Dropping out of college. Common practice

Dropping out of college. Common practice Top 6 reasons why students drop out of college Have you ever wondered why a tendency like dropping out has grown to become a national problem? Here, we try to analyze the reasons behind leaving college and the psychology of students, who prefer a well-paid job to overcrowded lecture halls. Either way, dropping out can be referred to as a sad practice. You are not ready for academic responsibility. Most of us expect a drastic change in our everyday routine once we go into college, but the reality is more prosaic: piles of papers that clutter our desk and endless hours of learning. Students realize that promises they’ve given to themselves cannot be kept without burning out and severe stress, so they decide to leave rather than climb an academic ladder. On the one hand, this behavioral model is quite understandable, as the pressure in college can be high, but if we take a look from a different angle, we might find out that leaving your university is a serious loss for students and teachers alike. You suffer from financial stress. Tuition fees may be hard to cover, so there are students who would like to run their own business instead of making regular donations to the university’s treasury. This is both disturbing and common: as we pay off our loans in college, we invest in the future education and a career at the working place. Those, who do not realize the importance of this far-reaching strategy, though, claim that financial expectations are nothing more than a clever-minded tactics to bring more money to the country’s educational sector, and they do not want to contribute to the economy in such a way. You want to live the party life. You may be a party animal to the point where your decisions are determined by your weekend plans, and not the college schedule. Some of us claim to be a little less sociable than the others, but most students expect university to look like some kind of magic place, where you can make up for the slack and chaos that you caused in a few simple steps. The truth, however, is far from that: you cannot give in to social pleasures and stay best in class, as sleepless nights do not encourage healthy studying routine. To avoid this, we recommend to treat university life with moderation. You can enjoy the party vibes once the semester is over, but you are certainly expected to pay your full and undivided attention to academia once you are in college. You want to go home. Some of us miss home so much that we are ready to abandon our studies once given an opportunity. Climate change, noisy roommates and overall atmosphere are the main reasons we drop out of college. Homesickness becomes our regular companion, and we will give anything to find ourselves in our own neighborhood again. Do not think that this is unrealistic, though: many students have relinquished their studies because they felt nostalgia was too overwhelming. You do not want to do that much writing. If you are not used to making notes and your handwriting is something you would prefer to forget about, this aspect of college life will certainly stress you out. Of course, you are not required to write your term paper by hand, but there is a certain amount of writing that is anticipated from you to continue education. Digital technologies may take over the reins, but if you have perfect handwriting, many of your problems in college are solved. You want guidance. Back in high school, you thrived on your teacher’s attention and valued guidance above all, and now they tell you to take care of your own life and make independent decisions. Some of us just can’t handle the pressure – we need an instructor who is going to tell us exactly what to do and help us overcome the stress of our first years in college. If there is no such person around or we haven’t found the right role model, we drop out to seek inspiration elsewhere.

25 Lessons From Guest Blogging For The Top Blogs In The World

25 Lessons From Guest Blogging For The Top Blogs In The World During the past few years, I’ve written for some of the most popular marketing blogs in the world. Blogs like Social Media Examiner, MarketingProfs, Copyblogger, Problogger, KISSMetrics, and the list goes on and on. It’s been an honor to guest blog for such amazing publications. And along the way, I’ve learned a thing or two. So, if you’re thinking about guest blogging as a way to market your company, this will help you get started. Or if you’re already guest blogging, then this will help you get even more out of it. When guest blogging, the first thing you need to do is find good blogs to write for. 1. Know what audience you want to target. So before you jump in, there are a few things to consider: Are you looking to write on a blog in your industry? Or are you looking to write on a blog that your customers read? For instance, my company focuses on marketing software for small businesses. I could either write for marketing blogs such as or I can write for small business blogs. 2. Use Google to find relevant blogs. The first and most obvious place to look for a guest blogging opportunity is Google. Once you know  the type of blog that you want to write for, you simply Google the name of your industry and â€Å"write for us†. So if you Google â€Å"small business† and â€Å"write for us†, you’ll see a list of small business blogs that accept guest posts: Pore through them to find the  blogs that are most aligned your goals. 3. Try Twitter to find relevant blogs. If you go to search.twitter.com and click on â€Å"Advanced Search†, you’re brought to the following screen: In the â€Å"All of these words† field, enter the niche that you want to write for. In the â€Å"This exact phrase† field, enter the words â€Å"write for us†. You should see a list of blogs asking for guest posts. 4. Look through the blogs you follow. Look for guest blogging opportunities on the blogs that you currently read. Do all of the authors of the blog work for the company? If they don’t, it’s a good bet that they accept guest posts. 5. Investigate the size of the blog. The truth is, writing a blog post takes a lot of time. And you want to get the most exposure possible. To see how much traffic a blog gets, I do two things: First, I check out their Alexa ranking. Even though it’s only an estimate, it gives me some indication as to how many readers the blog has. After I look at their Alexa ranking, I scroll through the most recent 10–20 posts to see how many social media shares each post gets. These are mostly vanity metrics, but they’ll give you a sense for how many people will interact with your post. 6. Make sure the blog has an engaged audience. If you’re looking to guest blog to get traffic to your site and build your email list, then writing for blogs with a high comment to share ratio is extremely important. For instance, I wrote a post on Boost Blog Traffic: It received a ton of comments relative to the number of social media shares. It’s no accident that during the time this post was written, it was my largest source of referral traffic- even though I had written for much bigger blogs. It’s not always the size of the blog that matters. It’s just as important to have active and engaged readers. When #guestblogging, blog size doesn’t always matter. Active readers do.7. Make sure your target audience reads the blog. One of the most critical factors for guest blogging success is ensuring the audience is a proper fit for you. The biggest blog in the world will do you absolutely no good if your customers don’t read it. Make sure you understand the demographics of the blog’s audience to ensure your customers read it. Ask To Write A Guest Blog Once you find a blog you want to write for, you’ll need to apply to contribute a guest post to that blog. 8. Choose a topic based on what was successful. Read the last three to six months’ worth of blog posts to get a feel for the content the blog publishes and what type of posts the audience likes to read. The posts with the most comments and shares probably get the most traffic, and in the blog editors  mind, are the most successful. Contribute an idea that is similar  to a successful post to increase your chances of it being accepted. So, as a person who is interested in writing for the small business audience, here’s how I would create a topic and headline: One of my favorite small business blogs is called Under30CEO. After doing my research, I find that a lot of the posts that do well are about  increasing your company’s visibility. Now that I know  what works, I would say something like: 5 Practical Ways to Get Your Company in Front of Your Prospects, Even if You Dont Have a Huge Budget 9. Create the guest blog outline. A brief outline will give me a better idea of how the post is going to be constructed, what it will include, and how it will benefit the blog’s readers. You only need to spend 20 minutes on the outline. Just enough time to flesh out your ideas. 10. Write the email to the blog you’ll contribute to. Here’s the email script that I use often  to pitch my guest blogs. Figure Out The Best Post Type For That Blog When you’re guest blogging, there are typically three types of posts that you can write. 11. Long list posts work. A long list post is successful because the sheer numbers blow readers away. That’s why it attracts a lot of attention. The key, though, is to blow your audience away. For instance, I wrote this post on KISSMetrics. And it did amazingly well. And it even got featured on Entrepreneur: This post would have been lost in the Internet if I had simply wrote about seven email marketing tools. The fact that I had compiled such a huge list is what made this post so successful. 12. Analyze other people. Another type of post you can write is to analyze other people. In another guest  post, I analyzed how five different companies deployed psychological triggers in their marketing to get more customers. I backed these tactics with facts that the companies published as well as scientific research. 13. Try personal stories or case studies. This is by far the most powerful post if you want to get your story out there, build your email list, and sell your products and services. When I wrote, â€Å"Why Quitting May Be the Most Profitable Thing You do This Year†, I told the story of how I was absolutely lost as an entrepreneur. I didn’t know where my next customer was going to come from. I let all my emotions go. I can’t tell you how many emails I received from people who have said they knew exactly how I felt. I was able to connect in a very real and personal way. To date, this post has been the single largest contributor to my email list. The day it went live, I had well over 400 people subscribe. Promote Yourself With Guest Blogging Guest blogging can be a brilliant marketing strategy- if you promote yourself correctly. If not, it’ll be a colossal waste of time. 14. Focus on conversions and landing pages. Neil Patel has seen conversions on landing pages increase by 10% simply by personalizing his landing page. Instead of sending people to a generic landing page, send them to a page that has a headline like â€Å"Welcome, Readers.† 15. Provide relevant and useful offers. It’s extremely tough to split test this, but when you’re guest blogging, I find that an offer related to your guest post will get more email subscribers than your general lead magnet. For instance, let’s say I’m writing a guest post titled â€Å"25 Lessons From Guest Blogging For The Top Blogs In The World.† :) I could either send all of my traffic to a generic landing page, or I could create an offer that reveals 30 popular blogs that accept guest posts. The second offer is much more relevant to my post, and should perform a lot better. 16. Grow your following with Twitter. Believe it or not, guest blogging is an effective way to grow your Twitter following. When you guest blog on a popular blog, you can be sure that it will get a lot of tweets and retweets. After your guest post goes live, copy and paste the URL from the post into search.twitter.com. And you will see everyone who has tweeted your post. Follow each person who tweeted your post, and a large majority will follow you back. Remember, they just read an article by you, so they’re clearly interested in the type of content you produce! 17. The funnel is overrated. Some of my most lucrative offers came not because someone gave me their email address on my landing page, but because they read my post and asked me if I wanted to do work for them. In another life, I ran a marketing agency focusing on content marketing. After I wrote a blog post on Copyblogger, I received this email offer to work with Shopify: And that’s not the only time guest blogging helped me land a gig. More often than not, when companies would ask for my writing portfolio, I would simply show them various posts I had written for popular blogs. It was the kind of social proof and validation that many of my competitors didn’t have. 18. Use guest blogging as social proof. If you go to my friend Henneke’s blog, you’ll see that she’s been â€Å"seen on† some large and popular blogs. She is able to put these logos on her site because she’s written guest blogs on each of them. Guest blogging offers a third-party social proof similar to a public relations campaign. When someone sees that you’ve been featured on the popular sites in your industry, they know your ideas have already been validated. This brings you one step closer to making that sale. 19. You must guest blog consistently. Unfortunately, guest blogging is sold as the magic elixir for traffic. How many times have you heard this before: #Guestblogging is a way to build a popular blog. Well, that’s only half true. You have to guest blog consistently. Consistent #guestblogging is a way to build a popular blog. These numbers show traffic from guest blogging over the course of two months: I don’t mean that to scare you because the numbers are not large by any stretch. Like most endeavors, building your blog through guest blogging takes time and commitment. 20. Build your relationships. A few years ago, I was building a blog of my own called â€Å"Sales Leads in 30 Days.† I needed to get traffic to my blog. I had already written guest posts on several popular blogs, including KISSMetrics, which is owned by Neil Patel. He’s a popular Internet marketer with a very large Twitter following. Because I had already written for his blog in the past, I had a small relationship with him. So I â€Å"leveraged† that relationship in order to get some traffic to my new blog. That one single tweet brought 154 pageviews and 142 unique pageviews to that post. Mind you, this doesn’t seem like a huge amount of traffic, but this was the first post to the new blog, and this was only one tweet. 21. Promote case studies and user stories. I’ve used guest blogging to publish case studies and user stories to help bring attention to my services. But right now, no one is doing this as effectively as Noah Kagan from Appsumo. Everywhere you look, you see him promoting his new site Sumome- even on this blog. In this post, Noah gives some really valuable content that you can apply to your blog immediately. However, he also has the innate ability to talk about Sumome and the tool’s effect on getting more traffic to every post. If you can work your product or service into your guest post without it being an outright advertisement, your guest post will be much more effective. Be Prepared For Comments And Feedback The very first time I had ever received a comment on any blog post was the first time I wrote for Copyblogger. To be honest, I never really gave it much thought. However, once you put yourself out there for the world to see, you open yourself up to criticism. 22. Most comments are good. Luckily, most people are going to love your work. That’s because you’ve undergone an editorial standard from the popular blog that prohibits bad posts from coming through. And when you read how great you are from hundreds of people, it makes you feel really freakin’ good about yourself. But there is also the other side of the coin†¦. 23. Some comments suck. I had just spent 25 hours compiling a list of email marketing tools unlike any the Internet has seen. I poured my heart and soul into that guest blog. And one of the first comments I received was a snarky complaint about how my grammar was incorrect: The world is full of critics. Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and smile. Bonus Lessons For Guest Blogging Here are just a few things I picked up that really didn’t fit into any of the categories. 24. Guest blogging requires a big time commitment. I often underestimate how long a post will take. The 67 email tools post I wrote took me 25 hours. The post I wrote on Copyblogger titled â€Å"In Defense of Quitting† took even longer. And if you want to be effective with your guest blogging, then its something you’ll have to do consistently. If there was an opposite to â€Å"get rich quick†, then guest blogging is it. Sure, it can help you sell more products and services. But like all things in the land of entrepreneurship, it’s a grind. 25. Guest blogging isn’t for everyone. Guest blogging is a strategy that allows writers to leverage their strength. Just as a public speaker leverages a stage to promote his ideas, guest blogging gives writers the platform to get their ideas into the world.

Purpose of this assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Purpose of this assignment - Essay Example Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) brings about synergy and better use of communication funds and Balancing the 'push' and 'pull' strategies Improves the company's ability to reach the right consumer at the right place at the right time with the right message. There is also a lot more to developing and implementing a successful Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) program. This assignment will focus on the rapidly evolving field of integrated marketing communications. The assignment will examine the evolving role of IMC, how it differs from traditional advertising and promotion, and provide insights into how to measure the effectiveness of IMC programs. IMC has an increasingly central role to play in today's market place, because if offers companies a way to strategically coordinate messages and establish a meaningful dialogue with customers. In short, IMC provides organisations with a strategic method for both establishing and maintaining relationships with key stakeholders. And this is essential for marketing success in the twenty-first century The marketplace is changing. What was once a single audience has fragmented and companies have to establish and maintain brand relationships with a variety of groups of people-customers, as well as other stakeholders, such as employees, investors, suppliers and distributors, local communities, and the media. Organisations now have to communicate with these groups using a wide variety of media. Consequently there are more kinds of messages than ever before and inconsistency can become a company-wide problem. That is why IMC is also needed to coordinate communication consistency Because the mass media now have considerably less importance than they have had in the past, dialogue is becoming increasingly critical in this marketplace. That means that companies can no longer rely only on one-way communication targeted to large groups of customers. To be successful now, organizations must not only be able to target messages to individual customers, but also to listen and respond to all th eir stakeholders. That means they must know who these people are, and the key to that is database-driven communication. IMC is critical to brand relationship programs, because it provides the skills and new ways of thinking that are necessary if organizations are to create and successfully manage dialogue with customers and other key stakeholders. Integrated Marketing communication frame work Integrated Marketing Communications provides a framework for managing brand contacts. We all know the importance of branding out product or service, we also know the importance of maintaining a dialogue with our stakeholder relationship marketing, one-to-one, the voice of the customer, and most of us believe in communication consistency. However, these are only techniques that often fail to when practised without clear philosophy, or if not supported by integrated process. At a minimum, IMC provides and underlying model by: Identifying your StakeholdersIdentifying your Brand contacts Analysing Communications amongst Customers At Each Brand Contact Encouraging Dialogue At Each Brand Con

Journal Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 8

Journal - Assignment Example e while women is receptive.In every culture, gender role is influenced by various sources including parental expectation, modeling by peers, and media images of male and female. For instance, Scandinavian culture appears to have a more egalitarian gender role such as norms of behavior and personal traits at home and work are not defined solely on gender.In contrat, Arabs have strict implication of gender role which expect women to cover head and walk behind husband.Across many cultures males are expected to be strong,independent, self – reliant, emotionally detached and women are taught to be nurturing, dependent, gentle and emotional.Gender role is the public expression ofone’s gender identity.In many cultures men learn to be aggressive and women learn to be passive.A family from the birth of a child imposes gender role on them and bring them up as male or female.Basically the attitude and behavior of male and female is molded according to the cultural environment he or sheis grown up

Phychology paper on cognitive developmental stages Essay Example for Free

Phychology paper on cognitive developmental stages Essay During Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, he introduces four different stages that children go through all the way up to adolescents. Piaget states that none of these stages can be skipped. These stages show how a child’s mind is intellectually developing over time as they grow. Their cognitive abilities progress and they begin to have a better understanding of the world around them. Throughout this paper I will explain the four stages of cognitive development; sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational. The first stage of cognitive development that Piaget states is the sensorimotor stage. This stage is initiated at birth and lasts normally through when the child is 18 months. Everything in this stage is learned from the child exploring different things the best way they know how, whether by putting things in their mouth, or learning how to make the toys move on their play mat. Also, early language development occurs during the early part of this stage such as â€Å"coo-ing†. Then language progresses into words towards the later part of this stage where the child starts forming actual words such as â€Å"No†, and â€Å"Mine†. The second stage of cognitive development is the preoperational stage. This stage starts around 18 months, and lasts until about the age of 7. Children start being able to grasp symbols. For example, they can draw a series of squares with a triangle on top to represent a house. They also start to learn the alphabet, which is, of course, the set of symbols we use to read and write. On the other hand, they don’t understand abstract concepts like amounts, speed, or weight. In one of Piaget’s most famous experiments, he showed that children at this stage can’t comprehend that if you pour liquid from a short, wide glass into a tall, narrow glass, it’s still the same amount. The third stage of cognitive development is the concrete operational stage. This stage starts around 7, and lasts until 12 years old. In this stage children comprehend ideas like weight, amount, and speed, and can understand that the amount of liquid in the two glasses is the same. For example, a younger child in this stage would explain what would happen if you hit a glass with a feather based on what he knows about feathers, whereas the older child reasons from the previous statement and answers according to the logic proposed. They can also understand causal relationships; though not necessarily explain the reasoning behind them. The last stage of cognitive development is the formal operational stage. This  stage starts after about the age of 12. At this stage children begin to understand abstract concepts and reason logically. If you ask them what â€Å"justice† means, they can explain it. In this stage formal operational thinking is being illustrated.

A Career In Marketing Essay -- Careers Jobs essays research papers

Introduction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Choosing a career in marketing can lead a person in many different directions within the defined roles of marketing. Composed of many facets and activities marketing careers offer a variety of avenues for the career minded to explore while offering growth and opportunities for advancement. A common denominator for many who choose a career in this field is the sense of ownership, or entrepreneurial spirit with regards to the products or services that they are working to market. Marketing requires that an understanding of customers’ needs and desires be acquired and then translated into both product development as well as communications as part of the marketing strategy. This paper will explore what is entailed in a career in marketing, as well as what the future holds for the profession. Because marketing professionals are needed by every company and in every industry, the career potential and chances for finding ones niche within the career field are virtua lly unlimited. Basics of Marketing   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A good definition of marketing is the process of the intermediary function between product development and sales. (Reddy ) The field of marketing entails taking a generic product or generic service (the product or services do not have to be â€Å"generic† they may be actually unique to the marketplace) and associating the generic product with a brand name (Petty 2001). Under this generic concept are the activities of advertising, public relations, media planning, sales strategy and so on.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Marketing professionals create, manage and/or enhance brands in order to create or bolster demand for the product. A successful marketing plan will help assure that consumers look beyond just the price or function of a product when making a purchasing decision, in part, a well planned marketing effort will create a â€Å"feel good† association about the product the consumer is about to purchase (Petty) A key part of a career in marketing is to understand the needs, preferences, and constraints that define the target group of consumers or the market niche corresponding to the brand. This is done by market research. This is accomplished through market research, essentially using survey techniques, statistics, psychology and social understanding to help gather information on what consumers want and/or need, and then designing products, or services, to hopefully meet ... ...rs per week. (Locke) Those entering the field must be able to work well under pressure and thrive off meeting deadlines and goals that are set. In some positions, substantial travel is not uncommon. In spite of the rigors associated with a career in marketing the outlook for the profession is bright. Marketing is a vital necessity not only for business firms, but is also needed and utilized by governments, educational, religious, social service, and nonprofit organizations or institutions. Perhaps the most alluring aspect of a career in marketing is the fact that it provides a great number and variety of job opportunities, and can offer opportunities to both number crunchers as well as intuitive creative people as well. Bibliography Beckman Theodore N. Davidson William R. (1997) Marketing; Ronald Press Inc. Hills Gerald (1994) Marketing and Entrepreneurship; Quorum Books Locke Christopher, (2001) Gonzo Marketing: Winning through Worst Practices; Perseus Publishing Petty Ross D. Editor's Introduction: The What and Why of Marketing; American Business Journal, Vol. 36, 1999 Reddy C. Allan (1999) Quality Marketing:, Gaining Markets Shares; Quorum Books, 1998

Music Education

Key Curriculum ElementsI believe teaching individuals about singing, playing instruments, moving, composing and listening is incredibly important, ranging from infants through to adults, but starting in early childhood would be most beneficial for long term benefits. These key elements contribute significantly in developing their music skills and knowledge; contributing to their education on a more broad scale (Broad, 2007 pg23); and/or assisting the student’s emotional/mental development. The difficulties that could be expected in the classroom when integrating the music curriculum into lessons could be students lack of wanting to participate (I can’t do it, I’m not good at music) due to fear of failure and/or embarrassment from low self esteem; participation levels of extroverted students in comparison to introverted students; or even a lack of concentration and maturity to handle situations. Other difficulties that might be a challenge may perhaps be the lack of funding to offer reasonable resources; insufficient time allocation to allow reasonable attention to the music curriculum; teachers/students having high expectations of their abilities and those expectations not being met; and there being a lack of space for students to move and experiment.Some potential solutions I can think of, to the difficulties I have stated above might be: ï  ¶ providing a safe and encouraging environment so students do not feel if they attempt something and it does not go as well as they wanted or they might think they have failed. Instead they receive encouragement and  reassurance that they haven’t failed or let anyone down, what they have now done is create something new and/or something they can learn from, lots of positive feedback from the teacher and other students; ï  ¶ encouraging small groups of 2-4 would help introverted students participate more.By having each child required to have a specific task in all group work, so each child can have the same participation level might help introverted students have more participation and extroverted students still have participation, yet not over-whelming the introverted students; ï  ¶ constantly evolving activities used in class to stimulate students learning and encourage active learning, encouraging lack of boredom.Scaffold information and skills starting from basics to attempt to develop a more mature level of understanding and knowledge base for students to be more comfortable; ï  ¶ the lack of funding to offer reasonable resources does not always have to be seen as a negative, it allows students to use their imagination and creativity to find alternate resources to complete the same task or similar tasks; ï  ¶ insufficient time allocation to allow reasonable attention to the music curriculum is always going to be a sad situation, but integrating the music curriculum into other KLA’s allows the students to be able to enjoy music and appreciate that mus ic can be incorporated into any situation in their lives; ï  ¶ unfortunately teachers/students will always have high expectations of their abilities and those expectations will not always be met.The best teachers can do is to not allow students to see when the students have not meet the expectations they had and when students do not meet their own expectations, the teacher needs to encourage the student to try again and learn from their previous experience; ï  ¶ a lack of space for students to move and experiment is a shame but, a classroom is not the only place that students can learn to create, they can do the basic or the foundation type work in a classroom and then move out into the playground or a hall. One of the best things about music is that it can be created; played; movement; and listened to anywhere there is a desire to enjoy/appreciate it.Some of the things I would hope to achieve in the classroom through the integration of the music curriculum are encouragement of the appreciation of music; knowledge of music and how it can impact ones life; how music can be integrated into everyday life; and no matter who you are you can sing, play instruments, move (dance), compose and listen to  music.Integrating Music into the CurriculumHSIE: This Is Me! (Early Stage 1)Activity 1 – Puppet Joe teaching the students a poem and some rhythm ‘The End’ with Puppet Joe, this will be explained in Lesson Plan 1 Activity 2 – Mirroring each other’s movements to musicThe students are paired off and allocated their own space in the room, standing up, they are facing each other. They will then listen to ‘What I Am’ by Will.I.Am. As they listen to the song, it will speed up and slow down. The students will need to adapt their movement to follow the tempo of the music, for example faster movements as the music speeds or slower movements when the music slows. Once they are able to adapt to different tempos, the music will c hange dynamics via getting louder and softer. The students will need to adapt their movement to follow the dynamics of the music for example larger movements when the music is louder or smaller movements when the music is softer.The students will take turns in leading the movements through each change. Once the song has played through, the students will have a few minutes to talk and create movements together for the tempo and dynamic sections of the song. The song is run through a second time and the students will move together to the music showing the movements they had worked on together. The students are then encouraged to talk through what they found was the best representation of the music when it would change dynamic and tempo. Did the music have repetition, a constant beat, similarities and differences? Time Allocation: 45 minutes HSIE: Celebrations (Stage 1)Activity 3 – Song – ListeningThe class is allocated into groups of 4-5 in their own spaces. Each group c hooses a cultural celebration from a box on the teacher’s desk (each cultural celebration is celebrated by one or more of the students in the class at home).Once they have all picked the activity, they are given a kit (which has been put together by the students prior to this lesson as part of the Celebrations unit they are studying). They will listen to the song that is part of the kit and discuss as a group the beat, pitch, tone colour,  duration, dynamics, tempo and structure of the song. They discuss what features appealed to them or those that did not. Time allocation: 45 minutes Activity 4 – Mirroring each other through rhythm and movement Mirror Me, this will be explained in Lesson Plan 2HSIE: Global Environments: Rainforests (Stage 3) Activity 5 – Visualising the MusicStudents are advised that they are required to produce a visual representation of the music they are about to hear. The class will talk about sounds and how they can represent their music visualisation. The students can, if they choose to, have different sections of the painting for different aspects they visualise with the music. For example, they can have 1 whole painting, 2 halves or 4 quarters, so they can show up to 4 different aspects of the music they are hearing. The class talks about what they are going to produce, it is not a vague impression rather a visualisation of what they believe that Rainforest looks like. Students will listen to a 2 minute excerpt from ‘Relaxing Mix’ by Calmsound.The excerpt of the song will be repeated 4 times with 4 minutes between each repetition and the students have 10 minutes after to complete their painting. After the allocated time, the class will have a discussion on the different aspects they visualised and what aspect of the music created that specific image, tone colour, pitch, tempo, dynamic? The paintings will be put aside once dry to be used in another activity on another day. Time Allocation: 60 minutes Activity 6 – Group composition of a soundscape from a rainforest painting Rainforest Soundscapes, this will be explained in Lesson Plan 3HSIE – ‘The End’ with Puppet Joe Lesson Plan 1 Activity 1 – Puppet Joe teaching the students a poem and some rhythm 1. Level: Early Stage 1 2. Goals: Students will learn the poem ‘The End’ by A. A. Milne. Students will be able to follow a beat/rhythm and accomplish co-ordinated movement. 3. Teaching materials 1. Puppet Joe 2. 2 x taping sticks for the beat 3. 1 copy of ‘The End’ poem by A. A. Milne (see appendix 1) 4. White board 5. White board marker 6. Coloured magnets for the white board 4. Learning outcomes: Musical activity Performing Singing (y) Playing Instruments (n) Moving (y) Organising Sound (n) Listening (y) Musical Concepts Duration (rhythm) (y) Pitch (y) Dynamics (y) Tone Colour (n) Structure (y) 5. Procedure1. Clear an area in the middle of the room and have students sit on the floor in their own space. 2. Teacher introduces Puppet Joe (a kookaburra puppet) and explains that Joe will help them learn a new poem called ‘The End’ by A. A. Milne (see appendix 1). 3. Start with Joe saying the first verse and then repeating the verse using his taping sticks he creates a beat (ti-ti ta ta, ti-ti ta ti-ti). The students then sing through the verse while tapping their knees or clapping their hands with the beat/rhythm. 4. Teacher writes the poem on the white board under bars and talks through the beats/rhythm and words, placing different coloured magnets for the ti-ti’s and ta’s.5. Each verse is then taught the same way, until the last 2 verses when the beat/rhythm is different (ti-ti ta ti-ti, ta ta ti-ti ta ta ta), ‘The End’ sheet music see appendix 2. Once the class has learnt the poem and the beat/rhythm, they then sing through the poem together. 6. The class then picks out a number from a box and the number allocate s the student to their group. In the group the students talk through what movement they think would be good for their verse and if they should use loud, soft, fast or slow speech/singing.7. The class sings through the poem together and then each group sings their own verse with their chosen movement. Then the class sings their section of the poem loud, soft, fast, slow or using a different voice without their movement. Then again mixing the movement and their chosen musical concept. 8. Ask the class if they have any suggestions about the structure, if they think it could be changed. Pick a couple of the suggestions and try them out, see if the class thinks they make the composition better or worse. As a class the student talk through the actions chosen by the groups and the musical concepts, whether they were applicable or not to their verse? Whether there was repetition in the beat/rhythm? What similarities and differences there was in the beat/rhythm?6. AssessmentSee appendix 3 fo r the assessment sheet. 7. Links to other subjects HSIE, Mathematics, English and PDHPE.HSIE – Mirror Me Lesson Plan 2 Activity 4 – Mirroring each other through rhythm and movement 1. Level: Stage 1 2. Goals: Students will understand how rhythm works and identify how the music changes resulting in their movements changing. Students will perform a number of rhythms and patterns in movement focusing on rhythmic correctness and co-ordinated movement. 3. Teaching materials1. IPod dock 2. IPod with Creation by Descendance Aboriginal & Tsi Dance Theatre on it 4. Learning outcomes: Musical activity Performing Singing (n) Playing Instruments (n) Moving (y) Organising Sound (n) Listening (y) Musical Concepts Duration (rhythm) (y) Pitch (y) Dynamics (y) Tone Colour (y) Structure (y) 5. Procedure1. Clear an area in the middle of the room. For this activity the students could even go into the school hall if it is available, to allow for extra space. 2. Have the student’s pa ir up and stand in 2 lines. Allocate the lines names – trees and grass. Have the students move away to their own area in the room/hall and face each other. 3. Talk to the class and advise that when a name (trees or grass) is called out the other student in the pair has to follow the other student. That students need to try movements they think would suit the music, fast, slow, loud and soft. What types of movements would best suit. If the students wanted to they could even represent Australian animals. 4. Start playing the song and prompt the students to listen at first. Then call out trees, as the students are comfortable in following (no less than 60 seconds), the teacher calls out grass. Alternating between the leader gets faster as the students learn to adapt faster.5. The teacher then increases the volume and decreases the volume to encourage alternate responses in the music. 6. At the end the teacher prompts the students to talk about what movements went best with which types of music? What types of movements did they use for the tempo, pitch, dynamics, tone colour? Did they prefer certain parts of the song more than others and why? Those students who represented animals, did they find it hard to choose movements and keep in character for the lesson? Was it easy for students to follow the leader? Was it easy to lead? Which did students prefer to follow or lead?6. AssessmentSee appendix 4 for the assessment sheet. 7. Links to other subjects HSIE, Mathematics, English and Science and Technology.HSIE – Rainforest Soundscapes Lesson Plan 3 Activity 6 – Group composition of a soundscape from a rainforest painting 1. Level: Stage 3 2. Goals: Students will create and perform a soundscape with the use of instruments, voice and movements from a painting of a rainforest. They will demonstrate their rhythmic abilities, co-ordination with movements, their ability to work in groups and ability to create a composition. 3. Teaching materials1. Pain tings from previous music lesson 2. Cardboard box 3. 5 x numbers 1-6 4. White board 5. White board marker 6. Coloured magnets for the white board 7. 6 x A3 sheets of paper with a blank grid on it. 8. Coloured pencils 9. Instruments – chimes, drums, triangles, xylophone, tambourines, etc 4. Learning outcomes: Musical activity Performing Singing (y) Playing Instruments (y) Moving (y) Organising Sound (y) Listening (y) Musical Concepts Duration (rhythm) (y) Pitch (y) Dynamics (y) Tone Colour (y) Structure (y) 5. Procedure1. Each student picks out a number (1-6) from a box and that shows which group the student is assigned to. On the white board the list of effects (see appendix 5) is written. Depending on which number the group is, depends on what the effect they will need to introduce into their soundscape. The rainforest pictures have been painted prior to this lesson from an alternate music activity. Each group chooses their favourite painting to create the soundscape from (o n condition that none of the students in the group painted it).2. The class has a discussion on what a soundscape is (a quick refresher) and what they need to cover when preparing for it (dynamics, tempo, pitch, tone colour, etc). The students are encouraged to create a story to at least start and finish the soundscape, they are welcome to have the story throughout the soundscape, eg the effect with the men with axes, they could have them laughing and talking, whistling, etc.The students are also encouraged to include movements if they can see it fits with their soundscape, eg in the gorilla congregation, they can have one or two students sitting like gorillas and making gorilla noises. 3. Each group receives an A3 sheet of paper with a blank grid (see appendix 6) on it and coloured pencils. The students choose the instruments they believe will get the best result for their soundscape and work on their composition which needs to include the allocated effect for their rainforest soun dscape. 4. Once the students have spent the allotted time creating the soundscape on the grid paper (see appendix 7) and practicing it.They will then perform as a group in-front of the class and demonstrate their soundscape. 5. Once all groups have finished performing for the class, there is a class discussion on the musical concepts used by each group and how they felt they related to the painting and soundscape? Did they find that each group included rhythm, tempo, pitch, structure, dynamics, tone colour and if they felt that the groups incorporated the assigned effect successfully? Did the groups that used storytelling as part of their soundscape find it easier/harder to follow the story being told? Did any of the soundscapes sound like they came from any particular cultures? 6. AssessmentSee appendix 8 for the assessment sheet. 7. Links to other subjects HSIE, English and Science and Technology.

Eugenics: Designer Babies

Eugenics: Designer Babies Okpurukre Isoken (Medical Ethics) Professor Ballantyne August 5th, 2009 Eugenics: Designer Babies Eugenics, in its broadest sense, is defined as â€Å"the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or of a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits†. The term captures a smorgasbord of vivacious imagery etched into the annals of human history – of ghostly memories about human atrocities anxiously waiting to fade away at the twilight moments of a modern age – of overcrowded prison camps, in which the depths of travail and indolent sighs of countless defenseless victims, of bodies ravaged by scars and which have become too weak to be revitalised in any shape or manner. Or of lives consigned to â€Å"medical investigative exploration for the amelioration of human condition† by what at first sight appears to be insignificant signatures of a clerk. Such lives were considered only sacrifices contrived by altruist motives of a beneficent governing authority. Questions if they could have been raised at all in retrospect could only be considered at someones discretionary time, and place of course. Trying to pick through the rubbles of the world’s past mishaps and distilling their lessons for application to today’s issues is like wading and battling oneself through an ever- confusing maze mired with potholes, trenches and cul-de-sacs. Tolstoy, in his masterpiece War and Peace admonished his readers that everything in history has he mirage of appearing to have been predestined, once history has occured. I believe that as potential medical experts honest and critical intellectual inquiry is only the beginning and the least of what we can do to prevent what future generations will ruefully deem as inevitable consequences of our â€Å"brilliant concoctions†. According to Congressman Greenwood’s opening statem ents at the hearing of the COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS March 28, 2001 convened by medical researchers, bioethicists and members of congress, â€Å" For most of its 80 years, the brave New World could be seen as a disturbing work of science fiction. That is no longer the case. The possible cloning of human beings is now relegated to the world—not relegated to the world of fiction. The question we must now ask is this: what should we do with this science? † Amidst the backdrop of hefty political and legal debates over bioethics that took place in the ‘90s and early 21st century as a result of Ian Wilmot’s sheep cloning experiements, laws had been enacted that helped to curb the development of reproductive technologies. It became crystal clear that the countdown timer has now been set for he inevitable -the cloning of Homo sapiens. No one knows what would happen after that. Notwithstanding, numerous independently funded private labs across the United States and around the world wasted little time to find legal loopholes to evade the scrutiny of authorities and jumped into the hunt for the holy grail. For instance, On December 5, 1997, Chicagoan physicist and fertility expert Richard Seed announced that he planned to clone a human being before any federal laws could be enacted to ban the process. Seed’s plans were to apply the same technique used to clone Dolly. Seed's announcement went against President Clinton's 1997 proposal for a voluntary private moratorium against human cloning. Several arguments may be suggested to explain this fervor. There were those who argued that reproductive freedom includes human cloning, perhaps as a means to address the problem of male infertility. Others advocated cloning as a means to replicate a deceased loved one. For yet others, human cloning is justified because it may provide important advances in scientific knowledge. To be sure, science is entitled to have ethical standards set apart from all other norms of society. Perhaps a closer look at the accompanying evidence will reveal that this is not so. According to Jeff Stryker, a writer for the New York Times Magazine, dated August 4, 2009, sperm banking has now become a global and open market; consumers are no longer limited to the small donor pools at local mom-and-pop sperm banks. In particular, Cryos, a Denmark based company has recently sparked media interest. Its company strategy is aimed at becoming the McDonald’s of sperm banks around the world. Packed in dry ice or liquid nitrogen sperms are shipped express to its buyers in more than twelve countries around the world. Somehow, it is able to sidestep many legal regulations imposed by domestic and local regulations on local sperm bank enterprises. Notwithstanding, the profitability of the sperm bank business has not stemmed the tide in the development of product lines catering to the whims and tastes of different consumer segments. Virginia's Fairfax Cryobank has stepped into the competitive scene with its †Fairfax Doctorate Donors†; since April 1999 the firm has offered, at a third more than the usual charges, sperm from medical, law, Ph. D. and other students and graduates. Cryos offers three grades of sperm, including an †extra† version that contains twice the number of highly motile sperm as its †regular† brand. An Ivy league woman’s egg could nowadays fetch upwards of $50,000. The California Cryobank, located in Los Angeles has launched a new feature to help prospective baby batter buyers pick a load. Its product lines features sperms and eggs of donors that are celebrity look-alikes. Adam Sandler, Andy Roddick, and Ben Affleck are but a few noteworthy mentions. Apparently these parents are free to choose whom they want to have as their children. The Oxford English dictionary defines the term â€Å"designer babies† as â€Å"a baby that the genetic makeup has been artificially selected by genetic engineering combined with in vitro fertilization to ensure the presence or absence of particular genes or characteristics†. According to Ritter M (2008), â€Å"news that scientists have for the first time genetically altered a human embryo is drawing fire from some watchdog groups that say it’s a step toward creating ‘designer babies’. † Yet, the ubiquity of different sperms and eggs on the market today seems to offer a more palatable alternative to genetic engineering. A different and perhaps more pressing issue centers around the ethics of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). Here embryos are screened for gene faults before being transferred to a woman's uterus. It has come under the spotlight recently in the UK, with high-profile cases such as that of the Leeds-based Hashmi family. The Hashmis have a child with a rare blood disorder, who urgently needs a bone marrow transplant. Through using PGD, the Hashmis may be able to have a child that is free from the disorder suffered by their existing child. The child yet to be born could also donate tissue to cure its sibling. The Hashmi case became the subject of months of legal wrangling in the UK courts†. (Lee, 2003) In April 2009, Panayiotis Zavos, a controversial fertility researcher attracted international media attention when he announced to the world that he had cloned 14 human embryos and transferred 11 of them into the wombs of four women, at least one of whom was British. The operation failed however. According to his own words, the motivations for cloning was â€Å"not to reproduce the Michael Jacksons and the Michael Jordans in this world, and also, we are totally against designer babies. Therefore, we are not interested in manipulating the genetic information, the genome, but rather just allowing those mothers and fathers to be, to become biological fathers and mothers of those children, and, hopefully, those children will be healthy children and we are totally committed to that†¦ We are talking about the development of a technology that can give an infertile and childless couple the right to reproduce and have a child and above all complete its life cycle. This is a human right and should not be taken away from people because someone or a group of people have doubts about its development. According to Lewis Wolpert, a professor of biology, the issue is an irrelevant one. Surprisingly enough, ethical issues with regards to designer babies are hard to see. In his own words, â€Å"What possible argument from ethics could be used against prenatal diagnosis of an embryo obtained by IVF, if the diagnosis prevents the implantation of embryos with defective genes? I know that some people object, but there is no evidence that the early embryo is a person. This idea is a relatively recent one, with religious underpinning but with neither argument nor evidence. The Magisterium of the Catholic Church demands that the embryo be respected from the first instance. But what has to be considered in every case is the child and its future wellbeing, and not to do so is totally lacking in respect. Who, for example, is being harmed in all the recent fuss about choosing an embryo with the right genes to help a sibling? Both children will certainly be very well cared for. And it is care of the child that matters. (Wolpert, 2003)†. The views of religious segment of society stand in stark contrast to the notions entertained by Wolpert. In general, they raise three primary objections. First being that cloning humans could lead to a new eugenics movement where even if cloning begins with a benign purpose, it could devolve into a scientifcally generated caste ranking of superior and inferior people. Being such, it would interferes with the natural order of creation, eliminating the sanctity of God as a creator. And what’s more, cloning could have long-term effects that are unknown and harmful. People have a right to their own identity and their own genetic makeup which should not be replicated. Cardinal William Keeler, Archbishop of Baltimore sums it up more succinctly in humanistic terms ‘‘Cloning is presented as a means for creating life, not destroying life. Yet it shows disrespect toward human life and the very act of generating it. Cloning completely divorces human reproduction from the context of a loving union between man and woman, producing children with no parents in the ordinary sense. He re, human life does not arise from an act of love, but is manufactured to predetermined specifications. A developing human being is treated as an object, not as n individual with his or her own identity and rights. ’’ A slightly different perspective as espoused by Congressman Rush, would be a perspective on how diversity relates to medical research. In his words, â€Å"As an African-American, I’m keenly aware of racist prejudices and biases. The expansion of science can never be an end unto itself. The expansion of science must be viewed in the light of the agenda of those who espouse it and the impact it has on our public, on our way of life and on our God†¦ As noted, science and the biotech field has brought us great successes. We must not take action which will mpede the legitimate and safe use of biotechnology†¦I would argue that we must act with caution to ensure that future scientific successes which will make this world healthier and more prod uctive while tightly regulating and indeed banning those practices which pose a clear threat to the health, the safety, and the moral condition of our citizens. Might we never know how society and human clones will come to perceive one another? Perhaps not. Doron Blake is a 23 year old young man who came from the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, for which eugenic-minded California inventor Robert Graham recruited various scientific geniuses to onate sperm. When asked to talk about his experience as a sperm-bank child, Doron said, â€Å"It was a screwed-up idea, making genius people. The fact that I have a huge IQ does not make me a person who is good or happy. People come expecting me to have all these achievements under my belt, and I don’t. I have not done anything that special. I don’t think being intelligent is what makes a person. What makes a person is being raised in a loving family with loving parents who don’t pressure them. If I was born with an IQ of 100 and not 180, I could do just as much in my life. The thing I like best bout myself is not that I’m smart but that I care about people and try to make other people’s lives better. I don’t think you can breed for good people. † According to Agar (n. d) human beings are motivated equally by both therapy and enhancement. Yet according to the examples provided above, there seems to exist an ethical divide between treating or preventing disease and enhancing traits. The privacy of persons and families being weighed against life’s existence is a rhetorical discussion that has not witnessed any proper resolution, perhaps because they are viewed as ends in themselves. This point may help in some sort or fashion Reinhold Niebuhr’s view of social conflicts – The human person, in Niebuhr’s account, is self-interested in the extreme. While the individual â€Å"moral man† can check his natural selfishness through conscience, self-discipline, and love, social groups—tribes, movements, nations—look out for their own and strive to dominate other groups. Everybody’s motives are always mixed. Order in society is achieved through the threat of force, so â€Å"society is in perpetual state of war. † Such intransigence in viewpoints could be the ill that lies at the heart human atrocities. The level of anti-abortion violence, seen in the US of the last three decades, which includes arson and bombing are only symptoms of a greater ill that has been galvanizing it. There is little justifiable rationale in the paradoxical actions of engaging in bloodshed and murder if life not death is its goal. This would be the tragic consequence which C. S. Lewis talked about when he observed that ‘‘man’s conquest of nature would result in the abolition of man. ’’ COMHH References Agar N. (n. d). Designer Babies: Ethical Considerations. Retrieved on June 16th, 2009 from http://www. actionbioscience. org/biotech/agar. html Connor S. (2009). Fertility expert: ‘I can clone a human being' Retrieved on August 4, 2009 from http://www. zavos. org/fertility-expert-i-can-clone-a-human-being-1672095. html Lee E (2003). Debating Designer Babies. Retrieved on June 15, 2009 from http://www. prochoiceforum. org. uk/ocrreliss7. php Macrae F. (2008). Couple to have Britain's first baby genetically modified to be free of breast cancer gene. Retrieved on June 15, 2009 from http://www. dailymail. co. k/health/article-1098034/Couple-Britains-baby-genetically-modified-free-breast-cancer-gene. html Malcolm R (2008). Genetically Modified Human  Baby? Retrieved on June 14, 2009 from http://healthandsurvival. com/2008/05/12/genetically-modified-human-baby/ Subcommittee on oversight and investigations (2001, March 28). Issues raised by human cloning research. Retrieved from http://republicans. energycommerce. house. gov/107/action/10 7-5. pdf Thomas V (2007) Children Have Rights – Say No to Repro Tech from http://childrenhaverights-saynotoreprotech. blogspot. com/2007/02/doron-blake-genius-designer-baby. html

buy custom Diagnostic Writing Exercise essay

buy custom Diagnostic Writing Exercise essay This is a diagnostic writing exercise assignment based on a money issue topic. The topic is making sense of money, and authored by Peter Nares. In this paper a summary of the article is given after which the views will be critiqued. The article is based on Canada and analyses the financial situation in reference to the financial discipline among the Canadians. Nares (2009) describes financial literacy as the ability to manage money, getting financial advice when required and making of informed financial decisions. He argues that anecdotal evidence reveals the Canadians as financial illiterate to a high level and as such poses a growing challenge for the government and consumers of financial services who wish to see the see the citizens prosper. The author believes that financial illiteracy contributed much to the global financial meltdown. The author writes down some basic facts which support the need for the generation of a better understanding of the significance of financial literacy. It is important, according to Nares (2009), that the fight against financial illiteracy goes beyond distribution of brochures (Nares 10). Though the capacity to manage savings and credit is key to self sufficiency Nares (2009) argues that navigating with right information is often the challengeespecially for the cases of those who are not able to afford financial advisors. This situation is made worse by the presence of varieties of products in the market. Nares (2009) continues to argue that financial illiteracy can lead one to a devastating situation whereby one is not able to live as expected and gives an example of the absence of an emergence fund which can likely lead to the compromise of the family future (Nares 10). The author associated financial illiteracy with the likelihood of poor performance of workers. He however goes further to warn that financial literacy will not automatically solve all the problems but is rather a backbone to solving financial challenges. The author introduces SEDI, a firm engaged in the financial literacy research and capacity building. In the introduction, the firm is depicted as a national firm operating across Canada. He goes further suggest a solution, there are two critical components to growing financial literacy in Canada (Nores 11). These two are listed as: enabled policy environment and increased supply of and demand for financial literacy services In connection to the above solution suggestions, SEDI called for the development of financial literacy strategy for Canada. The Canadian Centre for Financial Literacy waas launched to make a contribution to the supply of and demand for literacy challenges. The centre has targeted vulnerable groups such as the youths to boost their financial literacy. The centre operates through three main areas: capacity building, research and information sharing and consulting. The author also writes about testimonies of people who have gone through the center and have been surprised by the discoveries they made pertaining to their expenditure (Nares 12). The article carries an excellent analysis of the situation in Canada with respect to financial discipline among individuals. It is quite relevant to the current situation bearing it was just authored last year. SEDI has offered plausible suggestions through its centre. However it could be more effective if the suggestion aimed at the introduction of financial literacy classes in the formal education curriculum. In this manner the children will grow up with high levels of financial literacy acquired from the schools. This will ensure that the future Canadians protected. The article was expected briefly discuss the role of entrepreneurship in alleviating financial challenges. Wise investment is another mean through which one can make sense of money. The article is good and the author has good knowledge on the topic as the article is written authoritatively. Buy custom Diagnostic Writing Exercise essay

Punctuation with Attribution

Punctuation with Attribution Punctuation with Attribution Punctuation with Attribution By Mark Nichol An attribution is a phrase that describes who said or wrote something. It is stated parenthetically before, in the midst of, or after a statement or question (it is basically an introductory phrase that can be located elsewhere than at the head of a sentence), but writers often erroneously omit a comma required to help frame the attribution. The following sentences illustrate variations in this type of error, and discussion and revision following each one explains and demonstrates correct treatment. 1. In the future, Smith says she looks forward to having her team work more with data analytics. Without a comma after says to correspond to the one following future, this sentence appears to awkwardly state that it is known in the present that in the future Smith will say that she looks forward to having her team work with more data analytics. But â€Å"Smith says† is an attribution, so the phrase should be bracketed by a pair of commas: â€Å"In the future, Smith says, she looks forward to having her team work more with data analytics.† 2. As rooftop solar panels become more common, company executives say they need new products that will distinguish the business from its many competitors. The error in this sentence is not as obvious as the one in the previous example. However, the implication here is that the company executives are making a statement at the same time as rooftop solar panels become more common. This may be technically accurate, but it’s not the point of the sentence. â€Å"Company executives say† interrupts the sentence to identify the source of the statement: â€Å"As rooftop solar panels become more common, company executives say, they need new products that will distinguish the business from its many competitors.† 3. There are about 365.25 days in a year according to NASA. Because of the lack of internal punctuation in this sentence, it appears to quantify the number of days in a specific typed of year- one that is according to NASA. An attribution, regardless of whether it precedes, interrupts, or follows a statement, should be set off from that statement. If the attribution appears at the head or tail of the sentence, however, only one comma is necessary to set it off from the main clause: â€Å"There are about 365.25 days in a year, according to NASA.† 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 Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:20 Great Opening Lines to Inspire the Start of Your Story"Have" vs "Having" in Certain Expressions10 Tips for Clean, Clear Writing

Social Issues Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Social Issues - Assignment Example Introduction One of the key arguments of the civil rights together with Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LBGT) movements have for long advocated is the fact that the state has no rights in determining or getting itself involved in what happens between two consenting adults in the privacy of their bedroom (Querbes, 2004). In these two cases, first in Georgia and then in Texas, police officers came into the citizen’s home and found him and his partner engaging in the act of consensual sodomy, which was outlawed in these states. In the first case, even after the Georgia Court and the Court of Appeal had ruled in favor of the respondent, the Supreme Court overturned the decision and ruled that sodomy was not a fundamental right. In the second case, the Supreme Court basically ruled that they had no right to interfere with what happened in the confines of the bedrooms of consenting adults (Querbes, 2004). 1 There were numerous societal factors that led the US Supreme Court to abandon the rule of stare decisis. The stare decisis is a principle that basically holds that judges usually allow previously made decisions to stand. In the case of Lawrence v. Texas the Supreme Court saw need to completely rule in the opposite of the judgment in Bowers v. Hardwick due mainly to the changes in attitudes, perceptions and views on homosexuality in the country (Harms, 2011). In 1986 when the initial Bowers v. Hardwick decision was made the country had just come out of the rather â€Å"freewheeling† permissive society of the 1960s and 1970s and a decidedly conservative candor was more the norm (Hanon, 1999). It was therefore no wonder that more than half the states still had rules in place that outlawed sodomy which was viewed as one of the practices that many felt made homosexuality abhorrent. The American society then was much much stronger in intolerance with the homosexual lifestyle (Harms, 2011). For the court also by the time the second (Lawrence v. Texas) decision was taken there had been quite a change in the Supreme Court with nearly half (four out of nine) judges having either retired or died and been replaced, giving the Supreme Court a totally new outlook which made it easier for them to make such a radical change in decision. The majority in the Bowers v. The Hardwick decision was only 5-4 and one of the judges in the majority later changed his opinion and said he would have voted differently had he thought the matter was as important as it turned out to be (Harms, 2011). Historically mainstream United States Culture has always condemned homosexuality and any other type of â€Å"deviant† sexual practices hence the enactment of anti-sodomy laws in many US states up to the eighties. Gay men and women were seen and depicted as degenerates and sexual criminals and they, their practices, views and lifestyles by the medical profession, government and the mass media. In the early 1980s, the Bowers v. Hardwick was therefore not an unpopular or an unusual decision at the time that it was made. 2 At the time of the Bowers v. A Hardwick case in 1986, the American public’s attitude toward homosexuality was very conservative. In fact as late as 1988, only