Culture And Society Essay Sample Essays

Culture And Society Essay Sample Essays Culture And Society Essay Sample Essay Culture And Society Essay Sample Essay Society and culture in sociology It is true that the way we perceive our environment make us different. It is in line with the inspiration one derives from the association with our environment. It is of the essence to note that environment is the surrounding whereby the nature of surrounding will shape a person and their perception of the world and pother things. The implication in this is that he association between a person and the environment will arouse positive or negative aspects about life. The nature of environment could be friendly or unfriendly influencing a person perception toward the parties there in or life in general. For instance, if a person grew up in an environment where the police used to harass people for no important reason then such a person will develop a negative attitude toward police. The environment in this case terms as aspects surrounding a person consciously or subconsciously. Moreover, the way a person perceives his or her environment will determine whether they appreciate it the way it is or they are not happy with it. There are people who are conscious and are willing to make the environment better. These are people who are willing and striving to make life better for themselves and for others. For instance, in he course of history there are people who have worked hard into influencing people to take care for environment. These people who have positive attitude towards environment tend to spread he message that people owe the future generations a proper environment. It is an environment characterized by all forms of trees, wildlife, water catchment area maintained., rivers, streams and other natural aspects. These people strive in making the world better buy ensuring that while people have current needs in such things as timber, hey should responsibly use them. such a [person is different because he or she perceives he environment ass under control of m an and hi responsibility to care for it for present and future generations. Also, people holding such perception are disappointed by the continued changing in climate as a result of green house emissions. on the other hand, there are those who hold the perception that it is the responsibility of the environment to provide. The implication under this perception is ha people should take from the environment without giving back. These are people who do not care whether their activities are causing harm to the environment or not. There are such people who own industries and direct the waste materials from their factories into the rivers or ocean. hr ar others who are only concerned with cutting trees and getting the benefits without thinking about planting more tree. The aspect of care to both people and environment is shaped by how a [person perceives the environment. It is for this reason that a person will strive making life for other better while others will strive in meeting their selfish needs. There are people who are capable and willing to compensate people who work for them well because environment has shaped their character that way while others do the opposite.

10 Tips to Balance Parallel Sentence Structure

10 Tips to Balance Parallel Sentence Structure 10 Tips to Balance Parallel Sentence Structure 10 Tips to Balance Parallel Sentence Structure By Mark Nichol In crafting sentences that compare one thing to another or represent one thought in contrast to another, writers often omit key words or phrases because they misunderstand how one phrase is balanced against another. In constructing sentences with parallel structure, think of the two parallel elements as figures on a seesaw, and the connecting word or phrase as the fulcrum, then check whether the elements on either side of the fulcrum are equally balanced: 1. â€Å"We often pay more attention to them than our own children.† This ambiguous sentence means either that we pay more attention to something than we do to our children, or that we pay more attention to something than our children do. This slight revision reflects that the writer meant the former choice. (â€Å"We pay more attention to them† is balanced against â€Å"[we pay attention)] to our own children.†): â€Å"We often pay more attention to them than [we pay] to our own children.† 2. â€Å"His version is created not with brush and ink, but countless Lego blocks.† The parallel phrases in this sentence, balanced by the fulcrum but, are not â€Å"with brush and ink† and â€Å"countless Lego blocks,† but â€Å"brush and ink† and â€Å"countless Lego blocks,† so repeat with: â€Å"His version is created not with brush and ink, but with countless Lego blocks.† 3. â€Å"The story here is not one of privacy infringement so much as the way real estate is changing because of technology.† The fulcrum in this sentence is â€Å"so much as,† and the phrase â€Å"is not one of privacy infringement† must be balanced against one that starts with the same verb: â€Å"The story here is not one of privacy infringement so much as it is the way real estate is changing because of technology.† 4. â€Å"The rainwater boon isn’t so much about taste as reliability in a region where hundreds of wells dried up in the last drought.† This sentence has the same fulcrum as the previous example does, but notice how the sentence reads more smoothly and has more impact because of the inversion of the constituent phrases: â€Å"In a region where hundreds of wells dried up in the last drought, the rainwater boon isn’t so much about taste as it is about reliability.† 5. â€Å"They protect consumers from purchasing products that are not effective or even dangerous.† Without the repetition of the phrase â€Å"that are,† this sentence crashes to a halt with the false parallel terms effective or dangerous. Omit the first word and the fulcrum from the equation, and the resulting sentence, â€Å"They protect consumers from purchasing products that are not even dangerous,† does not retain the meaning. The point about dangerous products needs a complete phrase: â€Å"They protect consumers from purchasing products that are not effective or that are even dangerous.† 6. â€Å"They believe in cultural and racial diversity, but not diversity of opinions.† Take away the first phrase, and you’re left with an omission in â€Å"They (don’t) believe diversity of opinions,† so the preposition in must accompany both phrases: â€Å"They believe in cultural and racial diversity, but not in diversity of opinions.† 7. â€Å"Thanks for your generous assistance and support of these books.† If â€Å"and support† is omitted, the phrase â€Å"assistance of these books† stands out as faulty, so repair the error with one of these two options: â€Å"Thanks for your generous assistance with and support of these books,† or â€Å"Thanks for your generous assistance and for your support of these books.† Better yet, perhaps, is â€Å"Thanks for your generous assistance in supporting these books.† 8. Beagles rely on their acute sense of smell to chase their quarry and alert hunters with their high-pitched barks. Beagles rely on smell to chase their quarry and alert the hunters? No. Their smelling and their barking are two parallel attributes. This sentence requires two independent clauses with parallel subjects: â€Å"Beagles rely on their acute sense of smell to chase their quarry, and they alert hunters with their high-pitched barks.† (A fulcrum assisted by a â€Å"not only . . . but also† phrase might seem useful at first glance, but that revision alters the writer’s intent.) 9. â€Å"Those who clashed with the color scheme were getting fired or relegated to the stockroom.† Without a balance to either side of or, the sentence implies that people were getting fired to the stockroom or relegated to the stockroom. Repeating the verb clarifies that only the second option involved the stockroom: â€Å"Those who clashed with the color scheme were getting fired or were relegated to the stockroom.† 10. â€Å"Families have been leaving the city not so much because of the form housing takes but its price tag.† The parallel phrases here are (or should be) â€Å"because of the form housing takes† and â€Å"because of its price tag.† Without the following fix to the second phrase, the reader trips into a prose pothole: â€Å"Families have been leaving the city not so much because of the form housing takes but because of but its price tag.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Comparative Forms of AdjectivesDriver License vs. Driver’s License50 Musical Terms Used in Nonmusical Senses

Art Therapy Literature Review Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Art Therapy Literature Review - Research Paper Example a conscious level, the application of art therapy principles allows the therapist to assess these emotions, feelings, attitudes and behaviors accordingly (Dryden et al. 1992). In order to execute the recommendations of art therapy, therapists are equipped with several skills and expertise which permit them to establish a link between the areas of art and therapy for the benefit of the creator. The key abilities of art therapists however, encompass a comprehensive understanding of the processes that are involved in art. These abilities involve expertise in the realm of symbolic communication and the ability to maintain an environment where patients feel secure and protected. This sense of security encourages them to convey powerful feelings and emotions that might remain sheltered in a dissimilar situation (Dryden et al. 1992). Many individuals who have little knowledge of the conceptual and ideological basis of art therapy often establish a strong correlation between the therapeutic dimensions of art, Dryden et al. (1992) outline that these benchmarks do not play a critical role in the achievement of the objectives of art therapy. Within this model, the notion of art transcends artistic appeal and visual mastery for it is the â€Å"†¦expression and condensation of unconscious feelings that art making engenders are at the heart of the therapeutic transaction† (Dryden et al. 1992, p. 4). Perhaps, the definition of art therapy which truly reflects recent advancements in the field has been framed by professionals who belong to the area of work. Dryden et al. (1992) state that once viewed as a systematic process, art therapy can be assessed as a type of therapy in which patients are encouraged to create visual images such as paintings or sketches. These images are created under the attendance of a qualified art therapist who assists the externalization of those feelings and emotions which would have been inhibited normally. The literature that has been critically

Implementing and evaluating my e-Learning design model in my workplace Assignment - 1

Implementing and evaluating my e-Learning design model in my workplace 2 - Assignment Example As a producer of information, every professional is expected to be able to share the information and ideas they have produced in their course of work. As consumers, they expect to have an easy way to access the information that has been produced by others in the same profession. This applies to all types of professions. Teachers are no except from this need of information production and sharing. In fact, this need to produce share and information and collaborate is highly necessary for teachers, regardless of the subject they are teaching (Cowen, 2014). As part of the Arabic teachers’ community, I have identified a need to have collaboration and sharing system for Arabic teachers. As a result of this, I have in the past come up with the design which when implemented will help in teaching Arabic teachers to share their ideas and to build each other. The following is an implementation and evaluation of the design I have designed in the past. The system is designed to aid learning and sharing of ideas. The system is geared towards helping teachers who are engaged in teaching Arabic to high school students. The system must be able to meet some pedagogical principles in order to aid in helping the teachers to not only share the knowledge but also to be able learn from the system. It must be able to motivate the teachers in using the system to enhance the system. The system is not going to be useful unless and until the system is used by the teachers. For this to be a reality, the system should be easy to use, and must prove it’s self-useful to the users in order for them to find it useful. This means that the system must be intuitive which means that the users must be find it easy to learn how the various components work and how they can navigate the system (Klopotek, 2002). It must also be able to act as a knowledge management system which means that it will be able to

Learning style Essay Example for Free

Learning style Essay There is no credible evidence that learning styles exist. While we will elaborate on this assertion, it is important to counteract the real harm that may be done by equivocating on the matter. In what follows, we will begin by defining â€Å"learning styles†; then we will address the claims made by those who believe that they exist, in the process acknowledging what we consider the valid claims of learning-styles theorists. But in separating the wheat from the pseudoscientific chaff in learning-styles theory, we will make clear that the wheat is contained in other educational approaches as well. A belief in learning styles is not necessary to incorporating useful knowledge about learning into ones teaching. We will then discuss the reasons why learning styles beliefs are so prevalent. Finally, we will offer suggestions about collegiate pedagogy, given that we have no evidence learning styles do not exist. What is a Learning Style? The claim at the center of learning-styles theory is this: Different students have different modes of learning, and their learning could be improved by matching ones teaching with that preferred learning mode. The way theorists have defined â€Å"modes of learning† has changed over the more than 50 years that this concept has been in vogue. Proposed modes have included dichotomies such as linear vs. holistic, impulsive vs. reflective, reasoning vs. insight, and visual vs. verbal. The most popular current conception of learning styles equates style with the preferred bodily sense through which one receives information, whether it be visual, auditory, or kinesthetic (for some reason, no one claims that there are tactile or olfactory learners). We use this sensory definition of learning styles in the examples below, but our conclusions apply equally to other definitions. As you will see, the claim that the mode of presentation should match the preferred mode of learning subsumes several other claims, and it is worth unpacking the learning-styles concept in order to consider its constituent subclaims separately. Which Claims of Learning-Styles Theorists are Correct? We believe that some general assertions of learning-styles proponents have nearly universal consensus, based on a wealth of evidence. We begin by acknowledging the truth of these claims in order to differentiate them from other ones without support. The first claim is this: Learners are different from each other, these differences affect their performance, and teachers should take these differences into account. This is true and recognized by educators and cognitive scientists alike. While many of those scientists seek to discover general principles of learning, we all acknowledge that there are differences among students. Understanding these differences and applying that understanding in the classroom can improve everyones education. We can find further agreement on some of the differences that matter for learning. First, whether we call it talent, ability, or intelligence, people vary in their capacity to learn different areas of content. One of the authors (Riener) has fraternal twin sons, and despite having most of the same experiences, one has learned to read earlier and the other is a better basketball player. This is clearly due to genetic differences in talent rather than a bizarre experiment in which the parents decided that one would be a basketball player and the other a professor. With educators under 6 feet tall for both parents and grandparents, they are both probably doomed to proceed to graduate school rather than to the NBA. Second, and often intertwined with ability, students differ in their interests. If a student loves the piano, or basketball, or chess, or the biology of frogs, that student will no doubt learn material related to that subject faster than another one who does not share that fascination. We all agree that interest and attention are preconditions of learning and vary from student to student, depending on the subject. Third, students differ in their background knowledge, and that difference influences their learning. This is obviously true in the sense that a large vocabulary allows one to read a wider variety of books. And it is further true in fields such as history: One cant hope to learn much about the causes and consequences of the American Civil War without knowing facts about the growth and separation of the colonies, the history of economic differences between the North and the South, political facts about our three branches of government, etc. But background knowledge is also quite important in things we think of as skills. For example, learning basic math facts is critical to the acquisition of later math skills. Finally, some students have specific learning disabilities, and these affect their learning in specific ways. For example, there is considerable research on dyslexia and the strategies for addressing it. These strategies of course differ from those appropriate for those students on the autistic spectrum or those with hearing difficulties. In each of these cases, a specific difference in the student calls for individual diagnosis and attention. So in claiming that learning styles do not exist, we are not saying that all learners are the same. Rather, we assert that a certain number of dimensions (ability, background knowledge, interest) vary from person to person and are known to affect learning. The emphasis on learning styles, we think, often comes at the cost of attention to these other important dimensions. What Do Learning-Styles Theorists Get Wrong? The next claim is that learners have preferences about how to learn that are independent of both ability and content and have meaningful implications for their learning. These preferences are not â€Å"better† or â€Å"faster,† according to learning-styles proponents, but merely â€Å"styles. † In other words, just as our social selves have personalities, so do our memories. Students do have preferences about how they learn. Many students will report preferring to study visually and others through an auditory channel. However, when these tendencies are put to the test under controlled conditions, they make no difference—learning is equivalent whether students learn in the preferred mode or not. A favorite mode of presentation (e. g. , visual, auditory, or kinesthetic) often reveals itself to be instead a preference for tasks for which one has high ability and at which one feels successful. But even if we did identify preferences that were independent of ability, finding ones that are independent of content is a much trickier proposition. If I were to tell you â€Å"I want to teach you something. Would you rather learn it by seeing a slideshow, reading it as text, hearing it as a podcast, or enacting it in a series of movements,† do you think you could answer without first asking what you were to learn—a dance, a piece of music, or an equation? While it may seem like a silly example, the claim of the learning styles approach is that one could make such a choice and improve ones learning through that choice, independent of content. We all agree that some kids show more interest in math, some start their education more interested in poetry, and others are more interested in dodgeball. The proof that the learning-styles theorist must find is that for some sort of content—whether it be math, poetry, or dodgeball—changing the mode of presentation to match the learning styles helps people learn. That evidence has simply not been found. Finally, we arrive at the critical and specific claim of learning-styles proponents: Learning could be improved by matching the mode of instruction to the preferred learning style of the student. Learning-styles believers do not make the claim that students sort neatly into sensory categories: One need not be purely visual, auditory or kinesthetic. But according to the theory, an educator should be able to improve the performance of those who have a strong preference for one of these sensory styles by matching instruction to their preference. Failure to find any experimental support for matching the mode of instruction to a preferred learning style would simply leave us where we were at the end of the section above: Students have different interests, backgrounds, and abilities. And indeed, a recent review article in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest by a group of distinguished memory researchers sought to find evidence for this claim in particular. If you are visual, you should learn better with a visual presentation of information than with an auditory one. If you are auditory, you should learn better with auditory materials than with visual ones. Each of this pair of results is necessary to support this element of learning-styles theory. But experiments that tested this prediction with a variety of content material have not found support for it. While such evidence of learning styles would serve as a proof that they exist, the lack of evidence does not prove definitively that they do not exist. However, in order to persuade us to devote the time and energy to adopt a certain kind of differentiated teaching, the burden of proof is on those who argue for the existence of that description of students cognitive strategies. In other words, a good rule of thumb is that we should only bring ideas from the laboratory into our teaching if (1) we are sure that the laboratory phenomena exist under at least some conditions and (2) we understand how to usefully apply these laboratory phenomena to instruction. The first of these two conditions is not met for learning styles, and the first is obviously a precondition for the second. Why Does the Belief in Learning Styles Persevere? What are the reasons for this myths perseverance? First, we think that a belief in learning styles persists because the more general claims (the ones we addressed above) are true. Learners do differ from one another. But many who believe in the myth do not consider the critical differences between styles and abilities. Teachers should take into account the differences in learners abilities. And adjusting a lesson not just to be appropriately pitched at the students level of ability but to take into account their background knowledge and interests is surely an important first step in fostering learning. Second, a belief in learning styles fits into an egalitarian view of education: Everyone has value, according to the theory, and everyone has strengths. The corollary for some learning-styles theorists is that if you think that the theory is wrong, you must think that all students are identical—which is obviously untrue. Again, we agree that students differ and all students have value, but we do not need learning-styles theory to convince us of that. Third, learning-styles theory has succeeded in becoming â€Å"common knowledge. † Its widespread acceptance serves as an unfortunately compelling reason to believe it. This is accompanied by a well-known cognitive phenomenon called the confirmation bias. When evaluating our own beliefs, we tend to seek out information that confirms our beliefs and ignore contrary information, even when we encounter it repeatedly. When we see someone who professes to be a visual learner excel at geography and an auditory learner excel at music, we do not seek out the information which would disprove our interpretation of these events (can the auditory learner learn geography through hearing it? Can the visual learner become better at music by seeing it? ) Why Should College Educators Care? We have addressed the direct costs of the learning-styles myth above, but there are considerable opportunity costs as well. The same research in cognitive science and education that has failed to find evidence for learning styles has offered many insights into how memory does work. Mindset (2006) by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck is an excellent summary of the interesting ways that incentives—both carrots and sticks—as well as internal drives influence learning. And Henry L. Roediger and his associates at Washington University in St. Louis have demonstrated the value of testing for learning. Even the act of taking a test when one does not know the answers can support learning the correct answers faster and more effectively. Of course learning is an enormously complex activity, and this is not the place to outline all of the basic research on learning. We seek only to emphasize that attention to learning styles, for which evidence has not been found, may lead educators to neglect research on learning for which there is solid scientific support. Even though the belief in learning styles has influenced pedagogy in the schools far more than it has in higher education, we believe that there are several other reasons faculty might pay attention to the fact that researchers have failed to find evidence of learning styles, reasons that have important implications for the college classroom. First, when we poll our undergraduate classes on the belief in a number of myths of popular psychology, the one that â€Å"people have their own learning styles† is typically endorsed by more than 90 percent of our students. This belief has the potential to shape and constrain the experience that students have in the college classroom. For example, if a student believes she is a visual learner and therefore disengages and daydreams when a lecturer turns off the PowerPoint and tells a story, this will prevent her from learning the concept through a compelling narrative. And while these beliefs may not have as direct an impact on performance reviews as they do in K-12 settings, a belief in learning styles occasionally shows up in student evaluations of teaching: â€Å"I am a visual learner, so the visual examples were good,† or â€Å"I am an auditory learner, so more auditory content would have helped. † Second, learning-styles theory is sometimes offered as a reason to include digital media in the classroom. While including multimedia may be a good idea in general (variety in modes of presentation can hold students attention and interest, for example), it is not necessary to tailor your media to different learning styles. We shouldnt congratulate ourselves for showing a video to engage the visual learners or offering podcasts to the auditory learners. Rather, we should realize that the value of the video or audio will be determined by how it suits the content that we are asking students to learn and the background knowledge, interests, and abilities that they bring to it. Instead of asking whether we engaged the right sense (or learning mode), we should be asking, what did students think about while they were in class? Finally, when one has the opportunity in a smaller class to collect information about students and more specifically to tailor a lesson to that particular group of students, it is a waste of time to assess learning styles rather than, for instance, background knowledge. The latter can obviously be extremely useful. We often use prerequisites to ensure common background knowledge of students in a given class, but assessment at the beginning of a class can be an excellent reminder of how little of the prerequisite course content is easily recalled. Assessment of student interest can also be a useful tool for deciding how to approach the material in a given class. Some indication can be gained by what majors are represented in the class, but more specific interests assessed through a brief questionnaire or class discussion can also be useful in certain situations, such as small or homogeneous classes. So here is the punch line: Students differ in their abilities, interests, and background knowledge, but not in their learning styles. Students may have preferences about how to learn, but no evidence suggests that catering to those preferences will lead to better learning. As college educators, we should apply this to the classroom by continuing to present information in the most appropriate manner for our content and for the level of prior knowledge, ability, and interests of that particular set of students. Resources 1. Dweck, C. (2006) Mindset: The new psychology of success, Random House, New York, NY. 2. Paschler, H. , McDaniel, M. , Rohrer, D. and Bjork, R. (2010) Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 9, pp. 105-119. 3. Roediger, H. L. and Karpicke, J. D. (2006) The power of testing memory: Basic research and implications for educational practice. Perspectives on Psychological Science 1, pp. 181-210. Cedar Riener is an assistant professor of psychology at Randolph-Macon College. Daniel Willingham is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. He blogs at the Washington Post and is the author of Why Dont Students Like School? (Jossey-Bass, 2009). Related Notes Change Magazine September-October 2010The Myth of Learning Styles by Cedar Riener and Daniel Willingham There is no credible evidence that learning styles exist. While we will elaborate on this assertion, it is important to counteract the Learning with es: A convenient untruthThursday, 24 November 2011 A convenient untruth What do you think is the teachers worst enemy? Some would say lack of time. Others would say unsupportive leadership, or the dreaded government inspect

An Analysis of George Batailles The Story of the Eye Essay -- Story E

An Analysis of George Bataille's The Story of the Eye ...awareness of the impossibility opens consciousness to all that is possible for it to think. In this gathering place, where violence is rife, at the boundary of that which escapes cohesion, he who reflects within cohesion realizes that there is no longer any room for him (Theory of Religion 10). When Georges Bataille first published The Story of the Eye in 1928, anonymously and "in a limited edition of 134 copies" (Lechte 118), he had been at the Bibliothà ¨que Nationale in the department of numismatics for nearly six years. Bataille was thirty-one at the time of publication, and it was not his first or the most violent piece. "The Solar Anus" which preceded it actually looks ahead to the serious ethnographic articles, albeit often of a scatological nature, which Bataille wrote for Documents, a short-lived journal which he edited and founded in 1929. Active in surrealist and avant-garde circles, Bataille courted the radical left of the political and aesthetic arenas, although his professional work compelled him to function within rigid systems. While The Story of the Eye is often dismissed as adolescent writing (Bataille himself calling it juvenile in a preface to a later edition), I offer here a reading of The Story of the Eye in the context of his profession as a librarian and of his work as editor and writer for Documents, a journal that consolidates his reflections as antiquarian, literary artist, and amateur ethnographer. To read Bataille's fiction in concert with his sociological and critical writing elevates the radical negativity of its violent transgression to a positive value. The text of this novel contains, in an embryonic stage, the basic theories which... ...F. Bouchard. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1977. 29-52. Gill, Carolyn Bailey. Bataille: Writing the Sacred. New York: Routledge, 1995. Hollier, Denis. "The Use-Value of the Impossible." Bataille: Writing the Sacred. 133-53. Lechte, John. "Surrealism and the practice of writing, or The 'case' of Bataille." 117-32. Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals. Trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale. Ed. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage, c1967, 1989. Richardson, Michael. Georges Bataille. New York: Routledge, 1994. Stoekl, Allan. Introduction. Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939. Georges Bataille. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1985. ix-xxv. Suleiman, Susan Rubin. "Transgression and the Avant-Garde: Bataille's Histoire de l'oeil." On Bataille: Critical Essays. Ed. and trans. Leslie Anne Boldt-Irons. Albany: SUNY P, 1995. 313-33.

Discuss the issues related to the widespread adoption of e-books

Since the modern information age arrived, businesses, educational institutions and governments have increasingly used the internet to disseminate information to their targeted groups. In the process, e-books have been increasingly adopted as an important medium for delivering educational information. The widespread adoption of e-books has however raised a number of issues, ranging from copyright issues to issues of acceptance.In this essay, the author aims to discuss the various issues that have risen as a result of adoption of e-books. First of all, e-books threaten the traditional book publishing industry (Carey, 2006). E-books are particularly cheap to reproduce and distribute since they do not involve any paper printing, cover printing, warehousing and shipment. All a user has to do is point at a URL and click on the title he or she wants, and the e-book can be downloaded either for free or for a comparatively small fee.Publishing companies like Macmillan and Wiley have had a lon g standing dispute with major e-book distributor Amazon over this issue since the sales of traditional hardcover books have plummeted after the introduction of e-books (Carey, 2006). Secondly, there has been an issue of copyright infringement (Kelly, 2006). The World Wide Web has many websites that have been built primarily for file sharing. An e-book can be purchased only once and subsequently posted in many sites where users from all over the world can download it free.The author or the publisher of the book therefore does not profit from the efforts put in towards delivering the work (Kelly, 2006). This trend has even been reported with books which have not been released in e-book format: a buyer will digitize it maybe by scanning the pages and then publish it to the internet where everyone can have free access to the full content. No matter how law enforcers try, this has been one tendency which is virtually impossible to stop.Copyright issues aside, the proliferation of e-books has raised issues surrounding the unavailability of efficient devices for reading or extracting the content (Rothman, 2006). Most readers access the content in e-books by using a laptop or a desktop computer, but there have been numerous complains that too much exposure to the radiation from computer monitors causes eye and brain fatigue. The smaller devices available like Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and mobile telephones are too small and a user cannot read the content comfortably from such.In addition to this, all devices used in reading e-books are technology-based, and users have to be conversant with these technologies so as to be able to exploit the benefits of the e-book revolution. Finally, there have been acceptance issues in the adoption of e-books in the contemporary reading culture (Nelson, 2008). Generations of readers have grown up reading paper books (printed books) and have gotten so used to this that making the transition to e-books is not a very comfortable venture.Many students have continued to prefer printed paper and only use e-books for referencing purposes. The reading society is not as biased towards modern technologies as everyone would like to assume. According to statistics, many college students and faculties have continued to exhibit preference for paper books (p-books) over e-books for research, textbooks and for leisure reading (Nelson, 2008). All in all, technology is continually becoming popular, and despite the issues related to widespread adoption of e-books, digital libraries are becoming a force to reckon with in the literary scene.

Economy Scale: Inequality for All Essay

In the Documentary Inequality for All, scholar Robert Reich dissects the staggering facts on an unequal distribution of wealth between classes and its shattering effects on the American economy. He focuses on the fact that our middle class, which makes up 70% of our economy, is being kept on a tight leash from the wealthy that only make up the miniscule 1% of society, making the same amount of income as half of the country. He begins explaining how In the late 1970s inequality became a prominent issue, not necessarily on a declining economy, in contrast he clarifies that the GDP (gross domestic product) kept on increasing. The problem arises from the unparalleled income of the American workforce compared to the increasing prices of health care, housing, college and everyday costs of living. As expenditures increased for American households so should of workers wages, but instead many dropped or remained the same throughout the economic boom and even until now in our current date. This â€Å"huge gap† as Reich describes, between wages and rising economy became a problematic concern to all Americans constituting the middle class. The economy entered a vicious cycle as Reich explains it to be, a cycle on which low wages cause low consumer spending thus leading to a troubled economy for all. At first the middle class leaned on to borrowing from banks to get through their struggle balancing high living prices and low wages, another coping mechanism that kept the middle class going for a while was that women began entering the workforce to aid in the responsibilities of their households. Yet, these efforts weren’t enough for the two underlying issues; globalization and new technology whom were responsible for contributing to the flattening wages since 1970. An example of this can be seen with Amazon.com, a company that is responsible for taking out of the market many small businesses. The businesses that once performed the same work that Amazon.com does now, did so with many more workers, thus, propelled many more jobs than what amazon provides currently. With higher living standards and not enough disposable income the middle class go through daily struggles, only enough to make it on to next day while the wealthy keep storing away unimaginable sums of money that they themselves have no clue what to do with. With the raising inequality on the middle class, they are constrained to battling hurdles that make their efforts of moving upwards in life all the more difficult.  Reich suggest that the attention needs to be shifted towards the working class, primarily with their education; â€Å"prosperity generates prosperity. Preparing our workforce to specialize and become well-educated individuals will just add on to a thriving stable economy; making education affordable and investing on them expands the middle class as well as the success for both the wealthy and t he working class. The rich believe they do enough since they see themselves as job providers, and think that if it weren’t for their role in creating jobs, that our economy would be much worse. With this they argue on issues such as getting taxed too much and how the â€Å"job creators† are being attacked. In reality they are not making any genuine effort on balancing out our economy. The wealthy making over six figure salaries a year manage to pay 15% on taxes while the average middle class male that makes anywhere from $25,000 to $75,000 a years will get taxed double, paying an average of 30% or more on their taxes. Instead they keep accumulating money and invest in other things that give them a profitable return to themselves but not to the rest of the economy. With big companies such as General Electric (ge) who prioritize on making a profit rather than good jobs, by creating overseas jobs rather than providing them to laborers in America. Inequality is monster on its own that’s is growing out of proportion, taken down with it many middle class members jobs, homes and destabilizing their every day lives. As executive pay continuous to go up, they have enough money to buy government and their decisions. Inequality is a matter that came about those decisions driven by the wealthy on to the government that make choices for its people. No real effort to counter act the issue has been taken into place, still we are responsible for getting the message out to the masses and begin making a change for a united workforce. If we continue with the trend that began in the late 1970s and has made its way all the way until the present, it will only continue to get a lot harder for upcoming generations to have a fair way of life. Workers having no say on the matter will add more gasoline to the fuel that has begun to wash away many Americans hopes and dreams. This Documentary is a wide opening realization to all the factors that are contributing to many economic problems that have affected many, including me personally. Many are still blinded by the government’s false efforts of aiding every one towards the perfect â€Å"American Dream†. The issue falls on our hands from this  point on to make advancements in our education and expanding the capacities of our work force.

9 Tips to Improve Your Email Communication With Coworkers

9 Tips to Improve Your Email Communication With Coworkers Unless your office has gone back to carrier pigeons and pneumatic tubes carrying memos, email is the king when it comes to office communications. Those â€Å"new message† dings and badges follow us everywhere these days. That said, familiarity doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t some best practices we should all follow.Here are 9 tips to remember as you craft your 50th email of the day.1. Fast response =/= good response2. No one gets points for being That Guy who corrects others’ grammar.3. Your snarky response: just don’t send it.4. Don’t link to your personal blog in your signature.5. If you absolutely must trash-talk about someone else on the email chain, ALWAYS double-check the â€Å"reply all† setting.6. There is such a thing as TOO formal in a work email.7. Don’t hit â€Å"send† while you’re still angry.8. Don’t be the person who drops by to discuss the email you just sent.9. At some point, your emai l server will push you to the brink of a nervous breakdown.

Process Analysis in Richard Selzers Essay The Knife

Process Analysis in Richard Selzers Essay The Knife An accomplished surgeon and a professor of surgery, Richard Selzer is also one of Americas most celebrated essayists. When I put down the scalpel and picked up a pen, he once wrote, I reveled in letting go. The following paragraphs from The Knife, an essay in Selzers first collection, Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery  (1976), vividly describe the process of the laying open of the body of a human being. Selzer calls the pen the distant cousin of the knife. He once said to author and artist Peter Josyph, Blood and ink, at least in my hands, have a certain similarity. When you use a scalpel, blood is shed; when you use a pen, ink is spilled. Something is let in each of these acts (Letters to a Best Friend  by Richard Selzer, 2009). from "The Knife"* by Richard Selzer A stillness settles in my heart and is carried to my hand. It is the quietude of resolve layered over fear. And it is this resolve that lowers us, my knife and me, deeper and deeper into the person beneath. It is an entry into the body that is nothing like a caress; still, it is among the gentlest of acts. Then stroke and stroke again, and we are joined by other instruments, hemostats and forceps, until the wound blooms with strange flowers whose looped handles fall to the sides in steely array. There is sound, the tight click of clamps fixing teeth into severed blood vessels, the snuffle and gargle of the suction machine clearing the field of blood for the next stroke, the litany of monosyllables with which one prays his way down and in: clamp, sponge, suture, tie, cut. And there is color. The green of the cloth, the white of the sponges, the red and yellow of the body. Beneath the fat lies the fascia, the tough fibrous sheet encasing the muscles. It must be sliced and the red beef of the muscles separated. Now there are retractors to hold apart the wound. Hands move together, part, weave. We are fully engaged, like children absorbed in a game or the craftsmen of some place like Damascus. Deeper still. The peritoneum, pink and gleaming and membranous, bulges into the wound. It is grasped with forceps, and opened. For the first time we can see into the cavity of the abdomen. Such a primitive place. One expects to find drawings of buffalo on the walls. The sense of trespassing is keener now, heightened by the worlds light illuminating the organs, their secret colors revealedmaroon and salmon and yellow. The vista is sweetly vulnerable at this moment, a kind of welcoming. An arc of the liver shines high and on the right, like a dark sun. It laps over the pink sweep of the stomach, from whose lower border the gauzy omentum is draped, and through which veil one sees, sinuous, slow as just-fed snakes, the indolent coils of the intestine. You turn aside to wash your gloves. It is a ritual cleansing. One enters this temple doubly washed. Here is man as microcosm, representing in all his parts the earth, perhaps the universe.    * The Knife, by Richard Selzer, appears in the essay collection Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery, originally published by Simon Schuster in 1976, reprinted by Harcourt in 1996.

Research Proposal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 2

Research Proposal - Essay Example Deeper analysis of the marketing mix will provide an adequate understanding of the concept hence accurate strategies. The following is a framework that will aide in conducting studies on marketing mix. The framework provides the rationale, research questions and objectives, review of literature, methodology, and ethical problems. Rationale Contemporary business organizations continue to experience increased competition hence the need to have effective marketing strategies. In order to make a marketing strategy effective, there is need for every stakeholder involved to ensure that various components of marketing are protected (Iacobucci, 2012: 116). The main components of marketing include product, price, promotion, and place. Every effective market strategy balances between the product, price, promotion, and place. A poor balance or composition of each of the four components definitely leads to ineffective marketing strategy (Wenderoth, 2009: 52). Imperatively, effective marketing st rategies continue to appeal to many customers (Meyer, 2010: 78). Given the appeal that effective marketing strategies have on customers, every business enterprise needs to structure their promotional tools in a way that would incorporate the other three marketing components proportionately (Fried, 2005:48). Despite the many studies conducted on how to attain an appropriate marketing mix for the purposes of enhancing the marketing strategies, there is need for a more detailed research study especially in the contemporary environment where there has been dynamisms within tastes, preferences, fashions, and other components. As a result, the following is a research proposal, which provides adequate literature review, methodology, and ethical problems. The framework will be useful in conducting a quantitative analysis in respect to marketing mix. Research Questions and Objectives The main aim of this study is to establish how to develop appropriate marketing mix strategies that would not only be effective to a business enterprise but also appeal to the customers. Therefore, this study aims at finding answers to different questions that include: 1. What percentage of customers within soft drink sector consider price as the most determining marketing mix component in making buying decisions? 2. How does the buying decisions of consumers within the soft drink industry affected by product market mix? 3. Are consumers’ buying decisions based on perceptions in respect to products of soft drink firms affected by promotion market mix? 4. What impact does place as a market mix has on the buying behaviours and decisions of consumers within the soft drink industry? Based on the above research questions, the objectives of this research study in respect to the marketing mix strategies include: 1. To identify the percentage of customers within soft drink sector that consider price as the most determining marketing mix component in making buying decisions. 2. To establish the changes in consumers buying decisions on the basis of soft drink products. 3. To evaluate the changing perceptions of consumers towards soft drink produced on the basis of promotion as a market mix 4. To identify the impact of place on the buying decisions of consumers towards soft drinks. The above four questions and objectives cut across the marketing mix elements and components hence

How the behavior of result shoud be first had effect on our knowledge Essay

How the behavior of result shoud be first had effect on our knowledge system in working place and business - Essay Example riven and supported by information technology, the internet is arguably one of the most successful avenues through which this dissemination and proliferation of knowledge has been facilitated. Through engines such as Google and Bing, knowledge has been catalogued in such a way that one only needs to look up a search term and they will instantly navigate through a labyrinth of information to locate what they seek or the closest their search engine can get to it. Using; laptops, tablet and smart phones, many of today’s generation more so the youth literary have a virtually infinite and ever expanding supply of knowledge at their fingertips. Nonetheless, this begs the question; does access to knowledge mean that humanity is becoming more intelligent and knowledgeable or does it simply mean we have better access? I carried out some informal research on this, and the answers were rather interesting. Among my friends for instance, whenever there was an argument or someone was search ing for some information, it is common practice to whip out smartphones and â€Å"Google† the issue and in most cases the answers would be available within seconds. As a result these days is has become it is easier to settle arguments with the internet actin as a sort of arbitrator , as a result it is common for people to refer to their gadgets in an argument to prove their argument or prove the opponents wrong. However, while I have to concede that the internet was often invaluable in providing my friends the information they need; I have come to realize that instant information does not always amount to one being necessarily more knowledgeable or smarter. It occasioned the emergence of a culture of result oriented enquiry in which people are more concerned with getting results and rarely question the methods through which these were arrived at. This puts to question the supposition that having constant and immediate interaction makes us understand it better; this paper discusses