Respond question about reading Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Respond question about reading - Essay Example e texts make that establish a comparison or relationship between Alexie and Superman, and thirdly, why Alexie uses superman and not some other fictional character, in the readings, â€Å"The Joy Of Reading And Writing: Superman And Me†. Superman, a superhero character in comic fiction books, at times, faces dangerous situations, but in the end of the episode, he usually saves the world and he survives. Similarly, Alexie faced a dangerous when he was born hydrocephalic, which forced him to go through a brain surgery when he was only 6 months old. The likeness in the two is based on the fact that, they are faced with a dangerous situation, but ultimately they thrive and overcome the dangerous situation (McQuade & Atwan 27). Furthermore, as Superman grows to be older, his prowess is shown by how he wins various feats involving villains. Similarly, as Alexie, from an inferior Spokane Indian background grows up, his prowess starts to show when he moves from the reservation school and enrolls in a high school. In particular, Alexie’s prowess is seen firstly, when he becomes a star player in his high school basketball team. Secondly, he gets a scholarship to attend Gonzaga University in Spokane. Thirdly, â€Å"after graduation he receives the Washington State Arts Commission poetry Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts poetry Fellowship. Fourthly, he receives a PEN/Hemingway Award for â€Å"Best First Book of Fiction† because of writing a collection of short stories. Fifthly, Alexie’s prowess that make him similar to Superman, continue to be seen, when Granta puts his name as part of â€Å"Best of Young American Novelist†, and his books win different awards such as th e Christopher Award, National Book award for Young people’s Literature and PEN/Faulker Award for Fiction (McQuade & Atwan 28). The major connections in the text that establish a comparison or relationship between Alexie and Superman are the struggles that Alexie and Superman had to go through in

Creationism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Essay Example for Free

Creationism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Essay The significant role of schools in teaching the population of students is one way to make sure that the society will have a bright future. However, in the cases wherein inappropriate teaching methods are used, this dream may be compromised. A very clear example is the teaching of creationism. Creationism is a perspective that identifies a certain supreme being to be the main perpetrator of the existence of the universe, including humanity (Ruse, 2007). There is an identifiable group of people who primarily believes in this notion. And because of that sectarian acceptance, there was a time when schools became a subject of intention in propagating this idea. In a much greater sense, creationism should never be taught in schools primarily because of the compromising effects it will bring towards the molding of the students. The topic is very much centered towards the philosophy of a person and do not provide any significant learning attribute. This is in direct contrast to the mission of the school to provide only the type of learning methods based on exact, credible and scientifically formulated aspects of knowledge. Creationism tends to be of religious in nature. It always inhibits the natural flow of scientific process to learn the observable and logical way of nature. As a result, it is very possible that students may get confused about their own perception about the universe and everything about it. They may leave the pre-conditions of scientific knowledge in favor of an easier to understand notion of creationism. Moreover, there may be cases in which some students may feel deprived of their rights to believe what they want to according to their respective philosophies in life. Creationism is a biased form of belief which only bases its ideology to a personal intuition. References Ruse, M. 2007. Creationism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved January 14, 2008 from http://plato. stanford. edu/entries/creationism/.

The multifaceted role of a manager

The multifaceted role of a manager The role of a manager in modern organization is a multi-faceted one-it involves many duties including planning and controlling budgets. However, it is argued that one of the most important and challenging roles of a modern manager is that of successfully managing PEOPLE. Tapping into peoples creativity, motivating them and providing support and appropriate leadership is vital to the success of the organisation Discuss this statement with a particular focus on exploring what skills are necessary to successfully mange people in todays workplace. The complex systems within which people perform their roles in called an organisation: which is also a coordinated group of people who perform tasks to produce goods and services, colloquially referred to as company (Muchinsky. P M, 2006). Organisational behaviour is thus a study of structure, functioning and performance of organisation, and the behaviour of groups and individuals within them (Pugh, 1971). Studying organisational behaviour is understanding how organisations work as a structure and assess what people accomplish, from the manager to the simple employee. In this present study, we are going to be interested in managers. What is a manager? A definition of a manager could be the one given by Bloisi W et al, who suggested that managers are people responsible for working with and through others to achieve objectives by influencing people and system in a changing environment ( 2003, 50) . This definition gives us a fair insight of what managers do but what are their roles in a modern organisation? Hence, in an attempt to analyse and understand what managers are to accomplish and how, we will subsequently analyse the multifaceted roles of a mangers through the different school of management approach, see why the greatest challenge for a modern manager is to successfully manage people and finally see other skills or competence required for a good manager. Before the issue of mangers role in an organisation is being addressed, it is highly crucial to understand how new organisations operate and what a real manager is. As depicted earlier, a manager can be portrayed as a person operating within the frame work of an organisation and driven by set objectives and through whom the process of effectively and efficiently combination of factors of production could lead to an optimization of output (profit à Ã¢â€š ¬). He/she endorses an economic rational behaviour, in relation with the objectives set by their company: which in a sense is maximising output for given inputs, [bearing in mind the constraints of cost]. Several Streams of thought and theories governing the managers role have emerged since the beginning the twentieth century from the classical perspectives, the human relation approach, the systems approach to the contingency theory. All of which highlighted the legal responsibilities of a manager which has mutated in parallel with the workforce evolution. The Classical perceptive defended by Frederick Taylor and his work on scientific management and Fayol later on with the administrative principles  [1]  of management, both focus on the idea that management can be learned and set in codes systematically. These ideas are mostly concerned with the structural perspectives of management: [focusing] on structuring and design of work and organisation (Gordon, J (1999, 14). For Taylor, a managers role has to be scientifically driven. He believed that managers have the responsibility to organise, plan and determine the best methods for performing jobs ,describing management as a science in which employees have specific and yet different responsibilities within their organisation. He is one of the first to talk about managerial and non-managerial roles and believed that scientific observation of people at work through survey and motions studies [] would be the one and only best way to do non-managerial task (Bloisi W, 2003, 6). Hence after the scientific observation made and the objective set, the manager has to behave in line with the scientific principals whilst recruiting, through the development of work, training and equal division of work between workers and management. However , despite setting a new way of viewing management in an organisation , the scientific approach of Taylor has been acutely criticised because in practice, the theory has said t o be too preoccupied with productivity (Bloisi W, 2003, 7) ,thus not really taking into account the employees welfare. Henri Fayol, a French industrialist for his part developed his own principals of management based of administrative aspect of managers role, in which he believed that businesses are divided into six subsystems and to run them successfully, managers have to exercise several duties which comprises; planning, organising, coordinating activities, commanding employees and controlling performance. For Fayol, managers plan by analysing the future and its outcomes through anticipation, goal setting, forecasting and decisive actions. They organise through the design of a framework/structure to assist the set goals. They coordinate by bringing together the activities taking place in the organisation. They command by directing the organisation on the path they want it to follow through leadership and motivation of employee Jack Duncan (1990,97 ) and finally they control by making sure that everything is undertook as planned and in occurrence keeping an eye on the budget. Fayol also added to his five management function his fourteen principles of management which calls for Specialization, unity of control unity of command and coordinating activities Gordon, J (1999, 16). Managers roles a quite diverse but yet, while the obligation of economic results is a necessity for managers nowadays effective managers are those who manage their employees. The structural perspectives of management through the classical theories of management held a quite limited view of people as employees. This is why the behavioural approaches were then suggested. In these approaches we have a shift where workers were no more viewed as passive and driven by economical self-interest (which was a rather mechanical point of view) to a more human-centred orientation where they to have their word to say in the organisational efficiency. These approaches set the structure that alimented the human relations school of thought where mainly Elton Bayo and Abraham Maslow believed that social attitude, relationship with employees and group work were the key for a successful organisation. In 1924, Elton Bayo undertook a research project to determine the relationship between physical working condition and productivity and came out with the Hawthorne effect that suggest that by simply paying attention to the experimental subjects causes their behaviour to change (Bloisi W et al , 2003, 7) and thus their productivity would increase. This approach is in reality very different from the classical approach because it inspires a variety of ideas that had no scientific justification. Hence manager should then be aware of the impact they could have if they pay more attention to their employees. Maslow for his part elaborated his theory of motivation where he defines human motivation as the study of ultimate human goals in his 1954 bo ok Motivation and personality (Bloisi W et al, 2003, 12). This suggests that if a manager motivates effectively his crew, this could lead undoubtedly to an increase of both welfare in the organisation and also output. From the human relations and classical approach came the system approach elaborated by Bernard and the contingency theory, who believed in the social and technical integration of human relations and classical for one and that other that they is no best streams of thought and they were all circumstantial. Moreover, Henry Mintzberg following his observation of the various streams of though believed that there is a disparity between managers role in the classical theories and the reality. He then came out with two contrasting view of managers: the rational heroic view and the chaotic realistic view. For him managers actually fill a series of ten roles that he point out in his book. The Managers job: Folklore and Fact. For him the rational heroic view implies that the manager know what he and his staff are doing, how and accept responsibility for the problems that can occur and evaluate his performance. The chaotic view implies the way todays managers flourish (Bloisi W et al, 2003, 53) preferring action over reflection. In his ten roles of managers Mintzberg says managers formal authority and status comprises interpersonal roles, information roles and decisional roles. For the interpersonal roles, managers have to stand as figureheads of the organisation, as the leaders and as the first liaison officers. For the information roles, they have to be the monitors, the disseminators and the spokesmen. For the decisional role, managers have to be the entrepreneurs, the disturbance handlers, the resource allocators and the negotiators. They must therefore be aware of environment in which they operate and understand how external factors could influence performance of internal subsystem (Bloisi W et al, 2003, 53) Aside from successfully managing the people in the organisation, effective managers are also those who embrace an ethical behaviour whilst working in an organisation, meaning that they have to be aware that legal requirements mandate certain ethical behaviours and have to ask themselves some questions like: What is morally just or right? And what is likely to benefit our own careers.(R.Gordon, 1999, 7). In conclusion, management is a very complex job because of the multifaceted role a manager has to encompass to successfully run a company. Being a manager means, knowing how to plan, to organize, to coordinate activities in the organization, to command the staff and finally to control performances. Aside from all these attributes given to a manager, a manager has also the responsibility to manage his employees effectively by motivating them, providing them support so they can achieve their individual needs, and give them appropriate leadership so they could identify themselves in the organization. Effective manager are also those who know about their biases and try to correct them if possible. After seeing what made a good manager,

Country vs. Culture Essay -- Culture

America is a land based on freedom. This freedom is for every individual no matter their race or culture. Our society has surpassed many judgments and concerns that these demographic differences had created in the past. These differences had previously led to a great amount of cultural diversity through the act of discrimination among our nation. America, as a country, has now opened opportunities for individuals to work and interact in environments which were previously unsuited. USA Today surveyed a minority group in 2005 and found that over one third of corporate culture embraces diversity (El Nasser). They have opened doors to expand numbers that are now reaching around 41percent of minorities working at all levels of companies and 37percent of minorities at senior management (El Nasser). America has allowed cultural views of religion and other lifestyle beliefs and values to be an individual’s choice. They have also given a vast amount of freedom to different ethnic and religious groups throughout the past decades. A number of individuals along with various groups have taken advantage of these freedoms in unacceptable and illegal ways and given a lesser punishments for their actions. There have been cultural cases surrounding the acts of rapes and murders, for example, where a defendant was given 5 years of probation for murder and another individual was given 120 days in prison for murder (Phillips). These sentences can be compared to the 10 or more years charged for a ‘normal’ murder case or the average 11.8 years in prison for an individual convicted of rape ("Title 18 Crimes and Criminal Procedure"). The freedom this country is based on should not be shaken by the cultures coming in, but this country should s... ...ce in the English Courts." Modern Law Review. 66.4 (2003): 510-531. Web. 28 Mar. 2012. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/534/1/when_culture_means_gender(LSERO).pdf. Reddy, Sita. "Temporarily Insane: Pathologising Cultural Difference in American Criminal Courts." Sociology of Health and Illness. 24.5 (2002): 667-687. Web. 1 Apr. 2012. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9566.00313/pdf. United States. Justia US Law. Title 18 Crimes and Criminal Procedure. Justia, 2010. Web. http://law.justia.com/codes/us/2010/title18/. Valladares, Rene. Culture Clash: Cultural Issues in Criminal Defense. District of Nevada: Juris Publishing Inc., 2007. 424-466. eBook. www.fd.org/pdf_lib/culture_clash.pdf. Willing, Richard. "Courts Asked To Consider Culture." USA Today 25 May 2004, n. pag. Web. 2 Apr. 2012. http://www.usatoday.com/educate/college/casestudies/Multicultural.pdf.

ratio analysis Essay -- essays research papers

Financial Ratios: What They MeanIn assessing the significance of various financial data, managers often engage in ratio analysis, the process of determining and evaluating financial ratios. A financial ratio is a relationship that indicates something about a company's activities, such as the ratio between the company's current assets and current liabilities or between its accounts receivable and its annual sales. The basic source for these ratios is the company's financial statements that contain figures on assets, liabilities, profits, and losses. Ratios are only meaningful when compared with other information. Since they are often compared with industry data, ratios help managers understand their company's performance relative to that of competitors and are often used to trace performance over time.Ratio analysis can reveal much about a company and its operations. However, there are several points to keep in mind about ratios. First, a ratio is just one number divided by another. Financial ratios are only "flags" indicating areas of strength or weakness. One or even several ratios might be misleading, but when combined with other knowledge of a company's management and economic circumstances, ratio analysis can tell much about a corporation. Second, there is no single correct value for a ratio. The observation that the value of a particular ratio is too high, too low, or just right depends on the perspective of the analyst and on the company's competitive strategy. Third, a financial ratio is meaningful only when it is compared with some standard, such as an industry trend, ratio trend, a ratio trend for the specific company being analyzed, or a stated management objective.In trend analysis, ratios are compared over time, typically years. Year-to-year comparisons can highlight trends and point up the need for action. Trend analysis works best with three to five years of ratios.The second type of ratio analysis, cross-sectional analysis, compares the ratios of two or more companies in similar lines of business. One of the most popular forms of cross-sectional analysis compares a company's ratios to industry averages. These averages are developed by statistical services and trade associations and are updated annually. Some of these sources will be covered later in this guide.Financial ratios can also give mixed signals about a company's fina... ...h ratio is also given. Almanac of Business and Industrial Financial Ratios. Leo Troy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Annual. (REF HF 5681 .R25 T7)The source of all data are tax returns filed with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. The most recent edition covers approximately 4.7 million active corporate federal income tax returns, including those owned or controlled by foreign persons. The publication profiles corporate performance in two analytical tables for each industry. Table I reports operating and financial information for all corporations, those with and without net income. Table II provides the same information as Table I, but only for corporations with net income. It provides 50 performance indicators for each industry. At the end of each industry section, performance indicators for the last ten years are shown. Data are grouped into 16 categories by size of assets in each industry. About 180 lines of business are covered.Norms in actual dollars for revenue and capital factors such as net receivables, inventories, and total assets are given. It also gives average operating costs in percent of net sales for: cost of operations, pensions and benefits, comp

The Phonological Model of Dyslexia Essay examples -- Biology Essays Re

The Phonological Model of Dyslexia Doctor Morgan of Sussex, England, published the first case of what is now known as dyslexia in 1896. Dr. Morgan wrote about Percy F, a 14-year-old boy who was intelligent, bright, quick with learning games, and the intellectual equal of his peers. He fell behind, however, in his inability to learn how to read. Today, as in 1896, most people associate intelligence with the ability to read, but Percy F and the experience of millions of people with dyslexia breaks down the relationship between reading and intelligence (1). But, researchers were left with the question, "What causes dyslexia if intelligence is not the marker? The exact cause of dyslexia is unknown. However, researchers believe dyslexia is a reading disability with underlying genetic, developmental and neurological causes (8). People with dyslexia have trouble reading despite normal or high intelligence and exposure to sufficient language instruction. Specific reading problems apparent in dyslexia include reversal of words and letters, difficulty in pronouncing new words, difficulty in making a distinction between similarities and differences in words (on for no), and difficulty in discerning differences in letter sounds (ten, tin) (2). In order to understand the specific reading problems associated with dyslexia, it is important to know how the brain conceptualizes language. The brain recognizes language in a hierarchical order. The upper levels of the hierarchy deal with semantics (the meaning of words), syntax (grammatical structure), and discourse (connected sentences). The lowest levels of the hierarchy deal with breaking words into separate small units of sound called phonemes. Thus, before words can be comprehended ... ...and Biological Unity by Paulesu et al. , on the Science Magazine Online web site http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/291/5511/2165 7) Dyslexia: Same Brains, Different Languages by Laura Helmuth , on the Science Magazine Online web site http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/291/5511/2064?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&titleabstract=Dyslexia&searched=QID_NOT_SET&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=&fdate=10/1/ 8) Fact Sheet: Dyslexia , on the Learning Disabilities Association web site http://www.ldanatl.org/factsheets/Dyslexia.shtml 9) Beginning Reading And Phonological Awareness For Students With Learning Disabilities by Michael M. Behrmann , on the Kid Source web site http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/disability.phonological.html 10) Brief Introduction to FMRI , on the FMRIB web site http://www.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fmri_intro/

Family Education Essay

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is my pleasure to be here to give you a presentation. First of all, I have several questions for all of you. (PPT) How much do you know about your children? (Is there any teacher would like to share some ideas?) As for students, do you communicate with your parents often? Can you talk like close friends? Well, your answers can be quite different as your parents from distinct backgrounds have their own means of parenting. So today,(PPT) I am going to talk about family education, something important during our early age and may influence us a lot in future’s life. Particularly, I will compare family education between western families and Chinese households to highlight some significant factors. First of all, I found a macroscopical view about the obvious difference between Chinese and western family education on the internet (PPT) that said everything is provided for kids in China and parents advocate free development in western countries. Since it states only part of the picture, now let’s enjoy a small performance carried out by my classmates, which may give you an impressive and clear sight of what the difference actually is. (PPT)This is a situation that shows the reaction of parents from China and a western country respectively when their kids plan to do a wild adventure. (PPT) Well, now I hope you all can have this sort of feeling after you enjoy the show, (PPT)that the purposes of parenting is definitely the same around the world. Whereas, different instructive concepts and approaches create the distinguishing circumstances for children to grow up. (PPT) So, I am going to explain the difference in three main aspects as I suppose: (PPT) the extent that parents respect and value children’s self-will; the protection that parents offer to their kids; and the styles of communication between parents and children in daily life. (PPT) In the first place, western parents are relatively more democratic and care more about the development of children’s personalities and thoughts. However, they may neglect those enticing affairs which might mislead the young kids. In contrary, Chinese parents want their kids to grow up in the way they set for their children. In this case, kids seem to have no opportunities to try  those things they may have more interests and talents in. (PPT) Secondly, many parents in China are against kids doing things with danger, because they are afraid of children getting hurt to affect their physical growth. But in western families, parents are likely to encourage kids to meet challenges and experience adventures, as well as give children enough space to cultivate their independence. (PPT) Thirdly, while western parents usually talk to their children like friends or colleagues, with sharing their opinions to expand kids’ own ideas and teach them how to think, some Chinese parents are confused about the ways communicating with their children. They desire their kids to understand and even support their educating methods without realizing that their children may have already been weary about the parenting. Well, have you gained something new about the difference between family education in China and western nations from above description? (PPT) I want invite you to witness the change of parents’ attitudes from China and that western country toward the situation we mentioned at the beginning of my presentation. Welcome my classmates again. Thanks them very much for enriching my speech.(PPT) Well, I believe that a conclusion may be came out now, that the successful family education can be the result of cultivation of one’s morality and positive attitude toward life. (PPT) What is more, whoever Chinese parents or western parents should both pay more attention on building the equal and closer relationship with their children, as well as treat them as special individuals, then the kids are likely to have a better opportunity to grow up in this kind of atmosphere. (PPT) Overall, I’d like to add that if we are more creative and optimistic, there will be a wonderful future for all of us.