Chinese Values Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Chinese Values - Essay Example Wisdom is virtues that enable one differentiate wrong from right. According to Confucius, wisdom understands other people. To love other people you must have a loving heart and to understand others you must have the wisdom to enable them to differentiate the good from evil this will help them promote good and control evil in the society. The Chinese leaders who had wisdom lead society to success.Honesty instills integrity, credibility, and trustworthiness. Businesses, which operated, honestly achieved the best. Loyalty to the motherland, family, and friends in terms of offering services faithfully. Protecting country and family is a sign of one’s loyalty. Filial piety is respect, especially to the elders. In Chinese culture, burial of elders was the duty of the young they believed in nurturing the young and caring for the old (Hsia). All these values have been incorporated in Chinas diplomacy, and since it worked wonders in Chinese society, the whole world must embrace these v alues to establish a mutually tolerant and universally embraceable world order. Unity in diversity is brought about by harmony. A harmonious person chooses to live harmoniously with others. For peaceful coexistence, one must choose to respect other territories and powers and chose never to interfere in other countries internal affairs. A harmonious person believes in equality and mutual benefit from each other. These principles have been employed by most countries due to the peaceful China.

Narrative Paragraph Essay Example for Free

Narrative Paragraph Essay The toddler climbed laboriously up onto the stool, determined to â€Å"help† her mother. But her mother did not notice; she was far too busy with the frantic preparations for the birthday party. Ten three-year-olds and their mothers coming for an afternoon of treats, games and face painting: a herald of another party, ten years from now, when make up would be the order of the day, the child’s father had observed. As the mixer whirred and the dishwasher swished and the oven beeped its warning of impending culinary disaster, the child’s attempt to be a part of the busy-ness was more than her mother could attend to. She did not notice when the girl reached the top of the stool, nor did she see the tiny hand reach out toward the glinting beaters as they beat the pale golden batter. As she faced the oven, removing the first cookie tray, she heard the scream. Whirling, she took in the tiny hand held high, the tragic face, and the stream of scarlet mixing itself into the cake. A kiss, a cuddle and a band-aid calmed the birthday girl; a shake of her head and a moment of revelation calmed her mother. A birthday candle in a cookie would be just fine. See more: how to start a narrative essay Paragraph Analysis Purpose: to tell a brief story Structure: no real thesis statement, as there is nothing to be proven in this paragraph, but there is an introductory sentence that establishes character, setting and situation, there are body sentences, and there is a concluding sentence that summarizes the resolution of the main conflict Language: language is relatively casual and includes a single example of the language of the three-year-old child to help establish character Features: narrative components such as plot, characters, setting, conflict and resolution are evident; use of onomatopoeia (â€Å"whirred,† â€Å"swished,† â€Å"beeped†) to mimic the distracting effects of the busy kitchen EXPOSITORY PARAGRAPH An expository paragraph explains something; its purpose is to help the reader understand. In order to ensure that the purpose is achieved, the writer of the paragraph may utilize a number of paragraph features and language techniques. One essential feature is logical organization. This may take a number of forms, including demonstrating cause and effect or following a  chronological order. Another important feature is providing support for the explanation being made. This support may consist of examples, illustrations, statistical or expert evidence, or even appropriate anecdotes. A final critical feature is clarity of language. The paragraph may make employ language devices such as metaphors or allusions to help illustrate its points, but they must be relatively straight forward and easy to follow so that no misunderstanding of the important points will occur. By employing these kinds of features and techniques, the writer of an expository paragraph will ensure that the paragraph’s meaning is clear to the reader. Paragraph Analysis Purpose: to explain some of the techniques used by the writer of an expository paragraph to achieve his or her purpose (!) Structure: The first sentence is a topic sentence; the second is the thesis statement. The body sentences list, explain and give examples of the paragraph’s features, and the concluding sentence summarizes the main point of the paragraph. Language: language is relatively formal Features: The paragraph uses a format of making a point followed by examples. There is â€Å"listing† transition (â€Å"One essential feature,† â€Å"Another important feature,† â€Å"A final critical feature†) between sentences to help the flow of the paragraph. PERSUASIVE PARAGRAPH Telephone solicitation is more than just an annoyance to those on the receiving end of the calls. In fact, telephone solicitation can be disastrous for people in all kinds of situations and, thus, must be stopped. For one thing, telephone solicitation typically occurs in the late afternoon and early evening, prime family time. This can cause chaos in two ways. One, continual interruption of shared family meal times, rare as they can be, can put a significant strain on family relationships; this is a troublesome point in light of the divorce statistics of today. Even worse, when families are embroiled in homework wars or are having trouble getting toddlers to bed, a poorly-timed telephone call may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, moving the suffering parents to lose their cool  completely. This could result in a form of domestic violence, verbal or even physical: yet another reason for a family to break apart. Another way in which telephone solicitation can prove dangerous to people stems from its very familiarity. Because so many telephone calls come from telephone solicitors, offering everything from insurance opportunities to vinyl siding, the calls become accepted as a legitimate way to do business. This plays into the hands of criminals. The trust individuals place in the honesty of the legitimate solicitors is extended to those who are, in fact, dishonest and out to abscond with the proceeds of others’ bank accounts. Clearly, in order to save families and their hard-earned dollars, telephone solicitation should be banned. Paragraph Analysis Purpose: to convince the reader that telephone solicitation should be banned Structure: introductory sentence, thesis statement (sentence #2), body sentences which provide examples for points made, a concluding sentence which states the thesis in stronger terms Language: language is emotionally loaded at times (ex., â€Å"disastrous,† â€Å"chaos,† â€Å"embroiled in homework wars,† â€Å"domestic violence†); added words such as â€Å"Clearly† in the concluding sentence makes it difficult to argue against the point Features: strong rhetorical language; a variety of sentence lengths keep the paragraph moving; short sentences highlight and give â€Å"punch† to inflammatory statements (ex., â€Å"This plays into the hands of criminals.†); stops argument by stating that the evidence â€Å"clearly† supports the thesis LITERARY PARGRAPH Holden Caulfield, the narrator and protagonist of J.D.Salinger’s well-known novel, The Catcher in the Rye, is an unreliable narrator. This leads the reader to suspect that Holden’s story is not all that is appears, and coaxes the reader to look more deeply into the character and his situation. Very early in the novel, Holden himself casts doubt on his reliability as a narrator when he confesses to his in-story audience, a psycho-therapist, that he is â€Å"the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It’s awful† (Chapter 3). This self-indictment alerts the reader to the fact that everything Holden says will need to be taken with a grain of salt and that it will be important to look beyond the surface of the text. Later in the  novel, Holden relates a story about his date with a girlfriend in which she tells him to stop yelling at a club. He protests that he â€Å"wasn’t even yelling† but it is clear from his description that he probably was yelling, and that his girlfriend was trying to calm him down. This incident, and others like it, suggests that Holden is not good at monitoring his own behaviour. This again calls into question Holden’s explanations of what goes on in the novel and encourages the reader to look seriously at the words spoken by the other characters, even if they are related through Holden’s eyes. Thus, through both Holden’s explicit assessments of his own personality and the implicit meaning of the events in the story, the reader can see that Holden Caulfield is a less-than-reliable narrator whose story must be examined deeply in order to be understood. Paragraph Analysis Purpose: to interpret and explain an aspect of a literary text Structure: First two sentences work together to alert the reader to the topic and the thesis. The body sentences extend the discussion, and the conluding sentence restated the thesis. Language: language is formal and makes use of integrated quotations to add to the authority of the interpretation Features: identifies the title of the work and the author in the introductory sentence; uses literary terms (i.e., â€Å"unreliable narrator†); uses integrated quotations to support the discussion; remains focused exclusively on the text (no â€Å"real life† references)

The Impact Of Liquidity On Profitability Finance Essay

The Impact Of Liquidity On Profitability Finance Essay Padachi observed the trends in working capital management and its impact on performance of a firm. Return on assets and cash conversion cycle was used to measure the firms profitability and efficiency of working capital management respectively. He described that a firm should maintain stability between profitability and liquidity while maintaining its day to day activities. The manager of a business want to maximize firms value by achieving preferred tradeoff between liquidity and profitability of a firm. The results indicated that the more investment in inventories and receivables lower the profitability of a firm. Raheman Nasr (2007) discussed the impact of working capital management on profitability of a firm. They also highlighted that the basic objective of a firm is to maximize profit but maintaining liquidity is also an important objective. There will be a serious problem if firm increase profit at the cost of liquidity. Both objectives are important for the firm. If a firm does not concerned about profit then it cannot survive for a longer period. On the other hand, if a firm does not concern about liquidity it may face bankruptcy. They took 94 firms of Pakistan and analyzed that there is a negative relationship between liquidity and profitability of a firm. Michalski (2008) empirically analyzed the relationship between firms policy regarding net working investment and firms profitability. Too low liquidity level may come up problems with timely reimbursement of its liabilities while surplus liquid assets would negatively affect firms profitability. He discussed that decisions regarding liquidity is very difficult, a firm has to choose one of the three policies: first an aggressive policy i.e. a large part of the firms fixed and volatile demand to finance fixed assets is supported with short term financing, second a moderate policy i.e. a fixed part of current assets is financed with long term funds and volatile part is financed with short term funds lastly a conservative policy i.e. both fixed and volatile parts of current assets are financed with long term funds. Dash Hanuman (2009) were concerned about working capital management and they analyzed the liquidity-profitability trade-off model named as goal programming model. They supported that proper flow of fund is needed to run any business. A firm has conflicting objectives regarding liquidity and profitability so the goal programming model determines how targeted levels of profitability and liquidity would be achieved by maintaining current and fixed assets and at the same time minimizing opportunity cost. Their model proposed that working capital and inventory must be streamlined to profitability. Nazir Afza (2009) tried to find out the relation between aggressive working capital management policy and firms profitability by using panel data regression model and Tobins q of 204 Pakistani companies for the period of 1998-2005. They claimed that investors give importance to stocks of those firms which adopt aggressive policies to manage current liabilities. Their findings suggested that aggressive working capital investment and financing policies and profitability are negatively associated. They claimed that investors consider that firms which have less long term loans and equity can have better performance than the others. Burtescu (2010) documented the reflection of liquidity and profitability of a company in the accounting result. He emphasized that it is not adequate for a firm to follow only economic indicators but it is also essential for a firm to make sure its liquidity in its quality of a specific dimension of financial management. The information about solvency and liquidity are beneficial for a firm to predict the ability of a firm to fulfill its financial obligations. He argued that investors have a great concern about the cash flow of a company and it becomes obligatory for a firm to include cash flow statement in its annual financial statements. Gill, Biger Mathur (2010) attempted to examine the relationship between working capital management and profitability. They used sample of 88 firms listed on New York Stock Exchange for the period of 2005-2007. The results suggested that the relationship between cash conversion cycle and gross profit margin is statistically significant. They also concluded that account receivables and profitability are negatively associated. The managers can enhance profits of their company by handling the cash conversion cycle efficiently. Mohamad Saad (2010) attempted to scrutinize the impact of working capital management on profitability and market valuation of a firm. They analyzed the secondary data of 172 Malaysian companies for the period of 2000-2007. They took working capital variables such as cash conversion cycle, current ratio, debt to asset ratio, current asset to total asset, current liabilities to total asset and profitability variables are return on asset and return on invested capital. By using multiple regression analysis and correlation, their results revealed that working capital variables have negative association with firms profitability. Firms cannot exist without working capital and it can improve the profitability and market value of a firm. Dong Su (2010) also conducted a study to find out the relationship between working capital management and firms profitability. The working capital management has an important part in the success and failure of a firm because it has a great impact on the profitability and liquidity of a firm. Their sample is based on 130 firms which are listed in Vietnam stock market for the period of 2006-2008. Their findings proved that profitability and cash conversion cycle is strongly negatively associated. By optimum working capital management, the managers may create a value of stock for the shareholders. The firm should maintain a balance between its two objectives; profitability and liquidity. One objective should not be achieved at the cost of other. Their findings also suggested that profitability can be increased by decreasing the number of days accounts receivable and inventories. Saleem Rehman (2011) observed a significant relationship between liquidity and firms performance. Liquidity of a company is very important for its every stack holder. If a firms cash and near cash assets are insufficient to satisfy its immediate payment obligations than firm may face difficulties. This can affect firms day to day business operations and profitability. They evaluated that liquidity and profitability are inversely related, one increases the other will decreases. Bhunia, Khan Mukhuti (2011) provided the evidence with respect to the relationship between liquidity and profitability of a firm. They took steel companies of private sector in India to assess the management of liquidity as a factor of performance. They studied important liquidity indicators and analyzed that optimal working capital management can be achieved by controlling the trade-off between profitability and liquidity of a firm. Firm value is positively affected by optimal working capital management so the investment in working capital must be satisfactory. They concluded that liquidity and profitability are significantly positively associated. Saghir, Hashmi Hussain (2011) studied the relationship between working capital management and profitability of a firm. They used cash conversion cycle to measure working capital management efficiency and return on asset to measure profitability while analyzing the financial data of 60 textile firms listed on KSE for the period of 2001 to 2006. They suggested that smooth inflow of profit is mainly affected by the optimum point of working capital. Working capital means companys current assets and it has a direct effect on the liquidity and profitability of a firm. According to the risk and return theory, when firms liquidity of working capital is high then it has low risk and low profitability and vice versa. The shorter cash conversion cycle is better for the firm profitability. Their result shows the negative relation between working capital management and profitability of a firm. Alipour (2011) researched about working capital management and corporate profitability while taking sample of 1063 companies from Tehran stock exchange. To test the hypothesis, multiple regression and pearsons correlation was used. He analyzed that sale and profit of a company is greatly influenced by the working capital management. Due to inefficient working capital management, a company may be incapable to pay its debts on time. The results show a significant relationship between working capital management and profitability of a company. There is a negative relationship between cash conversion cycle, average collection period, inventory turnover in days and profitability. Qazi et al. (2011) examined the impact of working capital on the profitability of a firm. Using the financial data of Pakistani automobile and oil and gas industry for the time period of 2004-2009, he proposed that the important components of working capital are debtor, creditor and inventory. The efficient and effective working capital can create value of the shares to shareholders. He persuaded that maintaining the companys liquid level is a major task of a company. So, by ignoring liquidity objective, company may face insolvency or bankruptcy. Their results showed the positive impact of working capital on profitability. Ching, Novazzi Gerab (2011) scrutinized the financial statements of two separate groups of companies: working capital intensive and fixed capital intensive having16 companies in each group listed on Brazil Stock exchange during 2005-2009. They used return on assets, returns on sales and returns on equity to measure profitability and cash conversion cycle, debt ratio, days receivables, days inventory and days of working capital are used as independent variables. Their results showed that managing working capital is very important for both type of companies. Moreover, working capital intensive type of company gets more profit by managing inventory and cash conversion efficiency at optimum level and fixed capital intensive type of company yield more profit through other two variables. Karaduman et al. (2011) also investigated the link between management of working capital and profitability of a firm. In the recent economic conditions, the survival of a firm greatly depends upon the ability to manage its financial function. Their sample is based on 127 companies listed in the Istanbul Stock Exchange during 2005-2009. The cash conversion cycle was used as a proxy of working capital management and returns on assets was used to measure profitability. The results portrayed that ROA is positively affected by the reduction in CCC. The profitability is increased by developing efficiency of working capital. Alam et al. (2011) studied the influence of working capital management on the profitability and its market value of firms which are listed on Karachi stock exchange. They claimed that a misconception that firm survival is based on its profits has been cleared due to the present liquidity crises. They used financial data of 65 companies listed on Karachi Stock exchange during 2005-2009. Return on assets and returns on invested capital were used as proxy for measuring financial performance of the firm, Tobins Q was used to determine the market value of a firm and five financial ratios such as cash conversion cycle, current ratio, debt to asset ratio, current asset to total asset ratio and current liabilities to total asset ratio were used as dependent variables. Their empirical results presented sufficient evidence that firms strongly depends upon current assets to generate profits. Ogundipe, Idowu Ogundipe (2012) provided evidence regarding the influence of working capital management on performance of a firm and its market value. They collected data from annual reports of 54 Nigerian companies for the period of 1995-2009. They explained working capital management as management of current assets and current liabilities and it has a direct effect on firms profitability and market valuation. Their findings suggested that as cash conversion cycle decreases firms profitability increases and efficient working capital management also increases the market value of a firm. Barine (2012) established the relationship between efficient working capital management and firms profitability. Working capital management ensures a firms ability to satisfy both short term obligations and forthcoming operational expenses. They compared the cost and returns of working capital of 22 listed firms on Nigerian stock exchange. Their findings proposed that if cost of working capital is greater than returns on working capital investment then it negatively affects profitability and firms should have optimized working capital investments to stay away from over or under investments. Bhunia (2012) explored the influence of liquidity on profitability while taking the sample of FMCG companies in India during 2001 to 2010. He argued that working capital management plays an important role in the financial management decisions of a firm and managers should manage the trade-off between liquidity and profitability to attain optimal working capital management as it can create value for the firm. By using applied normality test, correlation and regression, the results indicated that liquidity and profitability are positively associated. The research of Vahid, Mohsen and Mohammadreza (2012) also highlighted the affect of working capital management policies on firms profitability. They explained that working capital management has a great impact on profitability and liquidity of a firm and it is responsible for the success and failure of a firm. Their sample consists of 28 Iranian companies listed on Tehran stock exchange for 2005-2009. Their results suggested that conservative investment policy i.e. high level of short term investment have a negative impact on profitability and value of a firm, while aggressive investment policy i.e. long term investment have positive impact on profitability and value of a firm. Their results also showed that aggressive financing policies i.e. high level of current liabilities to finance firms project have a negative impact on profitability and value of a firm, while conservative financing policies i.e. having more long term liabilities to finance firms operating activities have a po sitive impact on firms profitability and value. Al-Mwalla (2012) tried to observe the affect of working capital management policies on the profitability and value of a firm. He persuaded that a firm has to maintain adequate level of working capital to fulfill its short term obligations. Therefore, a firm can adopt one of the two policies; a conservative policy by maintaining low level of current assets to total assets or an aggressive policy by keeping high level of current liabilities to total liabilities. He took annual data of 57 firms listed in Amman Stock Market during 2001 to 2009 for analysis. The results portrayed that conservative policy of investment and financing are positively associated with profitability and value of a firm. Ahmad (2012) highlighted the influence of working capital management on forms performance while taking a sample of 253 companies related to non financial sector listed on Karachi Stock Exchange, Pakistan. He use ROA and ROE as proxy of firm performance and current asset over total sales, current asset over total asset, debtors turnover, current ratio and inventory turnover as proxies of working capital management. Using OLS regression, Pearson correlation analysis and logistic regression techniques, he found that all explanatory variables are positively correlated to firm performance except current assets to total sales as it has a negative correlation with firm performance. Usama (2012) extended the work of Rehman and Nasar regarding working capital management while taking the sample of 18 companies from other food sector listed on Karachi Stock Exchange for the period of 2006-2010. The researcher used different variables to measure working capital management such as average collection period, inventory turnover in days, cash conversion cycle, average payment period, debt ratio, firm size, current ratio, and financial asset to total asset. Using common effect model and pooled least square regression, the results indicated that working capital management has significant positive association with firms profitability and liquidity. He also concluded that firm size and minimum inventory turnover in days has positive influence on firms profitability. Myers (2001) purported that there is no general theory regarding debt and equity choice. He discussed three main theories for the choice of debt and equity. He described that according to trade off theory firms adopt that debt level which balances the tax benefits of additional debt against the cost of financial distress. Debt financing gives a tax shield to a firm therefore they took high level of debt to gain maximum tax benefits and eventually increase profitability. However, the increase of debt financing increases the possibility of bankruptcy. According to pecking order theory, when firms internal cash flow is not enough to fulfill its capital expenditure then firms prefer debt on equity. Mostly low profitable firms entail external financing and accumulate debt. According to the free cash flow theory, when a mature firm has profitable investment opportunities and its operating cash flow is considerably exceeds its investment opportunities, so this dangerous level of debt will h ave a positive effect on firms value regardless of threat of financial distress. Berger Bonaccorsi di Patti (2003) supported that leverage has a direct impact on agency cost which influences firm performance. They proposed that high leverage or a low equity capital ratio causes to reduce the agency cost related to outside equity and raises firm value. They used annual information of U.S. commercial banks from 1990 to 1995. Their result showed that a 1% increase in leverage decrease equity capital ratio surrenders a predicted 6% increase in profit efficiency. Fama French (2005) described the financing decisions of firms. They tested predictions of pecking order theory about financing decisions and claimed that more than half of their sample firms defy the pecking order predictions. Their first result is against the pecking order prediction that firms hardly issue stock. Under their sample, 67% of the firms issue stock each year during 1973-1982 and it rises to 74% for 1983-1992, and 86% during 1993-2002. So, equity decisions of a firm frequently violate the pecking order. Second prediction is that capital structure of a firm is derived by asymmetric information problem but their findings are against this prediction. They suggested that this problem can be avoided by issuing equity through different ways. Elsas, Flannery Garfinkel (2006) studied firm major investment, financing decisions and long run performance. They took 1,185 U.S. firms which made huge acquisitions or capital expenditures during 1989-1999. They observed that large firms financed their new investment with debt whereas equity has a small role. With the passage of time, new debt replaced with equity funds. Small firms mostly rely on issuing equity when financing its new investments to replace debt while internal cash flow is used by medium sized firms. They analyzed that debt financing produces negative long run performance more than equity financing whereas financing with internal funds never produce important share underperformance. Dittmar Thakor (2007) developed a new theory of issuance of security that is when stock prices are high then firms issue equity. This issue is contradictory with the two major theories of capital structure: pecking order and trade off theory. The main idea of their theory is that managers decision about security issuance is based on how their decisions will influence the investment choice of the firm and how this choice will influence the post-investment stock price of the firm. After the investment in the project, managers are more concerned about the stock price and the long term equity value of the firm. The shareholders and bondholders may object to the managers choice of investment because they have dissimilar beliefs regarding the value of the project. Their findings suggest that firms which issue equity have higher stock prices, higher values of agreement parameter and higher increase in investments.

Summary and Analysis of The Prioress Tale :: Canterbury Tales The Prioress Tale Essays

Summary and Analysis of The Prioress' Tale (The Canterbury Tales) The Prioress' Tale: The Prioress tells a tale set in an Asian town dominated by the Jewry in which usury and other things hateful to Christ occurred. The Christian minority in the town opened a school for their children in this city. Among these children was a widow's son, an angelic seven year old who was, even at his young age, deeply devoted to his faith. At school he learned a song in Latin, the Alma redemptoris, and asked the meaning of it. According to an older student, this song was meant to praise the Virgin Mary. As he was walking home from school one day singing this song, he provoked the anger of the Jews of the city, whose hearts were possessed by Satan. They hired a murderer who slit the boys' throat and threw the body into a cesspool. The widow searched for her missing child, begging the Jews to tell her where her child might be found, but they refuse to help. When she found him, although his throat was slit, he began to sing the Alma redemptoris. The other Christians of the city rushed to the child and carried him to the abbey. The local provost cursed the Jews who knew of this murder and ordered their death by hanging. Before the child was buried, he began to speak. The Virgin Mary had placed a pearl on his tongue that allowed him to speak, despite his fatal wound, but when the pearl was removed he would finally pass on to heaven. The story ends with a lament for the young child and a curse on the Jews who perpetrated this crime. Analysis The Prioress' Tale is overtly a religious tale centered around Christian principles and a devotion to the Virgin Mary, but within the warm affection that the Prioress shows for her Christian faith is a disquieting anti-Semitism that will be immediately obvious to the modern reader. The tale is an overwrought melodrama, replete with scenes of such banal sentimentalism and simplistic moral instruction. The tale is an unabashed celebration of motherhood. The guiding figure of the tale is the Virgin Mary, who serves as the exemplar for Christian values and the intervening spirit who sustains the murdered child before he passes on to heaven. Her mortal parallel is the mother of the murdered boy, who dearly loves her son and struggles to find the boy when he is lost.

Descent Into Savagery: Lord of The Flies

Descent into Savagery Lord of The Flies 11/15/2013 By: Em Boone. Grade 10 English The novel â€Å"Lord of The Flies† seems completely Innocent at first, but as you read on, you can tell that the isolated island is getting to them. The boys become violent and thirsty for human fear. They are questioned â€Å"Is the beast only within us? † I will describe their descent into savagery with a variety of extracts from the novel, trying to prove that the ‘best' is within us all. In the beginning the boys are very civilized and decide that since they are British hey must do things properly.Ralph was the one to blow the conch, so they all agree to vote him chief. â€Å"Let's vote – him with the shell. † (P. 21 . ) Jack the other candidate for chief looks shocked that for once In his life, he wasn't chosen first. Ralph noticing this announces that Jack is In charge of the choir and lets him chose their Island Job. Jack makes them hunters. Ralph In my opinion w as a good choice, he proves this later on by thinking thoroughly and keeping a sane civil mind. Ralphs first decision as chief Is for Jack, Simon and himself to do the ‘grown-up' hing and explore the Island.They want to make sure It Is an Island, and see If they're in fact the only human Inhabitants. When finished exploring, they are proven right. â€Å"There aren't any grown-ups. We shall have to look after ourselves. † (P. 31 . ) Ralph then creates his first rule: having ‘hands-up' Ilke at school during assemblies, then that person would be given the conch In order to speak. The hunter's fist opportunity to kill a pig Is during the exploring of the Island. Jack raises his knife Into the alr and freezes. He doesn't stab the pig because â€Å"of the normity of the knife descending and cutting Into llvlng flesh; because of the unbearable blood. (P. 29. ) In the beginning death was scary. This shows Jack not being able to bare the blood, which aggravates him more, because he wants to look superior and heuristic towards the others. The first moment the savage wlthln Is brought out Is when the child with the birthmark talks. â€Å"He says he saw a ‘beastie' the snake-thing and will It come back tonight? † (P. 34) the children are afraid of the night and the shadows. Their Imaglnatlve mlnas not only create a Tear Tor tnemselves, out Tor all 0T tnem; even hough the ‘bigguns' won't admit it, or believe that the fear is of themselves.Their next move is making a signal fire, which goes chaotic – they all become overly excited and end up burning down part of the forest along with burning the boy with the birthmark to death. When the fire burns out Jack realizes the mistake theyVe made and says â€Å"We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English. † (P. 40) The boys become more tribal when Ralph and Jack buttheads about how Jack and his hunters haven't putting as much contribution as the others in building shelters. The madness came into his eyes again. ‘l thought I might kill. Ralph points out that he didn't and asks for his help and Jack Just declares â€Å"We want meat-! â€Å"(P. 47) This leads to a row between the two. In the end Ralph says â€Å"All I'm saying is we've worked dash hard. That's all. † (P. 47) Jack is beginning his inhumanity behavior and wants nothing to but hunt. This is when the real fun' begins; Jack brings out the real beast in himself by painting his face to hide from his self-consciousness and shame, he becomes an alter ego who lives off the fear of other living things. He wants power within the knife he possesses.His first act of being â€Å"an awesome stranger† (P. 58) is creating the war dance to slaughter a pig: â€Å"Kill the pig, cut her throat, spill her blood. † (P. 62) ironically, earlier he wanted rules he said â€Å"We're not savages. We're English. † (P. 40) Painting your face, and crea ting a killing dance is savage in my opinion. When a ship passes and everyone's home of rescue is crushed when they learn of Jack not caring that he let the fire out – I realized he didn't miss home like the others. This creates more tension between Ralph and Jack. fou said you'd keep the fire going and you let it out!

Combating Poverty Essays

Combating Poverty Essays Combating Poverty Essay Combating Poverty Essay This the portion that our 40th president was confused.This existent non films President Reagan. President Reagan try to work out our poorness by coming up with this program called the Reaganomics this was suppose to repair our economic inequality, racial inequality, wellness inequality Aboriginal issues peace and justness. Well he blew that theory when he tells the narrative about Cadillac ensconced Chicago public assistance queen who had 80 names 30 frocks 12 societal security cards.Reagonomics and the hapless. Biotechnologies policies called for broad dispersed revenue enhancement cuts, diminish societal disbursement, to increase of the military disbursement and the deregulating of domestic market.1981 the increasing feminisation of poorness cuts income support and other societal plans, disaproportionately affected women.1983 that s when I drop out of college the biotechnologies affected the college support.He cut support to increase military disbursement. I was non able to happen a occupation for months all summer plans was cut. Liberals point of position three things he tried to do ketchup a veggie, he flooded the state with ruddy ink he was average spirit to the hapless for eight old ages. Oppression the cardinal unfairness modern liberalism. Plato and Aristotle believed in natural hierarchy of intervention, as captivity and denial of citizenship, equity or equal rights subjugation did non become of import subject in political doctrine until the coming of liberalism and the thought than worlds are approximately morally equal. It is a clearly modern impression that people are in some sense or other equal to each other The equality thesis has been given assorted theological. Philosophic and morale readings and justification by different minds. Possibly the most amazing of all. Grace said she answer to her power to assist let go of laden hapless of enduring from poorness homeless childs and adult females from all racial groups. The battle against national subjugation and for full equality in the United States is portion and of the worldwide radical battle against imperialism. The of laden nationalities for echt equality in the United States is non a battle of â€Å"minorities, † instead, it is portion of the radical battle of the bulk of the universe s people in the 3rd universe to emancipate themselves from imperialism Theo s. national memorials designation with state release in the 3rd universe can be seen in the solidarity of Asiatic Americans with the Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, the African Liberation Solidarity and anti-apartheid motions among African Americans, support for Cuba and other release motions in Latin America, particularly Mexico, among Latinos and of class support the Palestinians and other Arabs in the United States. Merely as the radical nature of the battles of laden states and people around the universe do non depend on propertyless leading of those battles, neither does the objectively radical nature of the national motions in the United States require of these motions either working category leading or a socialist ori entation. Since monopoly capitalist economy is built on both national subjugation and the development of the working category, triumphs in the battle against national subjugation are blows against the imperialist system. Imperialism is used here to include both monopoly capitalist economy and besides the imperialist system. Imperialism is used to include both monopoly capitalist economy and besides the imperialist and colonialist policies of Europe and United States during their pr-monopoly times. Merely socialism can emancipate the multitudes of laden nationalities in the United States. Merely the working category can give radical leading to the national motions. History of the United States is one of uninterrupted aggression and subjugation of laden nationalities in the United States. The Reconstruction ( 1865-1877 ) , which brought some additions for African Americans, was a clip of continued conquering of Native Americans, the intensification of the anti-Chinese motion and the ictus of Mexican land. Constructing a strategic confederation of the national motions and the working category to subvert imperialism and set up socialism. A Law Against Poverty Quebec New Approach To Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. On December 13, 2002, the State assembly in Quebec nem con adopted a jurisprudence to â€Å"combat poorness and societal exclusion Bill is a model jurisprudence that includes a National Strategy to Combat Poverty and Social Exclusion, a fund to back up societal enterprises, an â€Å"Observatory, † and an Advisory Committee on the Prevention of Poverty and Social Exclusion. This new jurisprudence is alone in North America, and it constitutes a important political invention, if merely because it makes poorness decrease an explicit and cardinal policy precedence. The measure is besides the consequence of a singular procedure of corporate action and public deliberation. This background was written while the anti-poverty jurisprudence was still before the National Assembly. It is hence excessively early for thorough rating of the undertaking. Quebec s societal policy docket farther from that of its neighbours and closer to the preoccupations of European states. A jurisprudence drafted. When the Party Quebecois came to power in September 1994, its societal and economic aims reflected the party s traditional social-Democrat orientations. Job creative activity was the chief aim to be accomplished intercession in a coaction of societal spouses, that is via 8th oftripartism affecting concerns trade brotherhood and the province. Toward its bosom the new Broad authorities in Ottawa was emphasized more traditional of disbursement in break encouraging state and municipalities to take part to take part alongside it. Almost instantly Quebec community groups and societal histrions sought to broaden docket. The most accurate industry to do this point was bred-year-old Mark from Montreal and Quebec organized and June 1995 by the Quebec adult females s Federation the March responded to the infracturethem with its ain accent substructure, and it does importance of complementing occupation creative activity was implicit attempt to cut down poorness at adult females in peculiar. The call for better societal substructure in intellectually greater acknowledgment that societal economic include assorted steps commiting this outgrowth of . Attempts on poorness brought to full patient that was the wellness and vicinities and communities they had small topographic point on the public policy and more significantly it to happen a nucleus issue around which brought porous the bubble prevarications. It hence by the community sector with the possibility of developers home societal accomplishments, non incompatible with, but distinct from that of the brotherhoods sniffed as of this new revelations and it s divergency from eight tripartite theoretical account, you can obvious in 1996. Quebec s authorities coming to come is on economic system and run it designed to construct nsensus for larning the shortage for the first clip community is besides groups were invited as full spouses. They adapted a matter-of-fact moderate stance. They argued that any call for a coney and the state of the shortage must be balanced by public commission non to decline the state of affairs of the poorest fifth of the population governor responded the bound committedness promise in three old ages of support to battle poorness financed by a particular revenue enhancement on concerns that I come our poorness any definite. On the docket moreover it ) in believable correlativity in favour of new policies had coalesced in addition acknowledgment by authorities alliance now has 22 groups or federations as members including all the major brotherhood federations stewed associations and groups working on house and allow her see human rights international development. Regional collectives have besides been created all of that and compromising more than 5000 groups from all sectors including many mixable authoritiess to roll up the work on two foreparts. First they circulate a request in favour of a jurisprudence on a restriction of five by the terminal of 2008 choice 21,307 signatures. Second and more significantly it launched ambitious procedure of roll uping corporate action public deliberation it from preliminary, it launched ambitious procedure up to action public deliberation. A audacity version of a path that was circulated in 1990 and 1999 generated over 20,000 remarks in 5000 Jackson s. They were used to cut down 2nd version was so began to concentrate on more than 200 popular literary session. Easily lead to a 3rd and concluding bill of exchange measure, which was ratified by assembly of more than 2000 individuals on May 13, 2008 province collected work with attorneies, so that this measure would be written precisely as any bill of exchange statute law presented in the national assembly. So possibly one twenty-four hours a new president will seek to modify the same jurisprudence that Quebec is traveling to battle party. Gary Cooper

Undying Motherly Love

Undying Motherly Love Once, in Russia, there was a married couple, as happy as nobody ever saw. When they walked around their neighborhood, every neighbor was delighted at the happy sight. They could not be in more love. But when the couple found out they were to be parents. The happiness doubled, for that was their wish.At last, when Anya, the wife, and now mother gave birth to their child, Ivan, the husband and now father couldn't resist his growing happiness. But a cloud of sadness poured its shadow over them. When Anya had taken her first look at her child, she gave her last sigh, and died. Ivan, his heart broken for ever, held his dead wife's cold hand, and cried his heart out. How was he to take care of a child all alone?Ivan put the finest clothes he could find for her dead wife, when they buried her.St. TatianaHis grieve could not be compared. Now the whole village shared his mourning, for they loved the couple's sight, and the child was a gift from heaven.Ivan's child was very strange, for at day it cried and wailed like no other, no matter what he did, so he hired a woman to take care of him, Tatiana. When Ivan went to work out in the fields, the old woman would try to take care of the child, but it was too wild. No matter what she gave him or did, the child would scream as if he was in deep pain. But something strange also happened with the child. When night came upon them, it would stop crying, and be as quiet as air, you would think he wasn't there at all. This puzzled the old Tatiana, so one very cold night, she stayed up, sewing...

A Practical Proposal Addressing a Local Problem

A Practical Proposal Addressing a Local Problem The following is a paper on a practical proposal addressing a local problem. This paper is a summary of my research on the employees’ rights violation at the giant Wal-Mart retail stores.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on A Practical Proposal Addressing a Local Problem specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The paper has information on how the rights of the employees have been violated (low salary, poor working conditions, employee discrimination and inadequate health care). Due to the employees’ violation at Wal-Mart, the information in the paper provides guidance on how workers can go about resolving their issue (by forming or joining trade unions). It goes in depth to explain how these unions work and finally gives a justification on the whole issue. Wal-Mart is the largest retail store in America and the world. The retail store is still spreading its dominance worldwide, starting in Asia where it has its st ores in over ten countries, Europe and South America. The giant retail store is still planning to expand its business dealings on an even wider scope in the near future. The giant store possesses incentives that are geared towards profit making, due to the recent recession though, the incentives tend to hurt its workers. With Wal-Mart’s effort to make a way into hypermarket cultures all over the world, lots of severe setbacks have come into play. What is more, low-wages, low benefits, employment discrimination, poor healthcare, anti-union policies, and bad working conditions have made Wal-Mart an evil business in the eyes of their employees. This paper will therefore concentrate on Wal-Mart’s employee violations, propose a solution to this and finally find a justification on the whole issue. â€Å"With about two million employees worldwide, Wal-Mart has faced a torrent of lawsuits and issues with regards to its workforce. These issues involve low wages, poor working c onditions, inadequate health care, employee discrimination, as well as issues involving the companys strong anti-union-policies† (Keil Lee 336).Advertising Looking for essay on labor law? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Criticism has pointed out to Wal-Marts soaring turnover rates as proof to a discontented labor force, even if other aspects may possibly be involved. A study has shown that, roughly seventy five percent of its workers leave inside one year with the firm. Wal-Mart’s full-time hourly associates receive, a standard, 10.11 dollars every hour; with 34 hours in a week, a worker gets 17,874 dollars in a year which is 20% lesser than an average retail employee. The firm is also accused of poor employee working conditions. This is evidenced by lawsuits against the firm asserting that workers are sometimes forced to work off the clock (where overtime pay is refuted), are denied lunch breaks or eve n stopped from taking rests. The best solution on the problems affecting Wal-Mart employees lies in the forming and joining of labor unions that will advocate for the workers’ rights. Labor unions and particularly in the United States are lawfully distinguished as representatives of employees and workers in various industries. â€Å"Activities by labor unions in the United States today centers on collective bargaining over wages, benefits, and working conditions for their membership, and on representing their members if by any chance the management attempts to violate contract provisions† (Zieger Gall 548). In this case therefore, forming and joining labor unions is the way forward as they will advocate policy implementation and legislations on behalf of the employees, despite the fact that wall mart has strong anti-union policies. With the union again, the workers will notably gain some equity and bargaining power, this comes about when violations against the workers have been experienced (Zieger Gall 548).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on A Practical Proposal Addressing a Local Problem specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The union makes sure that the law is followed and that a contract term drafted by a single party, is intrinsically biased (the union makes sure the employees and the management are the stakeholders in contract drafting), â€Å"as a result the union brings the management and the workers as close as to equal as possible providing a legal counter weight to the management† (Zieger Gall 548). The employees are also responsible in electing their own representatives in the union who will air their grievances to the union in cases of employee violations, in order for the union to take corrective measures. As a justification for what the workers need to do, there is a tight regulation in the labor union on private-sector union membership by the NLRA (National Labo r Relations Act). This law is run by the National Labor Relations Board, a self-governing national organization, this union and others are controlled partially by federal government and partially by government laws. General they have displayed vigorous growth for pay, and workers conditions are put through negotiations with selected local and government officers. When joining a labor union, employees must either be granted voluntary acknowledgment from the employer or acquire majority employees in the bargaining-unit vote to be represented in a union; in both cases, the federal government is to endorse the union (Zieger Gall 548). â€Å"Once the union has won the support of a majority in the bargaining unit and is certified in a workplace, it has the sole authority to negotiate the conditions of employment;† (Zieger Gall 548) as shown by Zeiger gall (548) again, the management and the union together draft the stipulations and conditions of service in lawfully binding contr acts.Advertising Looking for essay on labor law? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More When violations do occur in the workplace, majority contracts bring in other parties to take care of their differences, via a complaint procedure to see if the problem can be jointly resolved. â€Å"If the union and the employer still cannot settle the matter, either party can choose to send the dispute to arbitration, where the case is argued before a neutral third party† (Zieger Gall 548) A number of U.S. economists are trying to analyze whether Wal-Mart has a positive or negative impact particularly on the American economy. The major irony behind this is that the analysis is sponsored by Wal-Mart itself. In attempting to mend its reputation and reach out to critics Wal-Mart conducts gatherings and conferences in Washington D.C., despite this, Wal-Mart is evidently dragging down American living standards when they violate their employees’ rights. They do this when they pay poverty level wages and other benefits. Conversely, they argue that they have the lowest prici ng which is beneficial to consumers, particularly the poor while keeping the overall inflation checked. To alleviate this it is necessary that its workers form or join labor unions. There many advantages in these unions, some of these are better wages and benefits for its members, improved work conditions together with social networks providing financial, emotional and legislative hold up. The actual gain from a union though is the provision of another stronger voice in bargaining during contract formation. Keil, Stanley. Spector, Lee. The Impact of Wal-Mart on Income and  Unemployment Differentials in Alabama. Review of Regional Studies; Winter, 35 (3), 336-355. 2005. Print. Zieger, Robert, Gilbert, Gall. American Workers, American Unions: The  Twentieth Century. Maryland. John Hopkins University Press. 2002. Print.

Marketing Plan- Victoria House Hotel Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Marketing Plan- Victoria House Hotel - Essay Example Moreover, since the area is an attractive tourist spot, it has become a center of attention for many high end tourists and corporate clients who frequently travel to this area, giving the whole industry an advantage of increased customer traffic owing to the efficiently operating tourist industry as well as airline industry giving benefits of travel and tourism to customers. An overall change in the travel and dining out habits of consumers and potential clients has given the industry an extra advantage in terms of people dining out more frequently than ever before. Despite the benefits this industry enjoys, it is unfortunately also facing increased legislation and restrictions from administration and government which are creating new barriers such as licensing laws and ban on smoking in public areas. Taking a look at the firm itself and the internal factors affecting the health of it, we see that the Hotel is in an overall advantageous state in terms of profits and growth. It has be en consistently expanding successfully, improving areas such as accommodation and entertainment. It is located at a strategically profitable location where tourists find it convenient to travel the nearest tourist spots and come back to the Victoria House Hotel later. The Hotel has been experiencing raising profits and has a dedicated team well trained in customer care in order to make the clients feel at home. One drawback that the Hotel has been facing is a reduction in corporate clients which needs to be addressed and solved as soon as possible (Thomas, 1998; Eldring, 2009). Target Audience Victoria House Hotel has seen a trend of declining corporate audience and tourists over the past year which is a sign of losing future profits because this portion of the industry is a thriving opportunity to be captured. The industry has faced a 20% rise in corporate events and hence a rise in corporate customers traffic. This means that in future, it is expected that corporate customers†™ traffic along with tourists will increase, due to tourism and airline industries attempts to attract tourists and those clients who travel for business and trade reasons. The aim of Victoria House Hotel should hence be to attract this specific niche which has a lot of scope and new opportunities to be availed for future profitability. Provision of exclusive packages and luxury accommodation and travel to specific clients will help the company make higher profits as well as the advantage of having no direct competition when considering this specific niche in the industry (Luther, 2011; Westwood, 2012). Marketing Objectives For the company to ensure effective operations and improvement, it needs to define its objectives clearly that are to be different from other competitors. If the company keeps operating in this cut throat competition targeting the mass market, it will soon have to give up its profits and reduce operating margins or hope that competitors don’t come up wit h better strategies. 1) Target a specific audience and provide them benefits accordingly. It is not possible to satisfy everyone, hence only a certain segment of the target market will be chosen in this case, the corporate

Debt ceiling Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Debt ceiling - Essay Example The researcher states that debt ceiling is the limit to which debts can be borrowed. The debt ceiling as perceived in the United States is the maximum amount of debt that can be borrowed by the United States in order to run its operations. The process through which debt is borrowed by the government is by issuing bonds. The government issues bonds in order to raise the debt and the holders of such bonds hold the position of a creditor. The bonds have a date of maturity and a rate of return, and these are held by individuals or organizations as available for sale as well. Due to the application of debt ceiling, there is a limit to the amount borrowed by the United States through such bonds, which means the overall deficit in the federal budget cannot exceed the debt ceiling therefore it can be said the overall spending of the government is limited to the extent of the debt ceiling. The topic of debt ceiling was selected because it holds significant importance in the current economic s ituation of the United States. After the recent debt ceiling crisis and the impacts of this crisis on the overall economy of the United States, the understanding of the concept of debt ceiling holds significant importance. Before the debt ceiling was created in the United States, the President was free to make decisions regarding the overall borrowings by the US. The debt ceiling was created in 1917 in order to ensure the accountability of the debt borrowings by the US. Debt ceiling is important for the economy of the US in a number of ways. Following are some of the important aspects of the debt ceiling.... The debt ceiling does not only keep the overall borrowings in control but there are a number of other economic factors linked with borrowing that also come under control due to the debt ceiling. When the debt ceiling is reached while determining a budget, the regulatory authorities can use ‘extraordinary measures’ to raise the required finances in order to remain under the debt ceiling. Such extraordinary measures are not considered unless there is a genuine need to raise the finances such as for saving a part of the government to shut down. There is a limit to the amount of funds to be raised through such ‘extraordinary measures’ and if the regulatory authorities remain unable to raise the required amount of funds through such measures as well, a rise in the debt ceiling is considered.The debt ceiling also influences the extent of government spending. In the presence of debt ceiling, there would be a control over the government’s decisions regarding spending on its operations. Excess government spending may result in increased deficit in the budget. Since the deficit in the budget and government spending influence the overall economic activity in the country, it may lead to a steep rise in inflation in the country. Thus, debt ceiling is important to keep an active control over the borrowings made by the US and the spending made by the government.The debt ceiling is also important because it keeps the federal budget of the United States under control. The debt ceiling keeps the regulatory authorities from exceeding the borrowing limit and in order to meet the deficits in the budget, other measures are resorted to. In the recent past, the debt ceiling has caused

Answers for questions Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Answers for questions - Assignment Example b) The miotic phase whereby the cell divides; this stage of the "cell cycle" comprises of two stages. First is mitosis, which is the division of the cell nucleus; this gets followed by cytokinesis, which is the splitting up of the cell’s cytoplasm to two daughter cells. Question Two Atomic bonds are in two types - ionic and covalent bonds; they vary in their structure, as well as their features. Covalent bonds comprise of pairs of electrons that two atoms share, and join the atoms in a permanent orientation; therefore, relatively high energies is essential  for breaking break them. The determining factor as to whether two atoms are capable of forming a covalent bond is dependent on their electronegativity that is the influence of an atom within a molecule of attracting electrons to itself. However, if two atoms vary considerably within their electronegativity, the result is one of the atoms loosing its electron to the other atom. In this case, the outcome happens to be a pos itively charged ion i.e. cation, together with a negatively charged ion i.e. ... The somewhat small size of water molecules paves way for many water molecules to bound one molecule of solute. As a result, the water’s partly negative dipoles get attracted to the positively charged constituents of the solute; this is the same with the positive dipoles. Question Four Osmosis is capable of producing disastrous impacts in living things; this is worse when a person drinks salt water like the ocean water. The body has the capability if handling a little bit of salty water, but if a person consumes salt water only for several days, the osmotic pressure starts drawing water from other sections of the body. Considering that a human body varies from 60% water i.e. in an adult male up to 85% in a baby, the body contains a lot of water; nonetheless, water is the vital ingredient within the human body. Therefore, if a person continues ingesting salt water, he or she will eventually undergo dehydration and die. Question Five The primary distinction between DNA and RNA ha ppens to be the sugar present within the molecules. Whereas the sugar available in a RNA molecule turns out to be ribose, on the other hand, the sugar available in a molecule of DNA happens to be deoxyribose. Although Deoxyribose is almost similar to ribose, the difference is that former contains one more OH. It is impossible for DNA to survive as a single molecule; rather, it exists as a tightly-bonded pair of molecules. The two long components entangle like vines, taking the shape of a twofold helix. This array of DNA strands is antiparallel, with the asymmetric tops of DNA components getting known as the 5? and 3? ends. The main differences amid DNA and RNA happens to be the sugar, with 2-deoxyribose getting replaced by the

4 topics to chose from Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

4 topics to chose from - Essay Example He explains that if a person thinks then he/she exists. This he confirmed through the use of the use of senses, he concludes that thought go hand in hand with being conscious. As a demonstration of his principles of thought and doubt, he conducted an experiment using wax. In his demonstration, the wax has certain characteristics as informed by the brain but the wax loses its characteristics once it put before a flame (Descartes 28). The wax though melted is still the same thing but the brain through his thoughts informs him that the wax characteristics are different. The use of this experiment meant to remove all doubts and uncertainty and thus to ensure that thoughts are used in guiding an individual’s beliefs. Descartes was considered the father of modern philosophy since he constructed many philosophies in use today. As a result of his philosophy of doubts, he went ahead and constructed a system of knowledge. In his system of knowledge, Descartes admitted to disregarding perception as unreliable and only admitting to deduction as a method. Descartes also explained the existence of God through the fact that God gave him a working mind and senses. In his argument, Descartes argues that God provided him with a sensory system that did not intend to deceive him (Descartes 59). As a result, the sensory perceptions appeared to him were involuntary and he used his senses to explain the external World. According to Descartes, the external world was brought about by the need for material things (Watson 51). In essence, the scientific method can be considered as a process, in which one corrects himself and his previous knowledge, through continuous examination of truth, for the final aim of finding answers to questions. This examination of truth is what is referred to as doubt and skepticism by Descartes. Theoretically, the scientific method of thinking, as practiced by famous thinkers such as Galileo and Francis Bacon,

Competition and competitiveness derive from different theoretical Essay

Competition and competitiveness derive from different theoretical frameworks and UK policy has failed to distinguish adequately between the two. Explain and discuss - Essay Example The competitiveness policy encourages on benchmarking whereby an entrepreneur visits another competitive entrepreneur and finds out on what he/she does in order to attain his/her success (Bristow 2010). In competition, every business is always straining to win the other by getting most of the customers on its side and not by merging and obtaining monopoly to exploit on the market. This is because if an entrepreneur exhibits monopoly power, he or she may exploit the market when there is no government interference. Marxian views competition as the act of competing for land, capital and workers alongside competing with other business and firms for profit making (Tan 2014). This means that a business unit must compete for the workers and it should provide reasonable pay for workers. Through this, they can be able to attract workers from other business units and this makes them have adequate labor. They should give their workers allowances and other benefits to encourage and motivate them. The business unit should not overwork the workers but instead they should give them a reasonable pay. Secondly, the business unit should also effectively compete for land as a factor of production. This simply means that the business unit should have enough money to buy adequate land since often businesses have to expand their premises. For a business to be successful then it should have adequate land to carry out its business activities and land is a competitive factor; hence they should strain to get the best available land according to the land use. Marketing business units should also strain to get land near their market while mineral based business units should strain to get land within their mineral extraction place and the market. Capital is the money needed to start and run a business. The business units should find the best financial institution where they can get access to loans and other financial support to run their businesses. Finally,

Language and Autism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Language and Autism - Essay Example In 1908, Eugen Bleuler a Swiss psychiatrist coined the word "autism" in schizophrenic patients who screened themselves off and were self-absorbed. Leo Kanner, while at Johns Hopkins, was first to describe autism in 1943 (Yazbak, 2003, 103-107). Leo Kanner described children with the following common traits: impairments in social interaction anguish for changes, good memory, belated echolalia, over sensitivity to certain stimuli (especially sound), food problems, limitations in spontaneous activity, good intellectual potential, often coming from talented families. He called the children autistic (Certec, 2004). A German scientist in 1944, Dr. Hans Asperger, described a milder form of the disorder that is now known as Asperger Syndrome. Asperger Syndrome (AS) (Asperger, 1944) is a subgroup on the autistic spectrum. People with AS share many of the same features as are seen in autism, but with no history of language delay and where IQ is in the average range or above (Baron-Cohen, 2004, 73-78). For a very long time, autism and psychosis continued to be confused and to this day parents are accused of causing the serious disabilities their autistic children have. For many years, researchers searched for the underlying cause of contact and language disorders, but they realized that the disability was more complex (Certec, 2004). Just et al. (2004, 1811–1821) suggest neural basis of disordered language in autism entails a lower degree of information integration and synchronization across the large-scale cortical network for language processing.

4 topics to chose from Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

4 topics to chose from - Essay Example He explains that if a person thinks then he/she exists. This he confirmed through the use of the use of senses, he concludes that thought go hand in hand with being conscious. As a demonstration of his principles of thought and doubt, he conducted an experiment using wax. In his demonstration, the wax has certain characteristics as informed by the brain but the wax loses its characteristics once it put before a flame (Descartes 28). The wax though melted is still the same thing but the brain through his thoughts informs him that the wax characteristics are different. The use of this experiment meant to remove all doubts and uncertainty and thus to ensure that thoughts are used in guiding an individual’s beliefs. Descartes was considered the father of modern philosophy since he constructed many philosophies in use today. As a result of his philosophy of doubts, he went ahead and constructed a system of knowledge. In his system of knowledge, Descartes admitted to disregarding perception as unreliable and only admitting to deduction as a method. Descartes also explained the existence of God through the fact that God gave him a working mind and senses. In his argument, Descartes argues that God provided him with a sensory system that did not intend to deceive him (Descartes 59). As a result, the sensory perceptions appeared to him were involuntary and he used his senses to explain the external World. According to Descartes, the external world was brought about by the need for material things (Watson 51). In essence, the scientific method can be considered as a process, in which one corrects himself and his previous knowledge, through continuous examination of truth, for the final aim of finding answers to questions. This examination of truth is what is referred to as doubt and skepticism by Descartes. Theoretically, the scientific method of thinking, as practiced by famous thinkers such as Galileo and Francis Bacon,

Language and Autism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Language and Autism - Essay Example In 1908, Eugen Bleuler a Swiss psychiatrist coined the word "autism" in schizophrenic patients who screened themselves off and were self-absorbed. Leo Kanner, while at Johns Hopkins, was first to describe autism in 1943 (Yazbak, 2003, 103-107). Leo Kanner described children with the following common traits: impairments in social interaction anguish for changes, good memory, belated echolalia, over sensitivity to certain stimuli (especially sound), food problems, limitations in spontaneous activity, good intellectual potential, often coming from talented families. He called the children autistic (Certec, 2004). A German scientist in 1944, Dr. Hans Asperger, described a milder form of the disorder that is now known as Asperger Syndrome. Asperger Syndrome (AS) (Asperger, 1944) is a subgroup on the autistic spectrum. People with AS share many of the same features as are seen in autism, but with no history of language delay and where IQ is in the average range or above (Baron-Cohen, 2004, 73-78). For a very long time, autism and psychosis continued to be confused and to this day parents are accused of causing the serious disabilities their autistic children have. For many years, researchers searched for the underlying cause of contact and language disorders, but they realized that the disability was more complex (Certec, 2004). Just et al. (2004, 1811–1821) suggest neural basis of disordered language in autism entails a lower degree of information integration and synchronization across the large-scale cortical network for language processing.

Unrealistic Optimism Gender and Culture Essay Example for Free

Unrealistic Optimism Gender and Culture Essay Several studies have been conducted to determine the influence that unrealistic optimism has over gender differences and culture. Unrealistic optimism is defined as the belief that positive (negative) events are more (less) likely to happen to one ’s self-versus others. Researchers have reported that both men and women from across cultures tend to be influenced by this bias. Nevertheless, they’ve found that Western cultures (such as Americans or Canadians) are identified by being independent and individualist, whereas Eastern cultures (such as Japanese) tend to focus on interdependence and collectivism. Given this basic traits, experimenters have discovered that Canadians tend to believe that positive events are more likely to happen to them, whereas Japanese tend to believe that they are more likely to experience negative events. In the other hand, both men and women have revealed to be unrealistically optimistic. However, men have reported higher levels of unrealistic bias compared to women around the world. Introduction Unrealistic optimism or optimistic bias is defined as the tendency for people to believe that they are more likely to experience positive events and less likely to experience negative events compared to others. (Weinsten, 1980). Taylor and Brown stated that almost 121 studies have demonstrated this phenomenon. Various findings have confirmed that American college students think that they were more likely than others to experience positive events such as getting a good job or forming a family. In opposition, most people think that they are less likely than others of experiencing negative events such as having a drinking problem or being fired from a job. The purpose of this essay is to determine the extent to which cultural and gender differences are influenced by unrealistic optimism. Unrealistic Optimism Unrealistic optimism could cause a negative effect over an individual’s life as it can distort their perception about reality. However, unrealistic optimism has also shown favorable effects over and individual’s well-being. This bias is significantly important because it can impact people’s intentions to engage in preventive behaviors. In addition, it can also affect the way in which people process information to update their beliefs. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that optimistic bias appears to be motivated by threat. In other words, if a negative future event is perceived to be particularly serious, it’s more likely that the person will feel invulnerable toward that particular event. Western vs. Eastern Cultures The tendency of believing that one has better-than-average attributes has been researched and discussed lately. Researchers have found that people from Western cultures tend to be more unrealistically optimistic than people from Eastern cultures when comparing their chances of experiencing negative events to the average’s person. Markys and Kitayama stated that this bias influences every culture in a different way because they emphasize to tasks relevant to everyday life in different forms; independence and interdependence. Additionally, they stated that the cultures that have developed an independent construal of self are characterized by having an autonomous sense of self that’s different from others and the environment, whereas cultures that have fostered an interdependent construal of self are mutually reliant on each other and don’t attribute their individuality and uniqueness separately from the social world. Study #1 Cultural differences in unrealistic optimism and pessimism For this particular study participants form Japan and the United States responded to questions about negative health events that varied in event frequency and severity. The overall purpose of this study was to examine cultural differences in unrealistic optimism and pessimism through the direct versus the indirect method. The direct method involved a question in which participants compared themselves to the average group (e.g., â€Å"How likely are you to have a heart attack, relative to the average student of your age/sex?†). In the other hand, the indirect method involved a single question in which participants made absolute separate ratings for themselves (e.g., â€Å"How likely are you to have a heart attack?†). For the indirect method, the researchers predicted that participants across cultures would present different patterns. For instance, they expected that Japanese participants would report equal or higher risk estimates than for the average student for most events. In the other hand, they predicted that U.S participants would present higher risk estimates for themselves than for the average student for most events. In contrast, for the direct method investigators predicted that participants across cultures would report similar patterns of unrealistic optimism since cognitive biases such as egocentrism on direct comparisons will have a significant influence over respondents. After 127 students from the University of Iowa (United States) and 123 students from Kansai University (Japan) were tested through both the direct and the indirect methods, researchers acknowledged that in order to determine whether there are cross-cultural differences in unrealistic optimism they needed to take in consideration on whether direct or indirect comparisons were made. Considering the direct method, there was evidence that both Japanese and U.S. participants displayed high levels of unrealistic optimism about avoiding infrequent/negative events but, unrealistically pessimistic about avoiding frequent/negative events. However when measuring unrealistic optimism or pessimism through the indirect method the Japanese participants reported to have a tendency towards being less unrealistically optimistic than the U.S. participants. Contrarily, U.S participants showed that they tend to be more optimistic about themselves than for the average student for the majority of the events. Study#2 Does the West feel more vulnerable than the East?. At the same time, Steven J. Heine and Damn R. Lehman from the University of British Columbia compared the levels of unrealistic optimism between Canadians and Japanese through two different studies. The first study examined levels of unrealistic optimism exhibited by a sample typical of an independent construal of self (Canadians) and a sample typical of an interdependent construal of self (Japanese). Three different hypotheses were stated by the researchers. The first hypothesis anticipated that Canadians would show significantly more unrealistic optimism than Japanese; the second hypothesis drawn expected that constructs that have been shown to sustain the optimism bias, and availability of stereotypes, would be more pronounced in Canadians than in Japanese. And the last hypothesis predicted that Japanese’s optimism judgments will be less strongly related to threat whereas, Canadians unrealistic optimism would increase with perceived threat. For this particular study a total of 510 students who were taking different introductory psychology courses participated. Respondents were evenly separated between each of the Japanese and the Canadian samples. Moreover, in order to obtain membership in the westernized Canadian sample, respondents had to meet each of the following criteria: (a) the respondent had to be born in either Canada or the United States; (b) both of the respondents parents had to be born in Canada, the United States, or in a European country; (c) the respondent had to declare his or her ethnic descent to be that of a European culture; and (d) to keep the age range of the Canadian sample comparable to that of the Japanese sample, the respondent had to be between the ages of 18 and 25. All participants completed a questionnaire packet that included 15 future life events. Unrealistic optimism was measured for both negative and positive events through two methods: within-groups measure and between-groups measure. In the within-groups measure, participants had to respond questions about the chances they thought they had about experiencing a particular future event compared to other university students. In the other hand, through the between-groups measure the experimenters measured unrealistic optimism between groups. Participants received two different versions of the questionnaire. In the first version, beneath each future life event respondents were asked to estimate the absolute percentage chance that this event would happen to them. Contrarily, in the second version of the questionnaire, beneath each future life event, participants had to estimate the absolute percentage chance that a future event would happen to another same-sex student from their university. The assumptions made by Heine and Lehman about Study 1 were strongly supported since Japanese showed less unrealistic optimism than Canadians in all instances, regardless the methodology used. Surprisingly, experimenters found an in teresting pattern among participants’ estimates for themselves and others. Their findings suggested that Canadians tend to believe that positive events are more likely to occur to themselves in comparison to Japanese that reported to believe that positive events are less likely to happen to them than to others. Conversely, compared to Japanese, Canadians reported that the negative events were non significantly less likely to happen to themselves and significantly more likely to happen to others. Similarly, the main purpose for Study 2 was to examine only future life events. Researchers wanted to determine if Japanese would self-enhance more in cases in which their interdependence is threatened. Their findings were done through two subsets of future life events that we believed would be particularly threatening to people with independent and interdependent construals of self, respectively. Furthermore, Heine and Lehman anticipated that independent events would be perceived as more threatening than interdependent events for Canadians whereas interdependent ev ents would be perceived more threatening than independent events for Japanese. 215 introductory psychology students were taken in consideration for Study 2, including Japanese and Canadian students divided evenly within samples. All respondents completed a questionnaire which contained 10 questions about negative independent future events and 10 questions about interdependent future life events. These events were selected based on reasoning that independent events will threaten the individual; whereas interdependent events will threaten the individual’s relations with close others such as co-workers, friends or family members. The researchers’ findings revealed that comparing across cultures, Japanese perceived interdependent events to be more threatening than Canadians. Control and stereotype ratings were also examined in terms in how these independent and interdependent events would be rated. With respect to control, Canadians found that both independent and especially, independent events are more controllable. However, Japanese reported that in terdependent events are more controllable than independent events. Taken together both the controllability and severity findings, ratings suggest that negative future events were perceived differently by both cultures. As a result, Canadians and Japanese showed unrealistic optimism for both independent and interdependent events. In brief, Canadians were more unrealistically optimistic than Japanese for both independent and, especially, interdependent events whereas Japanese actually showed significant unrealistic pessimism for both types of events. Similarly, recent findings have shown several differences in the way in which genders (feminine and masculine) are influenced by unrealistic optimism. Most predictions suggest that men would show greater levels of unrealistic optimism than women. In fact, as women have a more interdependent self-construal of the self and men possess a more independent construal of the self, unrealistic optimism should be stronger and more resistant for men than for women. Furthermore, gender research has shown that men an d women have different expectations of marital quality; specifically different definitions of what constitutes a happy marriage Study #3 Gender differences in unrealistic optimism Two different studies held by Ying-Ching Lin and Priya Raghubir examined gender differences in optimistic bias, and their beliefs about marriage using a Taiwanese population. Study 1 tested the strength of the optimistic bias for men compared to women with respect to their expectations for a happy marriage or divorce. They hypothesised men to report higher levels of unrealistic optimism than women. In the other hand, Study 2 examined the bias’s resilience among men and women, and expected men’s beliefs to be less likely to be influenced by base rates compared to women. 309 students from a Taiwanese university were part of the study in which they had to respond to different questions regarding a target person (self, same-sex best friend, average undergraduate, and average person) and their likelihood of getting divorced or having a happy marriage. Half of the participants answered questions regarding the likelihood of having a happy marriage and the other half answered q uestions regarding the likelihood of getting divorced. Finally, they were asked to estimate the likelihood of an event occurring in the future from 0% to 100% for each of the four target persons. The results of this study suggested that Taiwanese men and Taiwanese women are unrealistically optimistic with respect to their relationships, and that men think that positive events, such as a happy marriage, are more likely to happen to them compared to an average person than women do. Similarly, they believe that negative events, such as divorce, are less likely to happen to them than to another person compared to women. 188 students participated in Study 2. They were divided into two groups assigned randomly to one of the two event conditions: happy marriage or divorce and were asked to estimate their own likelihood for that particular event. Subsequently, all participants were given base rate information for the event to which they were assigned (divorce = 25%, happy marriage = 60%). These base rates were based on an official publication of the Government Statistical Reports: Monthly Bulletin of Statistics. After being exposed to base rate information, all respondents were asked to estimate the likelihood of the event occurring to them, and to estimate the likelihood of the event occurring to someone else. The findings for this study reported, that both men and women show high levels of unrealistic optimism regarding a happy marriage and a divorce. Compared to men, women with a positive prior were influenced by the base rate information regarding a happy marriage. However, neither women nor men updated their estimates about their own divorce. In the other hand, men’s answers with a negative prior got influenced by the provided base rates at the beginning of the study whereas women’s answers were only influenced when talking about a happy marriage, but not about divorce. In general terms, both studies showed that both men and women tend to be influenced by optimistic bias about their expectations of their marriage. However, men showed greater levels of unrealistic optimism than women did. Regarding base rate information, women were more realistic in their estimates about a happy marriage compared to their estimates of getting divorced. Finally, only men with a negative initial prior were influenced by base rates whereas men with a positive initial prior do not updated their self- estimates. Gender vs. Culture The data used in both studies was collected using a Taiwanese sample (collectivist culture). However, the experimenters found that this bias is a universal phenomenon that occurs to both individualist and collectivist cultures. Moreover, recent work has reported that the bias is lower for participants who belong to collectivist cultures such as Japanese compared to individualist cultures such as Canadians. Because marriage is considered a relational aspect, consistent with a collectivist attribute, the population under this domain should show unrealistic levels of optimism. Conclusion Unrealistic optimism is a universal phenomenon that affects both gender and cultural differences around the world. Recent findings have demonstrated that both men and women across cultures (Eastern vs. Western) tend to be unrealistically optimistic about avoiding frequent/negative events, and unrealistically pessimistic about avoiding infrequent/negative events. However, the extent to which men vs. women and Eastern vs. Western cultures are affected by the bias varies among them. Being the West an independent and individualist culture, they report a higher tendency to be unrealistically optimistic. In contrast, being the East an interdependent and collectivist culture they present lower levels of unrealistic bias. At the same time, men and women have reported to be biased to some extent. Men have reported higher levels of unrealistic optimism, whereas women have shown to be less likely influenced by this threat. Now the question is: have you ever felt influenced by unrealistic bias?

Meaning and Definition of Performance Appraisal

Meaning and Definition of Performance Appraisal Performance appraisal is a formal system that evaluates the quality of a employees performance. An appraisal should not be viewed as an end in itself, but rather as an important process within a broader performance management system that links: Organizational objectives Day-to-day performance Professional development Rewards and incentives In simple terms, appraisal may be understood as the assessment of an individuals performance in a systematic way, the performance being measured against such factors as job knowledge, quality, and quantity of output, initiative, leadership abilities, supervision, dependability, co-operation, judgment, versatility, health, and the like. Assessment should not be confined to past performance alone. Potentials of the employee for future performance must also be assessed. Traditional Performance Appraisal The history of performance appraisal is quite brief.Its roots in the early 20th century can be traced to Taylors pioneering Time and Motion studies. But this is not very helpful for the same may be said about almost everything in the field of modern human resources management. During the First World War, appraisals concept was adopted by US army which was in the form of merit rating. It was man-to-man rating system for evaluation of military personnel. From the army this concept entered the business field and was restricted to hourly-paid workers. During 1920s, relational wage structures for hourly paid workers were adopted in industrial units and each worker were used to be rated in comparison to other for determining wages rates. This system was known by merit rating. The process was firmly linked to material outcomes. If an employees performance was found to be less than ideal, a cut in pay would follow. On the other hand, if their performance was better than the supervisor expected, a pay rise was in order. Little consideration, if any, was given to the developmental possibilities of appraisal. If was felt that a cut in pay, or a rise, should provide the only required impetus for an employee to either improve or continue to perform well. Sometimes this basic system succeeded in getting the results that were intended; but more often than not, it failed. These observations were confirmed in empirical studies. Pay rates were important, but they were not the only element that had an impact on employee performance. It was found that other issues, such as morale and self-esteem, could also have a major influence. As a result, the traditional emphasis on reward outcomes was progressively rejected. In the 1950s in the United States, the potential usefulness of appraisal as tool for motivation and development was gradually recognized. The general model of performance appraisal, as it is known today, began from that time. Modern Appraisal Performance appraisal may be defined as a structured formal interaction between a subordinate and supervisor, which usually takes the form of a periodic interview, in which the work performance of the subordinate is examined and discussed, with a view to identifying weaknesses and strengths as well as opportunities for improvement and skills development. In many organizations but not all, appraisal results are used, either directly or indirectly, to help determine reward outcomes. That is, the appraisal results are used to identify the better performing employees who should get the majority of available merit pay increases, bonuses and promotion. By the same token, appraisal results are used to identify the poorer performers who may require some form of counseling, or in extreme cases, demotion, dismissal or decreases in pay. Whether this is an appropriate use of performance appraisal, the assignment and justification of rewards and penalties, is a very uncertain and contentious matter. Objectives of Performance Appraisal Salary Increase Performance appraisal plays a role in making decision about salary increase. Normally salary increase of an employee depends upon on how he is performing his job. There is continuous evaluation of his performance either formally or informally. This may disclose how well an employee is performing and how much he should be compensated by way of salary increase. Promotion Performance appraisal plays significant role where promotion is based on merit and seniority. Performance appraisal discloses how an employee is working in his present job and what are his strong and weak points. In the light of these, it can be decided whether he can be promoted to the next higher position. Training and Development Performance appraisal tries to identify the strengths and weakness of an employee on his present job. This information can be used for devising training and development programmers appropriate for overcoming weaknesses of employees. Feedback Performance appraisal provides feedback to employees about their performance. A person works better when he knows how he is working. This works in two ways, firstly, the person gets feedback about his performance. Secondly, when the person gets feedback about his performance, he can relate his work to the orgaisational objectives. Pressure on Employees Performance appraisal puts a sort of pressure on employees for better performance. If the employees are conscious that they are being appraised in respect of certain factors and their future largely depends on such appraisal. Others: Identifying systemic factors that are barriers to, or facilitators of, effective performance. To confirm the services of probationary employees upon their completing the probationary period satisfactorily. To improve communication. Performance appraisal provides a format for dialogue between the superior and the subordinate, and improves understanding of personal goals and concerns. This can also have the effect of increasing the trust between the rater and the rate. To determine whether HR programmers such as selection, training, and transfer have been effective or not. Methods of Performance Appraisal A) Traditional methods 1) Rating Scales: The rating scale method offers a high degree of structure for appraisals. Each employee trait or characteristic is rated on a bipolar scale that usually has several points ranging from poor to excellent. The traits assessed on these scales include employee attributes such as cooperation, communications ability, initiative, punctuality and technical (work skills) competence. The nature and scope of the traits selected for inclusion is limited only by the imagination of the scales designer, or by the organizations need to know. The one major provision in selecting traits is that they should be in some way relevant to the  appraisers job. 2) Check-list Method: Under this method, checklist of statement of traits of employee in the form of Yes or No based questions is prepared. Here, the rater only does the reporting or checking and HR department does the actual evaluation. The rater concerned has to tick appropriate answers relevant to the appraises. When the check-list is completed, it is sent to HR department for further processing. Various questions in the check list may have either equal weightage or more weightage may be given to those questions which are more important. The HR department then calculates the total scores which show the appraisal result of an employee. Advantages economy, ease of administration, limited training required, standardization. Disadvantages Raters biases, use of improper weights by HR Dept, does not allow rater to give relative ratings. 3) Force Choice Method: A series of statements arranged in the blocks of two or more are given and the rater indicates which statement is true or false. The rater is forced to make a choice. HR department does actual assessment. Advantages Absence of personal biases because of forced choice. Disadvantages Statements may not be correctly framed. 4) Force Distribution Method: One of the problems faced in large organizations is relative assessment tendencies of raters. Some are too lenient and others too severe. This method overcomes that problem. It forces everyone to do a comparative rating of all the employees on a predetermined distribution pattern of good to bad. Say 10% employees in Excellent Grade, 20% in Good Grade, 40% in Average Grade, 20% in Below Average Grade and 10% in Unsatisfied grade. The real problem of this method occurs in organizations where there is a tendency to pack certain key departments with all good employees and some other departments with discards and laggards. Relatively good employees of key departments get poor rating and relatively poor employees of laggards departments get good rating. 5) Critical Incident Method: In this method, only critical incidents and behavior associated with these incidents are taken for evaluation. This method involves three steps. A test of noteworthy on the job behavior is prepared. A group of experts then assigns scale values to them depending on the degree of desirability for the job. Finally, a checklist of incidents which define good and bad employees is prepared. Advantages: This method is very useful for discovering potential of employees who can be useful in critical situation. Disadvantages: a) Negative incidents are, generally, more noticeable than positive ones. b) The recording of incidents is a core to the superior and may be put off and easily forgotten. c) Overly close supervision may result. 6) Essay Method: In the essay method approach, the appraiser prepares a written statement about the employee being appraised. The statement usually concentrates on describing specific strengths and weaknesses in job performance. It also suggests courses of action to remedy the identified problem areas. The statement may be written and edited by the appraiser alone, or it be composed in collaboration with the appraisee. 7) Grading: In this method, certain categories of abilities of performance are defined well in advance and person are put in particular category depending on their traits and characteristics. Such categories may be definitional like outstanding, good, average, poor, very poor or may be in terms of letter like A, B, C, D etc with A indicating the best and D indicating the worst. This method, however, suffers from one basic limitation that the rater may rate most of the employees at higher grades. 8) Performance Tests Observations: This is based on the test of knowledge or skills. The tests may be written or an actual presentation of skills. Tests must be reliable and validated to be useful. Advantage Tests only measure potential and not attitude. Actual performance is more a function of attitude of person than potential. Disadvantages Sometimes costs of test development or administration are high. 9) Confidential Reports: Though popular with government departments, its application in industry is not ruled out. Here the report is given in the form of Annual Confidentiality Report (ACR). The system is highly secretive and confidential. Feedback to the assessed is given only in case of an adverse entry. Disadvantage is that it is highly prone to biases and regency effect and ratings can be manipulated because the evaluations are linked to future rewards like promotions, good postings, etc. 10) Comparative Evaluation Method (Ranking Paired Comparisons): These are collection of different methods that compare performance with that of other co-workers. The usual techniques used may be ranking methods and paired comparison method. Ranking Method: Superior ranks his worker based on merit, from best to worst. However how best and why best are not elaborated in this method. It is easy to administer. Paired Comparison Method: In this method each employee is paired with every other employee in the same cadre and then comparative rating done in pairs so formed. The number of comparisons may be calculated with the help of a formula N x (N-1) / 2. The method is too tedious for large departments and often such exact details are not available with raters. B) Morden Methods 1) MBO (Appraisal by Results): The use of management objectives was first widely advocated in the 1950s by the noted management theorist Peter Drucker. MBO (management by objectives) methods of performance appraisal are results-oriented. That is, they seek to measure employee performance by examining the extent to which predetermined work objectives have been met. Usually the objectives are established jointly by the supervisor and subordinate. Once an objective is agreed, the employee is usually expected to self-audit; that is, to identify the skills needed to achieve the objective. Typically they do not rely on others to locate and specify their strengths and weaknesses. They are expected to monitor their own development and progress. 2) Assessment Center Method This technique was first developed in USA and UK in 1943. An assessment centre is a central location where managers may come together to have their participation in job related exercises evaluated by trained observers. It is more focused on observation of behaviours across a series of select exercises or work samples. Assesses are requested to participate in in-basket exercises, work groups, computer simulations, role playing and other similar activities which require same attributes for successful performance in actual job. Advantages Well-conducted assessment centre can achieve better forecasts of future performance and progress than other methods of appraisals. Also reliability, content validity and predictive ability are said to be high in Assessment Centres. The tests also make sure that the wrong people are not hired or promoted. Finally, it clearly defines the criteria for selection and promotion. Disadvantages Concentrates on future performance potential. No assessment of past performance. Costs of employees travelling and lodging, psychologists. Ratings strongly influenced by assassins inter-personal skills. Solid performers may feel suffocated in simulated situations. 3) 360o Appraisal: It is a technique in which performance data/feedback/rating is collected from all sections of people employee interacts in the course of his job like immediate supervisors, team members, customers, peers, subordinates and self with different weight age to each group of raters. This technique has been found to be extremely useful and effective. It is especially useful to measure inter-personal skills, customer satisfaction and team building skills. One of the biggest advantages of this system is that assesses cannot afford to neglect any constituency and has to show all-round performance. However, on the negative side, receiving feedback from multiple sources can be intimidating, threatening, and expensive and time consuming. 4) Psychological Appraisals: These appraisals are more directed to assess employee potential for future performance rather than the past one. It is done in the form of in-depth interviews, psychological tests, and discussion with supervisors and review of other evaluations. It is more focused on employees emotional, intellectual, and motivational and other personal characteristics affecting his performance. This approach is slow and costly and may be useful for bright young members who may have considerable potential. However quality of these appraisals largely depends upon the skills of psychologists who perform the evaluation. Performance Appraisals purpose Performance appraisals are essential for the effective management and evaluation of staff. Appraisals help develop persons, progress of organizational performance, and feed into business planning. Official performance appraisals are generally conducted annually for all staff in the organization. Every staff member is appraised by their line supervisor. Directors are appraised by the CEO, who is appraised by the chairman or company owners, depending on the size and formation of the organization. Annual performance appraisals allow management and monitoring of standards, agreeing expectations and objectives, and allocation of responsibilities and tasks. Staff performance appraisals also create individual training needs and facilitate organizational training needs analysis and planning. Performance appraisal also normally feed into organization annual pay and grading reviews which commonly also coincides with the business planning for the next trading year. Performance appraisals generally review each individual`s performance against objectives and standards for the trading year, agreed at the earlier appraisal meeting. Performance appraisals are also necessary for career and succession planning for individuals, critical jobs and for the organization as an entire. Performance appraisal are important for staff motivation, attitude and behaviour development, communicating and supporting individual and organization aims and fostering positive relationship between staff and supervision. Performance appraisal affords a formal, recorded, regular review of an individuals performance and a plan for future progress. Job performance appraisal in whatever forms they take are therefore fundamental for managing the performance of people and organizations. Managers and appraises frequently dislike appraisal and try to avoid them. To these people the appraisal is daunting and time consuming. The process is seen as a difficult administrative responsibility and emotionally challenging. The annual appraisal is may be only time since last year that the two people have sat down together for a meaningful one to one discussion. No wonder then that appraisals are stressful which then beats the whole purpose. Appraisals are much easier and especially more peaceful, if the boss meets each of the team members individually and repeatedly for one to one discussion throughout the year. Meaningful regular discussion about work, career, aims, progress, development, hopes and dreams, life, the universe the tv, common interests etc., whatever, make appraisals so much appraisal so much easier because people then know and trust each other which diminish all the stress and the uncertainty. Appraisals much address whole person development not just job skills or the skills necessary for the subsequently promotion. Appraisal must not differentiate against anyone on the grounds of age, sexual orientation, race, gender, religion etc. For Example in the uk, the uk employment equality regulation 2006, which is effective from 1st oct. 06, make it particularly important to avoid any comments, judgments, suggestions, questions or decision which might be supposed by the appraisal to be based on age. This means people who are young as well as old. Age, along with other description stated above, is not a lawful basis for assessing and managing people, unless proper objective justification can be proven. See the age variety information. When crafty or planning behaviour appraisal, seek to help the whole person to grow in whatever direction they want not just to identify clearly relevant work skill training. Increasingly, the best employee distinguish that increasing the whole person promotes positive attitudes, advancement, motivation and also develops lots of new skills that can be unexpectedly significant to working productively and effectively in any nature of organization. Developing the whole person is also an important aspect of modern corporate duty and independently, whole person development is a crucial benefit in the employment market, in which all employers contend to attract the best recruits and to retain the best staff. Therefore in appraisal be creative and imaginative in discussing discovering and agreeing whole person development that people will respond to, beyond the usual job skill set and incorporate this sort of development into the appraisal process. Abrsham Maslow recognised this over fifty year ago. If you are an employee and your employer has yet to cuddle or even acknowledge these concepts, do them a favour at your own appraisal and suggest they look at these ideas or maybe mention it at your exit interview prior to joining a better employer who cares about the people not just the work. Incidentally the Multiple Intelligences test and Vak learning styles test are tremendously useful tools for appraisals before or after to help people understand their nature probable and strengths and to help managers appreciate this about their people too. There are a lot of people out there who are in jobs which dont allow them to use and develop their supreme strengths, so the more we can help folk understand their own special likely and find roles that really fit well the happier we shall all be. Essentials for a successful performance appraisal system Basing appraisals on accurate and current job descriptions Ensuring that appraisers have adequate knowledge and direct experience of the employees performance Providing ratings via aggregated anonymous feedback when multiple sources of information are used Incorporating performance appraisals into a formal goal setting system Offering adequate support and assistance to employees such as professional development opportunities in order to improve their performance Conducting appraisals on a regular basis (at least two times a year) rather than annually. If resource constraints do not permit frequent formal appraisals, consider conducting one formal appraisal annually, with a review of progress in the mid-year and ongoing review in regular supervision meetings Using performance appraisal to address workforce development challenges: Regular performance appraisals provide a useful opportunity to conduct a check up on various workforce development issues that may impact on employees effectiveness and well being. Performance appraisals can be used to: Recognize, reward and support effective performance Develop and reward effective teamwork Identify and manage issues likely to impact on retention Monitor and support employees well being.   Recognize, reward and support effective performance Ensuring employees receive adequate rewards and recognition is a key workforce development issue for the performance. Performance appraisals provide a good opportunity to formally recognize employees achievements and contributions to the organization, and to ensure a clear link is maintained between performance and rewards. The appraisal interview can also be used as a vehicle to demonstrate supervisory and organizational support for employees by discussing barriers and supports to effective performance, and strategies to address problems or difficulties.   Develop and reward effective teamwork The appraisal interview is also a useful vehicle for recognizing and rewarding employees contributions to various teams in the organization, especially if appraisal information is gained from team members. An appraisal of the team as a whole can also be a useful strategy to recognize and reward team performance, and to identify strategies to improve team functioning.   Identify and manage issues likely to impact on retention Open and constructive performance appraisals can be useful to identify issues that are likely to impact on employees willingness to stay with the organization in the longer-term. Key factors associated with retention include salary and remuneration, professional development opportunities, and work-related demands and stress. The appraisal interview provides a good opportunity for a check up regarding employees satisfaction with their working conditions and environment, and a discussion of strategies to address any problems or issues.   Monitor and support employees well being Performance appraisal interviews are a good opportunity to discuss employees health and well being in the workplace, particularly in regard to factors that contribute to feelings of stress and experiences that promote satisfaction with their work. 360 Degree Assessment The concept of 360 degree feedback makes a lot of sense and, if used well, should have a great deal to offer. It seems to suit the move towards the less hierarchical, more flexibly-structured and knowledge-based organization of the future Professor Clive Fletcher Goldsmiths College, University of London Introduction In recent year the 360 degree appraisal has become much admired. It has been felt for long that one person`s assessment of another cannot be free of favoritism. In supplementary with the focus on customers and emphasis on softer dimensions of performance it has become necessary to multiple assessments for a more objective assessment. The 360 degree appraisal is multilayer assessment and feedback system. Almost Fortune 500 Company is using this in some form or other. In this method, the candidate is assessed periodically by a number of assessors including his supervisor, immediate subsidiary, colleagues, and inner and outer customers. The assessment is made on a questionnaire specially designed to measure activities measured critical for performance. The appraisal is done anonymously by others and the assessment is collected by outer agent or specially designated inner agent. The assessment is consolidated; feedback profiles are prepared and given to the participant after a workshop o r directly by his supervisor or the HRD department in a performance examination conversation sitting. Due to the incalculable variations possible in the 360 degree feedback and Appraisals and its effectiveness as a competency identification and development tool, it is important to understand the process and its dynamics. 360 degree feedback 360 degree feedback is a full circle system of acquiring informal from peers, subordinates and inner and outer customers about employee`s performance. 360 degree assessment is based on the assessment of an individual`s management styles, competencies and behavior by contemporaries horizontally and vertically by involving his supervisor, peers and direct report in organization. 360-degree feedback is an assessment of multi source, which contain; Self Supervisor Internal customers/staffs/peers External customers Why 360-degree feedback is needed in the organizations? Business is towards surplus generation. Without additional no organization can develop. Here the effort to grow the business and the surplus should come from employee part. The performance of the employees is at work here matters in business development and organizational development. The performance of the employees should then align with the strategic decisions that integrate the business goals in more and more aggressive environment. It is the duty of the Human Resource Management to assimilate the culture of the organization with all available resources to the best possible output. The 3600 Appraisal helps the HR Department to have better understanding of the competitive advantage and disadvantages of the current manpower resources and tune them towards performance quality and output. Prerequisites Top management support Confidence of employees on the appraisal methodology Objective need to be with performance requirement clearly stated A detailed plan of implementation Collaboration between superior and subordinates Some prior experimentation and positive experiences clear organization philosophy and policy objective Uses for 360 Degree Feedback contain: Performance Appraisal Recognition of performance. Providing feedback on individual performance. Providing a basis for self evolution. Assessing employee development   Diagnosing training and career development needs.   Providing a basis for promotion, dismissal, job enrichmen, job transfer, probation etc.   Monetary and other rewards. Organizational Climate Study   Organizational environment improvement needs   Changes in managerial approaches, leadership etc. Customer satisfaction study   Employees attitudinal change   Customer satisfaction improvements Using of 360-degree performance appraisal we get benefits like, 360 degree feedback permit an organization to focus on developmental efforts, at the individual and grouping level, in the nearby business position where the success of the company depends on constant revolution, which is possible through organizational development. 360-degree feedback facilitates the alignment of individual capabilities and behaviors with organizational strategies. That adds value to the organization uncaring ways:- 360 degree feedback afford a talented view about the employee from different source 360 degree feedback provides increased the understanding about one1s role probability 360 degree feedback provide a better understanding of employed development requirements 360 degree feedback provide the understanding of competence and skill in various roles 360 degree feedback provides a better understanding of individual presentation at work 360 degree feedback reduces training costs by identifying common development want 360 degree feedback extends better morale to those who perform and put in well to the organization 360 degree feedback helps everyone to work for a common standard and institutionalize presentation management 360 degree feedback ensure better interpersonal relationship and grouping cohesiveness It promotes self directed learning and provides a road map for employee`s development planning It promotes better communication within departments 360 degree feedback increases the team`s ability to put in to the organization goals 360 degree feedback increases the team`s ability to put in to the organizations goals develop better bottom line thought additional the capability of the organization to meet its objectives. For 360-degree feedback this steps may be taken to gauge the readiness of an organization Identification of the problem.  · Analysis of the organization context for finding a solution to the problem. Allocation of resources for the purpose in terms of time and finances. A detailed plan of implementation. Follow up Drawback of using 360-degree feedback A detailed plan of action which, ensure the transparent and clear implementation of appraisal with employee accountability. Effective follow up is the prime requirement of 360 degree feedback. Failure in follow u cause more scratch than superior. The 360 degree feedback is time consuming and cost consuming assessment process. Without having adequate resource to implement the process, it will end up no where and develop financial