believed that the 1950’s had been â€Å"supremely the decade of the teenager† since youth culture became such an international phenomenon through the rise in â€Å"commercial interest in both the textile and recording industries†. However, rather than being a total shock and break with the past, the youthquake had some early signs. The mass entertainment industry emerged in the Victorian Era, ready for the urban working class which had been gradually extending their income and leisure time (Osgerby, 2004: 17). A visible consumer group of this period were the working youngsters, who, with their spending power, laid the base â€Å"for an embryonic youth leisure market† (Osgerby, 2004: 17). Young people had a healthy income and no family responsibilities therefore there were â€Å"better off than at almost any other age and could afford to go out and enjoy themselves† (Springhall 1980: 89 cited in Osgerby, 2004: 17) An estimative study by David Fowler shows that between the wars youth’s money wages rose between 300% and 500%. Because of their lack of responsibilities, youngsters could retain almost 50% of their earnings which means that they enjoyed a higher standard of living than the rest of the family. â€Å"A commentator in Manchester described how a nineteen year old semi-skilled youth employed in a an iron factory could earn a pound a week and, after surrendering twelve shillings to his parents for board, was free to spend the remainder on clothes, gambling and the music halls† (Osgerby, 1998: 6) Of course, these things increasingly attracted the attention of entrepreneurs and manufacturers who were planning of creating a youth market (Osgerby, 2004: 18). During the early 1920’s and 1930s â€Å"a hard-sell youth market† arose and cinemas, magazine publishers, dance halls and commercial music halls all started to make a profit from the spending power of the young workers (Fowler, 1995: 170 in Osgerby, 2004: 18). The rise of the commercial youth market has occurred well before the 1950’s and 1960’s. Osgerby explains that â€Å"by the end of the Victorian Era, on both sides of the Atlantic, manufacturers, advertisers and media industries were already tapping into young people’s spending power, the trend picking up momentum during the 1920’s and 1930’s† (2004: 19). Mort (1997, cited in Osgerby, 2004) states that Britain’s development as a modern consumer economy was slower compared to the US. If America has an economic growth during the war, Britain’s economy was â€Å"brought to its knees† after the Second World War which meant consumer spending had a hesitant development. Consequently, compared to the US, teenage consumerism developed slower in Britain. Nevertheless, the British youth market gradually came into its own (Osgerby, 2004: 26). During the 1950’s and 1960’s standards of living were boosted by full employment and a sustained rise in money wages. That is when everything started to come into shape. Teenagers as a consumer group – â€Å"SELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT† Osgerby (1998) states that â€Å"the characteristics that seemed to set youth apart as a distinct group were not their bio-psychological attributes, but their distinctive patterns of media use and practices of commodity consumption†. But how did these young people become such an important consumer group? Firstly, the post war era saw the so called â€Å"baby boom† which ensured a growth in the young population. The number of people aged under twenty increased from around three million in 1951 to just over 4 million in 1966 (Department of Employment, 1971: 206-207, cited in Osgerby, 2004). Just like in the United States, education expansion also helped youth in becoming a distinct social group. Secondly, throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, during the economic boost, with the expansion of the consumer industries and reconfiguration of the traditional labour markets the levels of youth employment increased immensely. Consequently, with the growth of the teenagers spending power came the development of the youth market: cinemas, record companies, music halls, magazines, fashion houses and so on, all saw a huge expansion. Assisted by a new army of advertisers and marketers, the market started to sel l products geared to the teenagers’ pleasures and desires. (Osgerby, 2004: 9, 10) En entire entertainment industry emerged, interested only in catering for the urban working youth with expanding disposable income and leisure time. Everyday habits and tastes became simply consumer goods, and markets started to exploit them as much as they could. New products and services, new fashion styles, new consumer patterns emerged, â€Å"suggesting† the British new identities, desires and pleasure and how to live their metropolitan lives. By the late 1950’s, youth became known for and associated with spending per se. Mark Abrams’ market research shows that â€Å"young people, more than any other social group, has materially prospered since the war† (cited in Osgerby, 1998: 26) Youth subcultures adapted their styles from consumer objects, which was very shocking for critics of all political persuasions, since their cultural insubordination was â€Å"allied to a consumerism that touched a very un-British hedonism as it squandered its money on extravagant clothing, pop records, scooters, over-priced frothy coffee, motor bikes, drugs, clubs and attempts to create a perpetual weekend† (Chambers, 1986: 42) The American influence Post War reconstruction of Britain, was influenced by the expansive image of America and its industrial and cultural power. Since America was the most capitalist society in the world, it became the summation of all Britain’s fears of foreign, urban and commercial forces that would destroy the English â€Å"way of life† (Chambers, 1986: 36). The American way of life became an inspiration for the Brits, both culturally and in terms of material goods. The increased availability of cheap colour magazines â€Å"brought a proliferation of advertising for luxury commodities, much of it originating in America† (Jackson, online resource). Despite all the protests coming from cultural intellectuals such as Richard Hoggart (The uses of literacy, 1957) and Raymond Williams (Culture and Society, 1958) who feared that Americanization would be the end of British culture, Hollywood films, commercial television, glossy magazines and consumer goods was everything the British consumers could have ever wished for. Films portrayed the life that most British people just dreamed of. One of the most known and cited films of that time was â€Å"Rebel without a cause† (1955, directed by Nicholas Ray) starring James Dean. He played the role of a bored teenager with an affluent middle class life style. Even if he had his own car and a home filled with luxury consumer goods, â€Å"Jim Stark† the character of James Dean, was full of distress, anger and resentment. He quickly became a role model for most of the British teenagers. The unique position of post-war teenagers, physically almost adult yet excluded from adult roles and responsibilities, with considerable disposable cash, and familiar from early childhood with the products of modern mass media healthy, well-fed, and energetic, yet involved in less hard physical work than many of their ancestors this privileged, new position seemed merely to throw into sharp relief for them the limitation of their existence and to give them the opportunity to respond in new ways to these conditions. Music-use became one of the main chosen instruments of their response. (Dick, 1992) Young Brits started to turn away from their parents and the British tradition, creating their own cultural expression. Inspired by the early American rock’ n’ roll, and Hollywood films, they created a series of spectacular and distinctive British subcultures such as: The Teds –working class Londoners, around 1953 with distinguishable characteristics as – quiffs, Elvis, flick-knives, crepe soles, alcohol; The Mods –working class Londoners, around 1963 Jamaican – rudeboy / Italian style, US soul, purple hearts, The Small faces, scooters, amphetamines; Youth culture was full of contradictions: they had a strong desire to express their individuality but they were wearing the same clothes as their mates and they were rebelling against the capitalism that they were already slaves to. (Milestone, 1999) Conclusion British history and all its changes and turns was massively influenced by the two World Wars, but mostly by the Second World War which was, according to Osgerby (1998) â€Å"a decisive turning point in the nation’s social, economic and political life†. At the beginning of the 1950’s Britain was still exhausted, both financially and morally after years of war and its cities were still bombsites. However, it was in the 1950’s that Britain started to rise again, entering a period of increased wealth and freedom, and many of the old traditional structures began to be challenged, particularly by the young (online resources). The essay shows how the phenomenon of youth subculture and consumerism started quite early but peaked around the 1950’s, when economic, social and cultural developments provided the perfect environment. Influenced by American culture, the British teenagers created their own world, a world of music and motorcycles, of freedom and entertainment, where nothing was more important than being stylish and cool, and having things to show it. Bibliography Chambers, Iain (1986) Popular Culture, The Metropolitan Experience, London: Routledge Osgerby, Bill (1998) Youth in Britain since 1945, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Osgerby, Bill (2004) Youth Media, Abingdon: Routledge Online resources Katie Milestone ,The Guardian, Saturday 18 December 1999 http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1999/dec/18/weekend7.weekend5 as accessed on 4th Jan 2015 Andrew Jackson, Designing Britain 1945-1985 http://www.vads.ac.uk/learning/designingbritain/html/crd_cultrev.html as accessed on the 20th Dec 2014 http://britishrock.weebly.com/1-birth-of-teenage-culture-1950s-britian.html as accessed on the 20th Dec 2014 All the photos were saved from https://images.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl

Hard Times - The Theme of Education Essay -- English Literature

Hard Times - The Theme of Education In this piece I intend to explain how Dickens is trying to represent education in the Victorian era and how he feels about the style of teaching that is widely used during his times. I also intend to make references to how the representation of Victorian schools by Dickens compares, historically to the actual conditions in a school from the Victorian era. As soon as the book begins we are introduced to a style of teaching that is dependent only on facts. One of the main characters of the novel is Thomas Gradgrind and he is the enforcer of this utilitarian style of education and is described as a man who is very strict. Dickens introduces us to this character with a description of his most central feature: his monotone appearance and attitude. â€Å"Stick to facts, sir!† This exclamation suggests that the character likes to shout and sound firm. The short, punchy sentence suggests an assertive and strong character. Dickens also makes Gradgrind seem boring and grating by the gravelly and rough sound of his name and how it is pronounced. â€Å"Grind†, in particular suggests the grindstone, and flogging away at work constantly and is associated with the mechanical, repetitive drudgery of the factory system. Dickens also employs the outer appearance of Gradgrind to parallel the inner personality of Gradgrind, â€Å"Square coat, square shoulders and square legs†. This seems to highlight Gradgrind’s nature of unrelenting rigidity. Dickens also uses tricolons to really exaggerate the impression of this character being dull, boring and old fashioned. As a result, his educational ideas are seen to be dull and boring too. We get the overall impression from Dickens that he doesn’t ... ...stressed by the ‘factory’ style approach to the children and their education. He exaggerates this to show the ‘production line’ attitude to education is wrong and does not help the child. He believes that the school in Hard Times treats all children the same and there is no exception to the rule. He sees it as a rather utilitarian style approach, a ‘one size fits all’ kind of regime and believes that this system has obviously failed. His distress seem to turn to the kind of anger a activist would show in a protest and in a way his writing of the book is his form of a protest which is made through humour. He strongly believes that children at such an early stage in their childhood are too young to be exposed to such a formal and rigorous style of education and should instead be allowed to express their emotions and have their youthful imaginations nurtured.

Literary Terms Modern Essay Essay

The aim of this glossary is not to set in concrete words that are constantly changing and evolving, but rather to help students develop the critical tools and vocabulary with which to understand and talk about poetry. Since poets themselves often disagree about the meaning and importance of terms such as free verse, rhythm, lyric, structure, and the prose poem, and since control of literary discourse is part of each new generation’s struggle for poetic ascendancy, it seems only reasonable and appropriate for the student to view all efforts to define critical terminology in a historical perspective and with a healthy degree of scepticism. This mini-glossary reflects the continuing debate between traditional metrics and free verse, and between differing conceptions of the poet’s craft and role in society. A fuller and more lively debate may often be found in the notes on the poets and in the poetics section. In a number of instances, I have been less concerned to offer hard-andfast definitions than to alert readers to the controversy that surrounds certain critical terms. The following list is by no means complete, but is intended to aid and provoke, to stimulate discussion and debate and send the curious reader on to more comprehensive sources. I have made use of and recommend highly A Glossary of Literary Terms (1957), by M. H. Abrams; the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (1974), edited by Alex Preminger, Frank, J. Warnke, and O. B. Hardison, Jr; and The Poet’s Dictionary: A Handbook of Prosody and Poetic Devices (1989), by William Packard. G. G. ccent The emphasis, or stress, placed on a syllable, reflecting pitch, duration, and the pressures of grammar and syntax. While all syllables are accented or stressed in speech and in poetry, we tend to describe the less dominant as unstressed or unaccented syllables. In metrical verse, accented and unaccented (stressed and unstressed) syllables are easily identified. Robert Burns’s famous line â€Å"My love is like a red, red rose† might be described as an iambic tetrameter line, with four feet each consisting of one unaccented syllable followed by an accented one. However, it can be argued that such a reading trivializes and effectively undercuts the emotional power of the poetic utterance, and that the sense of the line dictates a slightly different reading, which locates three strong stresses or accents in the second half of the line: â€Å"My love is like a red, red rose†. See also FEET and METER. 2 20 -Century Poetry & Poetics th alexandrine A twelve-syllable line, usually consisting of six iambic feet. alliteration A common poetic device that involves the repetition of the same sound or sounds in words or lines in close proximity. Alliteration was most pronounced in Anglo-Saxon poems such as â€Å"The Wanderer† and â€Å"The Seafarer†, which Earle Birney imitates in his satire of Toronto, â€Å"Anglo-Saxon Street†: Dawndrizzle ended dampness steams from Blotching brick and blank plasterwaste Faded house patterns hoary and finicky unfold stuttering stick like a phonograph While such intense piling up of consonants was once a common mnemonic device (an aid to memory), changing literary fashions have, to a large extent, rendered such self-conscious exhibitions too blunt and obvious for the contemporary ear, except when used for comic purposes. Exceptions include rap poetry and spoken word, both of which make extensive use of alliteration and rhyme. Nevertheless, the repetition, or rhyming, of vowels, consonants, and consonant clusters (nt, th, st, etcetera) remains a still a central component in constructing the soundscape of the poem, just as the repetition and variation of image and idea enrich the intellectual and sensory fabric. The most talented practitioners will be listening backwards and forwards as they compose, picking up and repeating both images and sounds that give the poem a rich and interlocking texture. See ASSONANCE, CONSONANCE, RHYME, and PROSODY. allusion Personal, topical, historical, or literary references are common in poetry, though, to be successful, they require an audience with shared experience and values. Biblical or classical allusions, for example, or Canadian political allusions, might be totally unrecognizable to an Asian Muslim reader. Although readers soon tire of verbal exhibitionism, they still expect a degree of allusion to challenge them and to stimulate curiosity. Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s â€Å"Junkman’s Obgligato† assumes the reader’s familiarity with both T. S. Eliot’s â€Å"Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock† and W. B. Yeats’s â€Å"Lake Isle of Innisfree† for a full appreciation of the ironic counterpointing of down-and-out urban images and those of an idealized pastoral landscape. At the same time, the poem also overflows with topical and literary allusions from the junkyard of nineteenth- and twentieth-century European and American culture. ambiguity Words and the texts they inhabit are susceptible of a variety of interpetations. While a word may denote one thing, usage and context often bring various connotations to bear on the meaning, or meanings, of that word in the poem. As the American poet Randall Jarrell explains in his essay â€Å"The Obscurity of the Poet† (in Poetry and the Age, 1953), what we speak of as literature ranges from Dante’s Divine Comedy, with its seven levels of meaning, to Reader’s Digest, which, Glossary of Poetic Terms 3 like pulp fiction and greeting-card verse, barely manages half a level of meaning. Sophisticated readers not only enjoy, but also demand a certain level of ambiguity, or mystery, in poems. They find such ambiguity in Shakespeare, who loved puns, double-entendre, and various kinds of wordplay; they find it also in such early Moderns as T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, and Wallace Stevens, who were influenced by seventeenth-century Metaphysical poets and French Symbolist poets, for both of whom the poem retains something of the quality of a riddle. As a result of declining audiences, a general trend towards a democratization of the arts, and the pressure of new kinds of psychological and political content, the pendulum of taste since mid-century swung towards less ambiguity. While puns and worldplay still add to our sense of the fecundity and depth of poetic expression, contemporary poets admit that a rose may, at times, be intended only as a rose; and they tend to avoid the use of obscure and esoteric references. See Robert Graves’ Poetic Unreason (1925) and William Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930). anapest A metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one: / ? ? ? /. See METRE. anaphora The rhetorical device of using the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines to obtain the effect of incantation. See Ginsberg’s â€Å"Howl† and Cohen’s â€Å"You Have the Lovers† and â€Å"style†. apostrophe A literary device of â€Å"turning away†, usually to address a famous person or idea. In the classical Greek plays of Aeschylus and Euripides, the chorus would march across the stage in one direction chanting various stanzas, or strophes, and then reverse their motion in an anti-strophe, or verbal about-face. In twentiethcentury poetry, the apostrophe is just as likely to be used ironically, or for romantic or satirical purposes. rchetype When you sense that a literary character, situation, or idea has significance far beyond its specific, or particular, occasion in the poem, you are probably in the presence of an archetype. In an essay called â€Å"Blake’s Treatment of the Archetype† (English Institute Essays, 1950), Northrop Frye says: â€Å"By archetype I mean an element in a work of literature, whether a character, an image, a nar rative formula, or an idea, which can be assimilated into a larger unifying pattern. † Psychologist C. G. Jung, in an essay called â€Å"The Problem of Types in Poetry† (1923), gives another dimension to the matter: â€Å"The primordial image or archetype is a figure, whether it be a daemon, man, or process, that repeats itself in the course of history wherever creative fantasy is freely manifested. Essentially, therefore, it is a mythological figure. If we subject these images to a closer examination, we discover them to be the formulated resultants of countless typical experiences of our ancestors. They are, as it were, the psychic residue of numberless experiences of the same type. 4 20 -Century Poetry & Poetics th Sibling rivalry, the betrayed or rejected lover, the innocent abroad, the rebel, the fool, the seasonal cycles of rebirth, fertility, and death, the enchanter or enchantress—all are common characters or situations in literature that can deepen our appreciation of a work of art. However, the search for universal symbols can be reductive in the reading of a poe m; so, too, can excessive efforts to make a work symbolic or archetypal reduce a poem into a sociology text or an essay on psychology. ssonance Also called vocalic rhyme, assonance is the repetition or recurrence of vowel sounds within a line (or lines), a stanza, or the overall poem. Listen to the long vowels conjure expiration and death in Wilfred Owen’s â€Å"Greater Love†: â€Å"As theirs whom none now hear, / Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed. † Assonance is most obvious among words beginning with an open, or initial, vowel (open / eyes / eat / autumn), but equally powerful as an internal rhyming device (tears / mean, thine / divine). allad A popular short narrative folk song, usually transmitted orally, and making use of various forms of shorthand, including truncated action, psychological and historical sketchiness, and a chorus or refrain for heightened impact and easy memorizing. A direct link can be drawn between such early folk s ongs as â€Å"Barbara Ellen† and â€Å"The Skye Boat Song†, country western music, and such contemporary ballads such as â€Å"Frankie and Johnny†, Leonard Cohen’s â€Å"Suzanne†, and Stan Rogers’ â€Å"The Lockkeeper†. lank verse Unrhymed iambic pentameter verse has been a staple since it was introduced by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, around 1540 in his translations of Virgil’s Aeneid. Shakepeare and Christopher Marlowe both used blank verse in their plays; in poetry, Milton used it for Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, Wordsworth for The Prelude, and T. S. Eliot for The Waste Land. Eliot claimed in Poetry in the Eighteenth Century (1930) that the decasyllabic (or ten-syllable) line was â€Å"intractably poetic† yet had many of the capacities of prose. As such, blank verse could be said to be a precursor of the prose poem, which seems more aligned with ordinary speech and the counting of syllables than with poetic meter. broken rhyme The dividing of a word between two lines to fulfill the requirements of rhyme: Madame had learned to waltz before the charge of falsehood had been laid . . . cadence When poet John Ciardi describes the poem as â€Å"a countermotion across a silence†, he comes close to defining cadence, which refers to the pattern of melody established from line to line that creates in the reader a sense of time slowed down Glossary of Poetic Terms 5 and palpable. While cadence originally referred to regular traditional poetic measures, in which syllables and feet could be counted and identified, the term has come to be used more in relation to irregular patterning, where stress and accent are much looser and determined primarily by phrasing and syntax. Cadence is what Ezra Pound was referring to when he spoke of composing with the musical phrase instead of the metronome. Also worth reading is Dennis Lee’s essay â€Å"Cadence, Country, Silence†, in which he employs the term broadly and with greater cultural import. See also MEASURE, MUSIC, RHYTHM, and SONG. caesura This term is used to refer to any substantial break or pause within the line, though it is most often found in lines of five or more feet. The caesura was a regular feature in Anglo-Saxon poetry, dividing the two alliterating units within the line, bluntly drawn in Earle Birney’s â€Å"Anglo-Saxon Street† or more subtly in Wilfred Owen’s â€Å"Arms and the Boy†: Let the boy try along this bayonet blade How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood; Blue with all malice, like a madman’s flash; And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh. anto While in the twentieth century the term is often used to mean, simply, a song or a ballad, the canto was originally a subdivision of epic or narrative, which provided both a simpler organizing principle for the creator of the long poem and a muchneeded respite for the singer during delivery. Ezra Pound draws on both meanings of the word when he calls his great epic-length series of meditations The Cantos. conceit When a METAPHOR or other FIGURE OF SPEECH is extended over many lines, it is called a conceit. oncreteness Concrete nouns referring to objects, such as lip, flint, hubcap, gunbarrel, wheel, smoke, sugar, and fingernail, seem capable of making their appeal through the senses. So, too, verbs, such as run, scream, chop, and lick. Concrete words activate the imagination and anchor poetry in the world of particulars. A gifted poet such as Samuel Johnson can use abstract words in such as way as to make them feel concrete, as in the line â€Å"stern famine guards the solitary coast†, where the abstract idea is given the quality of ternness, the action of guarding, and a spatial location. e. e. cummings concretized abstractions in much the same way: â€Å"love is more thicker than forget, / more thinner than recall / more seldom than a wave is wet / more frequent than to fail†. concrete poetry This name was first applied in the twentieth century to works that exploit the visual and auditory limits of poetry, ranging from contemporary â€Å"visual puns† back to a seventeenth-century â€Å"shape-poem† whose typography was de- 6 20 -Century Poetry & Poetics th ployed to create the image of an altar. Since so much of the power of poetry is derived from sound—from rhythmical patterns, the residue of recurring vowels and consonants—it’s hardly surprising to find poets who break words into component syllables and letters, downplaying the intellectual dimension of poetry and emphasizing, instead, the psychic energy to be found in the acoustic dimension of language. See the notes on, and poems and poetics by, bpNichol, as well as An Anthology of Concrete Poetry (1967), edited by Emmett Williams, ed. consonance Consonance is the repetition of consonants in words or syllables with differing vowels: winter / water / went / waiter. See, for example, Wilfred Owen’s â€Å"Strange Meeting†, which proceeds with a series of consonantal half rhymes: escaped / scooped, groined / groaned, moan / mourn. content The substance or subject matter of a poem, as opposed to its style or manner, is what we usually refer to when we speak of content. But content cannot, properly, be discussed apart from form. A poet may begin to write a poem, broadly speaking, about war, love, or beach-combing; however, as soon as his or her thought begins to take shape as poetic language, as form, it is so transformed by the process that it bears little or no relation to the original impulse. Ideas or anecdotes that find their way into a poem are not the poem’s content, though they are certainly germaine to its overall impact. In fact, everything in the poem contributes to what we might call its content. Poets have reacted strongly to attempts to oversimplify their work or reduce it to a generalization or two. Archibald MacLeish argued that â€Å"A poem should not mean, but be. † Most poets believe that the poem is its own meaning. Robert Creeley insisted that content and form are indivisible, and rejected â€Å"any descriptive act . . . which leaves the attention outside the poem†. It’s probably most useful to stop asking what a poem means and begin to consider, as John Ciardi suggests in his book title, How Does A Poem Mean? If you begin to examine the formal and technical elements in a poem, the ways in which certain effects are achieved, you are more likely to arrive at a point of understanding and appreciation of the poem far beyond any simple statement about its content. See also DICTION, FORM, PROSODY. couplet The couplet—two lines of verse, usually rhymed—is one of the most common and useful verse forms in English and Chinese poetry. The couplet’s brevity encourages a pithy, epigrammatic quality; its two-line split provides a fulcrum which lends itself to argumentative summary and generalization, as in Alexander Pope’s â€Å"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; / The proper study of mankind is man†. Closed couplets such as Pope’s or Dryden’s, which use mostly iambic pentameter lines and complete their thought with the final end-rhyme, are also called heroic couplets, a form that dominated the eighteenth-century English neoclassical period. Glossary of Poetic Terms 7 The couplet has many uses, as a concentrating unit within the poem or as a separate stanza form. Shakespeare used the couplet to conclude his sonnets forcefully. See also GHAZAL. dactyl A metrical foot consisting of an accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables: / ? ? ? /. See FOOT and METER. diction Word choice. The French poet Verlaine felt the need to remind us that poems are made of words, not ideas. This is useful to think about, since poems are often spoken and written of as if they were chunks of autobiography, representations of nature, or little treatises on how to conduct, or not to conduct, our lives. Words are magical. When nature, experience, or ideas—any of which may give rise to a poem—pass through the rucible of language, they are transformed, as surely as white light is split into a spectrum of colour when it passes through a prism. Words, similarly, slow and alter those non-linguistic elements that endeavour to use or pass through them; that’s one reason poems, stories, and other verbal texts give us the impression of time slowe d down, of felt time. Words and the ideas they carry fly rather quickly through the brain, but when you speak or hear them you become aware of being immersed in another element, like a diver suddenly encountering water. These considerations are central to postmodern poetics, which seeks to remind us that the poem is not a mirror of nature or a window through which we see the natural world, or so-called reality, but rather a verbal reality in its own right. When the word, or language in general, is foregrounded, poetry ceases to be simply a vehicle for conveying pictures of, and passing on information about, quotidian reality; it aspires, instead, to the condition of other arts such as music and painting, where representation and referentiality are not the only, or even the primary, concern. In a sense, words are the poet’s paint, his or her primary medium. Coleridge once spoke of poetry as â€Å"the best words in the best order†. He was using the word best in the sense of most appropriate in a specific context, not with the idea that certain kinds of words are forbidden or inherently better or worse than others, though the choice would have its own moral significance. Words are dirty with meaning and can never be washed clean; we use them for ordinary discourse, to sell lawnmowers, to deliver sermons, and to make political speeches. As Joseph Conrad once wrote, using the Archimedean metaphor: Give me the right word or phrase and I will move the world. M. H. Abrams reminds us that diction can be described as â€Å"abstract or concrete, Latinate or Anglo-Saxon, colloquial or formal, technical or common, literal or figurative†, to which we might add archaic, plain, elevated. See CONCRETENESS and WORD, and also Owen Barfield’s Poetic Diction (1952) and Winnifred Nowottny’s The Language Poets Use (1962). 8 20 -Century Poetry & Poetics th idactic While classical and neo-classical poetics argue that poetry should both teach and delight, in didactic poems the teaching function tends to override the imaginative. Such works, often dismissed as propaganda, recall Yeats’s distinction, that his argument with the world produced only rhetoric, whereas his argument with himself resulted in poetry. And yet all great works are overtly or covertly didactic, whether they teach us indirectly and sublimina lly through the senses (by way of imagery and patterns of sound) or by arguing transparently. And, of course, all art, while it may not be a blatant call to arms, is an effort to persuade us to view the world differently. dimetre A line of verse consisting of two feet. dissonance An effect of harshness or discordance in a poem, often achieved by combining rhythmical irregularity and a jarring concentration of consonants. distich A COUPLET. dramatic monologue Unlike the soliloquy, in which a character on stage reveals his or her inner thoughts by â€Å"thinking aloud†, the dramatic monologue assumes and addresses an audience of one or more people. In the process of addresing this audience, the speaker of the dramatic monologue manages to confess, or simply reveal, a character flaw, a dread deed, or an impending crisis. Robert Browning pioneered the form in poems such as â€Å"My Last Duchess†, â€Å"Andrea del Sarto†, and â€Å"Fra Lippo Lippi†, but it has been used by Tennyson in â€Å"Ulysses†, by Eliot in â€Å"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock†, and by many contemporary writers. duration The length of acoustic or phonetic phenomena such as syllables. According to linguists, the sounds we produce when we speak have pitch, loudness, quality, and duration. Aside from grammatical and syntactical considerations, the pacing in, or the speed at which we read, a poem is largely determined by the length of time it takes to enunciate syllables, lines, and stanzas. Short vowels speed up the poem; long vowels slow it down. See also MEASURE, MUSIC, PROSODY, RHYTHM, and SONG. elegy Originally a specifically metered Greek or Roman form, the elegy has come to refer generally to a sustained meditation on mutability or a formal lament on the death of a specific person. The conventional pastoral elegy included a rural setting, with shepherds and flowers (all nature mourning), an invocation to the muse, a procession, and a final consolation. Classics such as Milton’s â€Å"Lycidas†, Thomas Gray’s â€Å"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard†, and Shelley’s â€Å"Adonais† are clearly the chief source and influence on such contemporary elegies as W. H. Auden’s â€Å"In Memory of W. B. Yeats†, Michael Ondaatje’s â€Å"Letters & Other Worlds†, Seamus Heaney’s â€Å"Requiem for the Croppies†, and so many of the poems of Adrienne Rich, Denise Levertov, Lorna Crozier and Michael Longley. In fact, one Glossary of Poetic Terms 9 might safely say that the elegiac tone is dominant in English poetry from Beowulf to the present. enjambment A means of escaping the limitations and rigidity of the end-stopped line or closed couplet, enjambment occurs when a sentence or thought carries over from one line to the next. The enjambed line, with its greater freedom and flexibility, has served to focus a great deal of attention on the position of line-breaks in twentiethcentury poetry. See LINE-BREAKS and also Al Purdy’s poem â€Å"The Cariboo Horses†. pic While the epic, or heroic, poem such as Homer’s Iliad and Odsyssey or the AngloSaxon classic Beowulf—each with its elevated style, tribal or national struggles, invocations to the muse, occasional use of the supernatural, and cast of important, or exalted, figures—belongs to an earlier age, it has not lost its appeal to poets of later ages. From Dante’s Divine Comedy, Spenser’s F? r ie Queene, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Dryden’s and Pope’s mock epic satires to such contemporary long poems as Pound’s The Cantos, W. C. Williams’s Paterson, Atwood’s The Journals of Susanna Moodie, and Ondaatje’s The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, the long, or extended, poem has provided an alternative to the limited scope, self-directedness and, perhaps, too intense heat of the lyric. See LONG POEM and NARRATIVE. epigram A short, witty poem or statement, seldom more than four lines long, whose form dates back to Roman epigrammatist Martial. Alexander Pope’s poems are full of condensed witticisms that might be displayed as separate epigrams: â€Å"To err is human; to forgive, divine†. ye-rhyme An eye-rhyme features words or syllables that look alike but are pronounced differently: come / home; give / contrive. feminine ending While it may no longer be politically correct, this term is still used in criticism to refer to a line that ends with one or more unstressed syllables. Far from suggesting weakness or passivity, feminine endings are more flexible and colloquial, and their in formality and irregularity have been especially useful in dramatic blank verse. feminine rhyme A two-syllable (or disyllabic) rhyme, usually a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable: witness / fitness. igurative language When language is heightened so that it moves beyond ordinary, or literal, usage, it is said to be figurative. These figures, figures of speech, or tropes (â€Å"turns†), as they are sometimes called, include simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, paradox, and pun. An extended figure of speech is called a CONCEIT. 10 20 -Century Poetry & Poetics th figure A group of words that evoke the senses by transcending ordinary usage. Consider, for example, Gloucester’s comment in Richard III: â€Å"Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by the sun of York†. oot In A Poet’s Dictionary: Handbook of Prosody and Poetic Devices (1989), William Packard provides an interesting account of the origin of the metrical foot: When the Greeks described poetry as â€Å"numbers†, they were alluding to certain conspicuous elements of verse that could be counted off: â€Å"feet† were strong dance steps that could be measured out in separate beats of a choral ode or strophe or refrain. These â€Å"feet† could then be scanned for repeating patter ns of syllable quantities, either long or short, within strophes and antistrophes of a chorus. Greek metrics, then, did not derive from accent or stress but rather from the elongation required in the pronunciation of certain vowels and syllable lengths. Instead of the quantitative designation of long and short syllables, we now use the terms stressed and unstressed, or accented and unaccented to describe the components of the poetic foot, which is essentially a group of two or more syllables that form a metrical unit in a line of verse. The most common feet are the iambic (/ ? ? /), an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable (delight); the trochaic (/ ? /), a stressed followed by an unstressed syllable (action); the anapestic (/ ? ? ? /), two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one (interrupt); the dactylic (/ ? ? ? /), a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones (comforting); and the spondaic (/ ? ? /), two stressed syllables (handbook). Other feet include the pyrrhic (/ ? ? /), one or more unstressed syllables; the amphibrachic (/ ? ? ? /), one unstressed, one stressed, one unstressed; the bacchic (/ ? ? ? /), one unstressed followed by two stressed; and the chorimabic (/ ? ? ? /), a stressed, two unstressed, and a stressed. See METER. form Form in poetry is no less intriguing and no less difficult to define and describe than form in the other arts. We can easily identify obvious elements of form, such as rhyme schemes, metrical patterns, stanza-lengths, and traditional modes like the sonnet and sestina; but the intricacies of language, timing, syntax, counterpoint, verbal play—those elements that contribute to the formal beauty and power of a poem—require some training and considerable attention. However, in an essay called â€Å"Admiration of Form: Reflections on Poetry and the Novel† (Brick / 34), poet and critic C. K. Williams offers some useful thoughts, reminding us that, among other things, form and content are inextricably allied: The important thing about form, though, is its artificiality. In English poetry, the historically dominant iambic foot is closely related to the actual movement of the voice in our language between stressed and unstressed syllables, but the regularity of the iambic line, and the five beats of the pentameter, for instance, are purely conventional. In irregular, or â€Å"free†, verse, where the Glossary of Poetic Terms 11 cadences are not regular, and not counted, it is what Galway Kinnell has called the â€Å"rhythmic surge†, which defies and controls the movement of language across its grid of artifice; the line in free verse becomes a much more defining factor of formal organization than in more arithmetical versetraditions. The crucial thing about form is that its necessities, though they are conventions, precede in importance the expressive or analytical demands of the work. Although a poem may to a greater or less degree seem to be driven by its content, in fact all the decisions a poet makes about a work finally have to be made in reference to the conventions which have been accepted as defining the formal nature of that work. If a ompelling experience is conveyed in a verse drama, if an interesting philosophical speculation occurs in a lyric poem, if a poem involves itself in an intricate and apparently entirely engrossing narrative adventure, these are secondary, although simultaneous with, the formal commitments of the work, and they must be embodied within the terms of those commitments, although in the end these almost playful divisions of an experienitial continuum, whether in the structures of a musical mode, or the pulse and surge of a poetic line, will mysteriously serve to intensify the emo tion and the meaning which the work evokes. I should mention, perhaps, that the dour and puritanical and ferociously self-serving â€Å"new formalism† has nothing to do with the notion of form I am elaborating here: the new formalism is rather a kind of conceptual primitivism which seems to gather most of its propulsive force from a distorted and jealous vision of the literary marketplace; it calls for a return to the good old safe and easily accounted-for systems of verse, with counted meters, rhyme, and so forth. All despite the generation over the last few centuries, from Smart to Blake through Whitman and countless others, of an enormous amount of significant poetry in non-traditional forms; and despite the fact that many verse-systems in the world require neither rhyme nor strictly counted meter, and despite the practice of many modern poets, who have been quite content to use whatever verse-form fitted the poem they were composing. One would not want to sacrifice either Rilke’s â€Å"Duino Elegies† or Lowell’s â€Å"Life Studies†, just to mention two poets who worked in both systems. In his essay â€Å"Rebellion and Art† (in The Rebel, 1956), Albert Camus argues that â€Å"A work in which the content overflows the form, or in which form drowns the content, only bespeaks an unconvinced and unconvincing unity. . . . Great style is invisible stylization, or rather stylization incarnate. † See PROSODY, STRUCTURE, and STYLE, and also Denise Levertovâ⠂¬â„¢s â€Å"Notes on Organic Form† in the Poetics section. free verse Poetry written with a persistently irregular meter (which is not to say without rhythm) and often in irregular line-lengths. The King James translations of 12 20 -Century Poetry & Poetics th the Psalms and Song of Songs are often held up as models of how dynamic nonmetrical poetry can be. Ezra Pound advised composing with the rhythms of the speaking-voice sounding in your ear, rather than the regular beat of the metronome; Robert Frost insisted that writing free verse was like playing tennis without a net; and T. S. Eliot claimed that no verse is free for the poet who wants to do a good job. All three were concerned to emphasize that, whether regular or irregular, the music of poetry bears close scrutiny, for it accounts for much of our pleasure as readers and, far from being incidental or decorative, is fundamental to our total experience of the poem. See LINES-BREAKS, METER, MUSIC, RHYTHM, PROSODY, and SONG. ghazal A Middle Eastern lyric, most commonly associated with the fourteenth-century Persian poet Hafiz. The ghazal consists of five to twelve closed couplets, often using the same rhyme. These seemingly disconnected couplets about love and wine are held together not by a narrative or rhetorical thread, but by a heightened tone or emotional intensity. Not surprisingly, the apparently random or non-rational structuring of the ghazal has proven attractive to twentieth-century poets as diverse as as John Thompson (Stilt Jack), Phyllis Webb (Water & Light), and Adrienne Rich. hexameter A line of verse consisting of six feet. hyperbole A figure of speech that involves extremes of exaggeration: big as a house, dumb as a doornail. ambic pentameter A line consisting of five iambic feet. Iambic pentameter is considered the poetic rhythm most basic to English speech. See FOOT and METER. image Ezra Pound described the image as â€Å"that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time†. Other poets have spoken of images as concentrations of linguistic energy directed at the senses. The image is a controversial term, which has often been used to mean, simply, a verbal picture; however, the poetic image may also conjure things, events, and people in our minds by appealing to senses other than sight. Images are so central to language that, in the line a brown cow leapt over the fence, which constitutes a composite image, we also find four discrete images: a cow, a fence, the act of leaping, and brownness. Imagery, along with prosody, is one of the two central ingredients of poetry; and its evocative power cannot be divorced from the texture of sounds through which it is delivered. Specific images seem more likely to stimulate the senses than images that are generic (tree, animal, machine). The difference between a line such as â€Å"I think that I shall never see / A poem as lovely as a tree† and the following—â€Å"Don’t hang your bones from the branch / of that gnarled oak, exuding elegies. / The chihuahua’s waiting in the Daimler†Ã¢â‚¬â€has as much to do with diction and specificity of image as with the difference between metrical and non-metrical verse. Glossary of Poetic Terms 13 Imagism A poetic movement in England and the US between 1909 and 1917, which reacted against the discursiveness, sentimentality, and philosophizing of late nineteenth-century poetry by trying to focus on the single image.

Distance Education Essay

We normally take our studies in a structured establishment called classroom located a place called school. Every day, we wake up early, leave our homes, pay for transportation fees and finally reach to our second home, the classroom. As we welcome ourselves in Mindanao State University, we are lucky to meet different kinds of people from different kinds of places. People from Glan, Tacurong, Marbel and all over Mindanao are your schoolmates and classmates. You share experiences with them, telling stories about their place that makes you as if you were once there. But, what if there are some people who want to study but for some reasons, they cannot go to school, will they be able to study despite their situations they face? Our world is constantly changing and getting more complicated, that is why human beings formulated new innovations and techniques regarding their educational careers. Distance Learning or Distant education is a mode of delivering education and instruction, often on an individual basis, to students who are not physically present in a traditional setting such as a classroom. It is not a face to face interaction just like we do in schools. There is a quite large distance and time between the learner and the teacher. Typical students who enroll at Distant Education courses are people who are too busy in their careers that they have no time to spend in school. Celebrities like Anne Curtis are a student of Distant Education. Or you can be a student with physical disabilities that you find it hard to go to school. Or maybe the courses offered are available only in far places. There are many possible students of this kind of education. There are many modes of communication in distant learning. It can through the telephone, letter or the most common type, the internet where you can see each other and contact directly to one another. There are many instructional materials can be used. It can be an audio tool, video, a print, or a softcopy data. There are some advantages of this type of education. First, it’s potential. The opportunities for distance education have exploded along with increased use of the Internet. The original distance education programs used print materials, but the majority of current programs use online software and programs to replicate a classroom setting. Many degrees are available through distance programs, including high school, college and post-graduate diplomas. There are now distance education options for nearly every career choice, from nursing to accounting. It is also flexible. Distance education provides opportunities for people who may have trouble attending a traditional institution such as stay-at-home moms, people working full time or members of the military. Many online educational programs allow you to work at your own pace, so you can fit your education into your schedule. Also, the cost of distant education is cheaper. In many cases distance education can be considerably cheaper than attending a traditional college. Not only are the classes cheaper, but you can learn from the comfort of your own home and not have to pay for room and board or transportation. On the other hand, Distant Learning losses interaction with the other students is one of the advantages of it. Distant education is commonly one student in one teacher so only 2 of you are interacting with one another, or sometimes, communication is only one way where only the teacher is active in communicating. It is not easy to motivate if you are the only one or the only peer in the learning ground. It is also self-paced so it is less motivating. It is quite amazing that humans are able to deliberate this mode of learning. It sounded like cool to me in a sense that it involves or let’s say it is dependent of technology which is an asset when it comes to employment. It gives us an idea that education is truly for all for those who are willing to learn – – busy schedule or disabled, still allot their time and effort for studying. In part of the teachers, it will open new ways of learning and of course, employment and income will increase. This education will be in- demand especially to foreigners who want to speak in English and many more. When my professor once introduced distant education in the class, I was quite convinced to study in that way. If I learn the mechanics of Distant learning, I someday may become a teacher of distant education. I want to help students who are especially handicapped or something. It is a proof that education will be non-discriminating, and I hope this type of learning will continue to grow as they produce competent students.

Real Facts of Yawning

Real Facts of Yawning Introduction When people lack real facts concerning some issues, they develop mythical theories which aim at accounting for them. These speculations are based on religion, culture, and misconceived understanding which aim at closing the gap that exists when those issues are not explained. Often, the speculations and mythical theories are not challenged by laymen. Instead, they follow and believe in those theories until professionals challenge them.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Real Facts of Yawning specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Professionals identify the real facts that lead to occurrence of eventualities based on factual evidence that can be proofed by scientific, statistical, and mathematical means of determination. In this light, they carry out detailed research on the issues, analyze the results, and make relevant conclusions regarding them. This paper aims at reviewing relevant literature in order to obtai n factual explanations on yawning which is a behavior that has created profound contention. Facts about Yawning Thermoregulation The biological researches suggest that human system, which is one of the most complicated systems, has various ways of regulating temperature, pressure and other factors of the body. In fact, it suggests that human body has mechanisms that keep all these factors at optimum levels so that they are maintained at a desirable range. In light of this regulation, the brain plays a crucial role when initiating the regulatory function. In this case, biologists argue that yawning is a crucial regulatory function which aims at regulating the temperature of the body (Donhoffer 435). This holistic process, which involves other mechanisms besides yawning, is often referred to as thermoregulation. It was discovered that differences in ambient temperatures affected the frequency of yawning. In an investigation regarding yawning behavior, a cold pack of ice was put on the forehead of a girl. In this instance, the girl yawned for 45 percent of experimentation period. In the second instance, a glass of warm water was placed on the forehead where the percentage of yawning reduced to 10 percent. This indicated that high temperature increased yawning while low temperature reduced frequency of yawning (Gonzaga 199). While explaining this observation, scientists argued that human brain needs a lot of energy to coordinate the body. When ambient temperatures increase, the brain temperature rises quicker than other parts of the body. It, therefore, initiates yawning where the mouth takes a considerably big gulp of air and jaws stretch. When the jaws stretch they increase the amount of blood flowing to the brain through the dense network of blood vessels which are found in the nasal cavity. At the same time, it enables the mouth to take a gulp of air that moves above the blood vessels reducing the temperature of the blood which is flowing on the vessels toward s the brain. As a result, the temperature of the brain reduces since it receives considerably cold blood in that process. When the ambient temperatures reduce, the brain aims at retaining heat and minimizing heat loss to the environment.Advertising Looking for essay on social sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Therefore, frequency of yawning is reduced to avoid intensive flow of air to the nasal cavity. Otherwise, gulping air could lead to reduction of blood temperature and subsequent reduction of brain temperatures. This could lead to fatal breakdown of the brain, which is a critical part of the body, since it coordinates most responses. In fact, the mechanism of yawning is initiated by the hypothalamus that is found in the rear part of the human brain. The same occurrence was evident in an experiment which was conducted on a mouse by fluctuating ambient temperatures. This, therefore, implies that yawning occ urs in order to regulate temperatures in the body as a thermoregulatory mechanism. It explains why people yawn before going to bed, when they are hungry, and when they are sleepy. In this case, it is noted that these factors are related to increase in ambient temperature. Scientists argue that the body increases the level of temperature before sleeping since it struggles to stay awake. The same occurrence is noted when a person has woken up since the temperatures increase forcing the hypothalamus to initiate yawning. People have been arguing that yawning is caused by hunger, slumber, and tiredness among other things. However, this research demonstrates that hunger, slumber, and tiredness are not the causative agents of the yawning behavior. Instead, they increase temperature which causes yawning in order to regulate temperatures. Mimicry of Animals It is, also, evident that a person might yawn when he looks at another person who is yawning in the neighborhood. In fact, the above inv estigation concerning thermoregulation included a video of people who were yawning (Gormley 126). Thess participants were treated to the video enabling researchers to note the frequency of yawning in different conditions. This shows that yawning is triggered when people look at their colleagues who might be yawning. In this light, psychologists argue that human beings exhibit an attribute which enable them to empathize with others and share emotions. When people look at others who are crying, they tend to act in the same way to empathize with them. Therefore, it follows that social animal that includes human beings tend to yawn when others yawn in order to empathize with them. Some researchers argue that human beings yawn even when they see videos and photos of people who are yawning. Further, they suggest that most incidences of yawning are found in highly empathetic people. Moreover, this contagious yawning is observed in animals that are related to human beings as well as the one s that portray social life including chimpanzees and bonobobs.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Real Facts of Yawning specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This proofs that yawning is a reflection of empathetic characteristic which lies in the mind. Animals that do not have the attribute of empathy are not affected by contagious yawning. It, therefore, means that contagious yawning emanates from the attribute of empathy. Empathy is an attribute that teaches people to create meaning which activates the brain to act in a manner correspondent to stimuli (Zinoviev 176). Conclusion It is evident that yawning is an occurrence that is experienced by human beings, domestic animals, and wild animals among others. It has been noted that people have developed various myths that explain why animal yawn. However, most of these theories are not based on factual evidences that are derived from scientific as well as experimental investig ations. Instead, they are based on conclusions which are made as a result of observing the conditions that are mostly related to yawning. These conditions include slumber, hunger, and tiredness among others (Provine 143). However, it is undisputable that yawning is a thermoregulatory mechanism which helps the brain to maintain optimum temperature in the brain as well as entire body. Lastly, contagious yawning is caused by acts of empathy which are exhibited by social animals including human beings, chimpanzees, and bonobos among other animals. Donhoffer, SzilaÃÅ' rd. Homeothermia of the brain: cerebral blood flow, metabolic rate, and brain temperature in the cold : the possible role of neuroglia. Budapest: AkadeÃÅ' miai KiadoÃÅ' , 1980. Print. Gonzaga, Crescenciano. The yawning gap. Quezon City: New Day Publishers ;, 1991. Print. Gormley, Greg. The yawning game. London: Gullane Childrens Books, 2006. Print.Advertising Looking for essay on social sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Provine, Robert R.. Curious behavior: yawning, laughing, hiccupping, and beyond. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012. Print. Zinoviev, Aleksandr. The yawning heights. New York: Random House, 1979. Print.

5 Critical Concepts You Must Understand to Ace ACT English

5 Critical Concepts You Must Understand to Ace ACT English SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips The ACT English can be overwhelming. There are so many questions! And they're mostly just underlined text: what are they even asking? Of course, that confusion is the whole point: it's what makes this part of the test hard. What does that mean for you? Because the ACT test writersrely on yourconfusion about the formatto confuse you, the questions themselves usually aren't that difficult. In order to excel onthe English section of the ACT, you first need to understand how it's organized- if you're not yet clear on that, take a look at our post laying out exactly what's tested on the ACT English. Onceyou know the basics of how this section of the test work, you just have tolearnhow to approach it. Do that, and you’ll find that the English section is surprisinglysimple! There are five key points you need to understand about the ACT English: ACT English Isn't the Same as High School English The ACT Tests a Limited Set of English Concepts You Always Need a Plan You Can Use the Format to Your Advantage Rushing Will Hurt Your Score Let's go through these one at a time. Feature Image Credit: CollegeDegrees360 #1: ACT English Isn't the Same as Everyday InformalEnglish A lot of students believe that since they speak English the English section should be easy, right? Not quite. Even students who excel with writing and grammar in school can struggle with the ACT English because the testhas its own logic. The ACTwill sometimes consider sentences that would be fine with your English teacher wrong, while some of the constructions that are correct on the test would make your teacher cringe. Answers That Sound Right but Are Actually Wrong A common strategy on the ACT English is to "listen" for errors and pick the answer that "sounds" correct. This approach is certainly helpful for picking out some of the more obvious errors, but the test will use it against you. There are a lot of questions about constructions that we routinely misuse in spoken English- they may sound right, but they're actually wrong. Take "should of" for example: If he didn't want to be late, he should of taken the shorter route. Soundsfine! But this is actually a misspelling of "should've," the contraction of "should have." If you say both "should've" and "should of" out loud, you'll notice that they sound almost identical. The correct version of the sentence is: If he didn't want to be late, he should'vetaken the shorter route. I don't recommend relying on "listening" for errors, but if you do plan to do so (and even if you don't) make sure to study the errors that we routinely make when speaking: pronouns, subject-verb agreement, word choice, and commas. Unfamiliar Grammar Rules Even more confusing are the ACT English's unique grammar rules, manyof which will becompletely new to youor evencontradict what you've been taught in school. With that in mind,the most important advice I can give you about the ACT English is to approach the test on its own terms. For example, a common error I see students make is assuming that the most formal answer is the best one. In school you're expected to use very formal English for essays and assignments, so shouldn't the ACT want the same thing? But it doesn't quite work that way, as you'll see in this example. This question asks for an answer that does two things: "provides the most specific detail" and "maintains the style and tone of the essay." Choices A and B can be ruled out because neither one provides specific details. That leaves answers C and D, which both specify that the kiln's temperature rises above a thousand degrees- the difference between them is one of tone. If you're looking for the most formal answer, D seems correct; however, that answer is unnecessarily wordy and doesn't fit with the more conversational style of the passage itself. As such, C, which provides the relevant detail in a tone that fits into the passage, is the correct answer. You can't assume that the ACT English follows the same rules that you've been taught in school; instead, you have to understand what the test itself wants you to know. The ACT English is not like this(Â © David Shankbone) #2: The Rules for ACT English May Be Weird, but There Aren't That Many of Them If, as I just told you,a lot of what you already know about English is useless on the ACT, then what do you need to know? In short, you must know the specific set of rules that the ACT considers important, as well as how those rules are tested on the ACT. Well, luckily, the types of questions on the ACT Englishare extremely limited, which makes this section of the test surprisingly easy to study for.These questions fall into two categories:usage and mechanics (~55%) and rhetorical skills (~45%).I'mnot going to detailall the concepts you need to know- take a look at our complete guide to ACT grammar rules for that- instead, I'm going to help you start analyzinghow the ACTwritersdesign questions. Remember that the ACT tests conceptsin context, so it's less important to know the names of terms of the reason behind rules than to understand how to spot and correct errors. Usage and Mechanics The usage and mechanics questions are divvied up into three categories: sentence structure, which includes sentence fragments, run-ons, misplaced modifiers, and parallelism grammar and usage, which includes subject-verb agreement, verb tense, pronoun usage, and adjectives and adverbs punctuation, which includes commas, apostrophes, dashes, colons, and semi-colons. To do well on the usage and mechanics, you have to both know the grammar rules as definedby the ACT andunderstand how to spot those errors in practice. That means studying the concepts- see our in-depthguide to the ACT English(coming soon!) or our guide to the best ACT books- and then drilling yourself with real ACT practice passages, which you can find in the Official Guide to the ACT or online. Because the ACT is standardized, these topics are tested in certain defined ways that you will see again and again. For example, a lot of verb tense questions are actually subject-verb agreement questions in disguise: all the answers are in different forms, but only one is correctly conjugated. As you practice, keep an eye out for these types of tricks- the better you get at understanding the logic of the questions, the higher your score will be. Rhetorical Skills Rhetorical skills questions are the ones that really confuse a lot of students, since they aren't even remotely similar to the test questionsyou seein school. The ACT categorizes them in to three groups: organization, which covers transitions and sentence and paragraph order strategy, which covers sentence additions and main idea questions style, which covers redundancy and word choice. Though each type of rhetorical skills question has its own quirks, they're almost all governed by two basic principles: All prose should be as clear as possible. You must answer the question you're being asked. That may sound like gibberish, so let's break it down. When I say that you should prioritize clarity in picking answers, I mean that you want to focus on finding the clearest answer, i.e. the choice that provides all of the necessary information and nothing more, in the most straightforward way possible.Phrasing questions will try to confuse you with extra words that sound smart or important: don't let them fool you! My second point may seem superfluous (of course you have to answer the question!), but it's just as important as the first. On the ACT English, the test itemsthat involve actual questions will ask you for very specific things. You must read these questions carefully and pick the answer that best fits the criteria they lay out. Let's look at an actual rhetorical skills question to see how to apply these ideas. None of these answers involve a lot of extra words, but C and D are both phrased slightly confusingly, so we can probably rule those out. Next, let's look at what exactly the question is asking for: a specific and vivid description of the underwater terrain. Now we can definitely be sure that C and D are wrong- they're both quitevague. Moreover, we can see that A must be the correct answer, since it's the only one that gives a sense of what the underwater scene actually looks like. Now that we've covered how the ACT English is different from what you might expect, let's cover the tools you need to tackle this admittedly weird test successfully. #3: Always Have a Plan of Attack Because the format of the ACT English is so different from the tests you take in school, it's easy to get confused or overwhelmed and end up approaching the passages haphazardly, looking at each underlined section individually. Don't do this! Because the test is designed to test grammar concepts in context, looking at only the underlined portions will cause you to miss questions. Instead, you want to have a strategy for how you approach passages that you use every time you take the test, whether it's for practice or the real thing. Different methods work best for different people, and you'll have to decide what makes the most sense for you. However, every goodstrategyshares one vital principle: no matter where in asentence the underlined section appears, you must always read to the end of the sentence. If you don't do this, it will hurt your score- a lot. For a full breakdown of the pros and cons of different strategies, take a look at our post onthe best way to approach the ACT English passages. Below I've included a quick take on two possible approaches. The Best Strategy for ApproachingACT English Passages Like I said before, every student has their own way of approaching things. However, I've found that the strategy that best minimizes the potential for misunderstanding context is to first read each paragraph and then go back and answer all the questions about that paragraph. Let's walk through how this works in an actual ACT Passage. In this example, you start by reading the first paragraph, until the purple line. Then you answer the questions that are marked with purple boxes. You can see how having read the entire paragraph makes answering question 26, which asks for the sentence that "most effectively introduces the information that follows," much easier. You'll still needto be especially careful with questions 27 and 28, since they appear in the same sentence- in these cases, make sure to look at both underlined portions and consider whether the answer to one will affect the answer to the other. Once you've completed the two-step process for that paragraph, you move on to the next one. Read down to the green line, and then answer the question marked in green. On a real ACT English section, you would repeat this process for each paragraph in each passage. Strategy for Those who Struggle with Time Though the above strategy is ideal, as it gives the clearest understanding of the context for each question, you may find that it's too time consuming. If you are running out of time on the English section with more than a couple of questions of left, you may want to focus more closelyon the underlined portions of the passage. In this strategy, you read only the sentences that contain underlined portions (you still have to read the entire sentence, though), answering the specificquestions as you go, and then going back to any big picture questions at the end.You can see how this approachworks in the example below. 26 is a big picture question, so we skip the blue highlighted portion, and go straight to pink sentence. We read that and answer 27 and 28. Next,we readthe yellow sentence, answer 29, read the green sentence, and answer 30. Finally, we return to the blue sentence and answer 26. For a full passage, you follow the same pattern but for all 15 questions. This strategy can work, but it's not nearly as reliable as the first one. I don't recommend it if you're shooting for a score higher than a 25. (In case you're curious, the correct answers for the questionsabove are as follows: 26. G, 27. D, 28. F, 29. A, 30. G) Remember: always have a plan! #4: Use the Structure of the Test to Your Advantage Once you masteryourapproach to the passages, you'll need to learn how the ACT English questions work. The best way to do that is just to look at, practice with, and analyze as many real ACT questions as possible. Keep in mind that the test is multiple choice and consider how you can usethat to your advantage. Here are a fewtips toget you started. Strategy: Consider How the Answer Choices are Different from Each Other Let's say you look at an underlined portion and don't see anything wrong: you should just bubble A (for no change) and move on, right? Not quite. Just because you don't recognize the error immediatelydoesn't mean there isn't one. Instead, try looking at the answers. What's the difference (or differences) between them? Once you figure that out, you'll know what kind of question you're dealing with- whether it's a subject-verbagreement or idiomatic usage question, for example. Let's look at some examples: Even without knowing the context, wecan see that this a question about punctuation. Looking back at the sentence, you could then determine what factors willaffect the correct punctuation here: maybe there's adash earlier in the sentenceand you need another one to properly punctuatea interjection or maybe this punctuation mark falls between two independent clauses, making the semicolon correct. Next, we've got a trickier case: Inthis example, we can see that there are two questions at issue: whether"therefore" or "in addition" is the correct transition and whether a period or a comma is the correct punctuation. With two concept questions like this, you can narrow down choices based on one of the issues, even if you aren't sure about the other one. Strategy: Don't Get Too Attached to Your Own Idea ofthe Answer We've talked about what to do when you aren't immediately sure what's going on with a question, but what about the times when you immediately know what's wrong and how to fix it? For the most part, those occasions are the best case scenarios- you should still read all the answer choices and double check to make sure you aren't falling into any traps, like failing to read to the end of a sentence or missing a "not" in the question, but usually you'll be able to quickly determine the right choice and move on. However, there will be times, especially when dealing with the rhetorical skills question, that you come up withthe perfect answer only to find that there's no choice even remotely similar to it. Don't panic! Think about what the erroris, rather than what would be correct, and eliminate any answers with the same mistake. Then try to narrow down the rest of the choices. Once you've got it down to one choice, plug that back into the sentence and see if it makes sense. Strategy: Eliminate Identical Answers This is a pretty simple strategy, but a lot of students find it really helpful: If two answers are functionally identical, they must both be wrong. Think about it this way:if you have a transition question and "Furthermore" and "Moreover" are both answer choices, how can you choose between them? You can't, because they mean the same thing. As such, both answers must be wrong. The exception to this rule is if there are more than two answers that are all the same. In that case, you've probably missed the part of the question that says "Which of the following would NOT be acceptable?" Go back and check. Keep an eye out for these kinds of patterns as you study- they're invaluable for conqueringthe weird world of the ACT English! This is good advice for every section of the ACT! #5: Don't Rush! After reading all this advice, you may be wondering how you will possibly get through the whole English section of the ACT in just 45 minutes. After all, it includes five passages and 75 questions, which is quite a lot. However, if you try out a couple of practice sections, you'll find that they go much faster than you expect. In fact, manystudents make a lot of careless mistakes because they're rushing to get through the test and then end up with time left over at the end. If you have more than one or two minutes left at the end of the English section and are missing more than a handful of questions,you're moving too fast. Even ifyou do find yourself running out of time, it may not benefit you to speed up. Rushing will always hurt your score. You may be better off guessing on some of the questions at the very end or skipping some of the time consuming big picture questions than you would be struggling to get to every single question in the allotted time. What's Next? Now that you understand the big picture of the English ACT, drill into some specific grammar topics, starting with our complete guide to commas. Aiming for that elusive perfect 36? Try our guide to getting a 36 on the ACT English from a perfect scorer. Or maybe after that you're considering switching to the SAT? Make sure you understand the differences between ACT English and SAT Writing first. Want to improve your ACT score by 4 points? Check out our best-in-class online ACT prep program. We guarantee your money back if you don't improve your ACT score by 4 points or more. Our program is entirely online, and it customizes what you study to your strengths and weaknesses. If you liked this English lesson, you'll love our program.Along with more detailed lessons, you'll get thousands ofpractice problems organized by individual skills so you learn most effectively. We'll also give you a step-by-step program to follow so you'll never be confused about what to study next. Check out our 5-day free trial:

Critiques of New Urbanism Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Critiques of New Urbanism - Research Paper Example This paper evaluates the New Urbanist critiques of contemporary urban development, as well as the critiques of New Urbanism principles. New Urbanism is a form if an urban design program which encourages the traditional concepts of neighborhood design and apply them into a range of urban and suburban settings. The movement started as a response to the conventional suburban planning in the United States since the 1940’s where the communities are decentralized and dependent mainly on cars as a form of transportation. New Urbanists claim that the orthodox setup causes congestion in arterial roads, limited opportunities for people without cars, loss of open space and detachment to civic life. To resolve this issue, they created a reform program with planning and design principles including walkable neighborhoods in a spectrum of a five-minute walk; major orientation around public transit systems; better assimilation of diverse types of land uses at the neighborhood level; affordabl e housing; strong citizen participation; and social and economic diversity (Fulton). The New Urbanist criticisms of contemporary urban development, specifically of the sprawl were discussed by Ellis (262-266) on a research on the New Urbanism movement. ... great automobile dependency in sprawl communities can be minimized dramatically by the installation of proper transit platforms through the New Urbanist principles. While transit investments are intergenerational and long-term, they can form the framework for more efficient, reasonable and sustainable urban regions. The land-use mixtures and street patterns that New Urbanist offers are also advantageous for pedestrians and cyclists. The designs that the street patterns suggest better traffic systems and quality of the travel experience. On the other hand, higher densities and mixed uses can yield considerably lower vehicle miles travelled. Although studies regarding the impact of street patterns to the reduction of automobile commuting are limited, neoclassical economists believe that the benefits of New Urbanist designs will be fully achieved when land-use and transportation planning are applied in the regional level (Ellis 265). Moreover, New Urbanism holds the potential for substa ntial environmental benefits. Ellis (265) stated that â€Å"more compact development patterns, combined with infill strategies, make it easier to conserve sensitive environmental areas.† Even if the New Urbanist designs will reap the environmental benefits or green engineering techniques only after several years, the idea is feasible and the results of studies are encouraging. The evidence of recent researches maintain that the New Urbanist designs â€Å"can play a role in reducing wasteful land consumption and the negative environmental impacts of auto-dependent sprawl† (Ellis 266).Hence, the proper use of growth management, land-use planning and urban design strategies in urban planning can capitalize on the potential of the New Urbanist concept. However, New Urbanism’s incorrect

HALTH Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

HALTH - Essay Example The findings from the interview would be summarized to respond to the following question: â€Å"Does marital satisfaction decrease with children? Two different sets of married couples were interviewed. One set had been married for more than five years and have three children. The other set of couples had been married for seven years but they did not have any children. The results of the interview are presented in tabular format as shown below: From the results of the interview, it could be deduced that marital satisfaction does not only depend on the factor of raising children. For both sets of couples, it could be observed that both were relatively happy and satisfied (with or without children). It is therefore evident that couples indeed would have wanted to have children, if given the chance. For the couples without children, it was relayed that they wanted to raise them but since the wife was already in her late or mature age when they got married, biological reasons prevented them doing so. As such, they learned to accept the fact that they could not have children and it was evident from their relationship that their satisfaction and happiness was not diminished by not having children. For the couple with three children, it was noted that children provided them with happiness that strengthened their marital bond. There were challenges in terms of meeting financial obligations and supporting the needs of the children; but this was accepted to be part of life. It was noted to have actually helped in striving to work harder to support the children’s needs and to try as much as they can to avail of much entertainment, leisure and relaxation as they could possibly accommodate. Overall, the interview results indicated that although children could have significantly contributed to providing happiness and a sense of fulfillment to married couples, this is not the sole factor that determines marital satisfaction. Even couples who do not have

Liabilities In Post Contractual Benefit Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Liabilities In Post Contractual Benefit - Essay Example Jack Horner on July,  23rd 2005, from the date of conclusion of a separate and altogether different contract between Mr. Jack Horner and Amanda/ Patrick. The latter contract was concluded as early as on June,  15th 2005. Besides, the ‘offer’ of 20% deduction, was a means of luring the general public who had still not availed of the benefits of Avoca Haven till then and hence by logic excluded from its purview all those who had already availed of Avoca Haven under its earlier terms and conditions. Even if it were accepted that the ‘offer’ of 20% deduction extended to Patrick/Amanda, it is highlighted that it was only an â€Å"invitation to treat† and not an â€Å"offer† in its legal connotation.2 â€Å"Offer† in this case has to be made by Amanda and Patrick to Mr. Jack Horner, and acceptance of the same is within Mr. Horner’s sole discretion---he may or may not accept it and cannot be forced to accept the same.3 The deposit of $ 500 that Amanda/Patrick paid to Mr. Horner, was in lieu of a contract to avail of Avoca Haven as per its earlier terms and conditions, which was in itself a separate contract clearly distinguishable from the latter invitation of 20% deduction. Since no ‘consideration’ was paid to avail the 20% deduction, no valid contract affecting the same can be concluded. This is so because consideration is a formal necessity, which serves to distinguish those promises by which the promisor intends to be legally bound from those which are not seriously meant.4 The contract that was concluded on June, 15th 2005 did not contain any clause relating to a 20% discount on the total cost of reserving Avoca Haven. Hence a question regarding the enforceability of the â€Å"20% discount† offer does not arise at all.

Management Communication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Management Communication - Essay Example Fourthly, students from foreign countries have issues getting used to the food being served in the school dining halls. In conclusion, students face numerous cultural problems in the new learning environment. My Buddhist religion values have taught me to embrace students from different cultures and faiths. The school environment has set up a program to deal with cultural diversity sensitively and effectively. An orientation program has been in place to welcome all students and familiarize them with the school environments and all important aspects in the school’s culture (Jones and Brown 103). The program also gives foreign students special attention to ensure that they have an easier time while adjusting to the learning environment. Students are encouraged to welcome foreign students and offer them any help that they may need. The program should seek to improve the foreign students’ communication by offering them a student to guide them through the first weeks of campus. The program should be improved to cater for the needs of foreign students from all over the world and teach students the importance of

Security Service Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Security Service - Essay Example The next, MI6 is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the country is protected from external aggression and is constituted by the Intelligence service; this also undertakes overseas espionage as well as ensuring that the country has no spies. The security service as seen is the present body is charged with the responsibility of ensuring the security of the UK citizens. The formation of which is the subject of this study is highly associated with apparent and not actual threat to the people of this great Kingdom. (Andrew 1987) Political thinkers, social scholars and philosophers have argued that the need for a security body is not because there exists a situation but because there is need to handle a likely situation. The possibility of a likely situation is what brings in the element of imagination. To further support this, the human nature is naturally characterised by anxiety and pursuit of the future. Because the future is not certain, there is need to make some kind of projections which are greatly based on the current situations. (Knighteley 1986) These projections are the bases of future preparations or measures where an individual makes required adjustments to eliminate the chances of surprise or simply to help increase chances of preparedness. This is the foundations of the security service where the government officers sought to ensure that the country was prepared for the unforeseen circumstances in the future. The way to prepare was on the bases of the situations that the country faced at the time and which showed a tendency to recur in the future. (Knighteley 1986) This activity had characterised the world in a way that it seemed an unsafe world as nations sought to prove their superiority and military prowess by conquering other nations. It should be noted that this was not necessarily a threat on the United Kingdom but a global trend which did not suggest a continuation of the same. However, anticipation and need for preparedness forced the nation governance to devise a way to react to these situations when the time came. (Andrew 1987) This was more imaginary than actual as it was an anticipated situation and not the real matter affecting the nation at the time. Therefore, when we also talk of imaginary, it is important to indicate it is informed in the imagination and not a dream from thin air that is conceptualised and converted into an institution such as the Security Service. The following is the information one gathers as you review the past information that led to the formation of the Security Service. (Knighteley 1986) First, there was a triggering measure that was not necessarily in action on the country but was a situation that happened around the country which was viewed to either cause similar effects on the United Kingdom or drag the nation into these struggles. Though history indicates that the United Kingdom was among the nations that participated in these early struggles of power, it was not until the middle 18th century that it became a considerable force. (Knighteley 1986) Earlier on, countries such as Portugal had considerable might and had dominated overtime. Therefore, it is not proper to think of Britain at the time as a force due to the fact that was pointed out earlier. The presence of the triggering factor led the countries into preparing for future similar situations in