Assess the usefulness of official statistics Essay

Official statistics are a source of secondary data. The government produces them. There are both hard and soft statistics. Hard statistics include birth, death and marriage rates. These are registered when they occur by law, so these statistics are entirely objective. Another type of official statistic is called soft statistics, e. g. crime statistics & unemployment figures. These might not seem as objective as they first seem. They are open to manipulation for political ends, and can be considered to have a political use. For example, the methods used to measure unemployment have been changed over 20 times, because not everyone without a job counts as unemployed. Official statistics are mainly used for the study of demography, inflation, crime and deviance, unemployment, poverty and suicide. For an example Emile Durkheim, regarded as the founding father of sociology, used official suicide statistics for his suicide study. He used them to find correlations and casual relations and identified four different types of suicide, egoistic suicide, anomic suicide, altruistic suicide and fatalistic suicide. Durkheim used positivist’s methods to conduct his study. Positivists believe that quantitative data is the most reliable method to gather information as the data is compiled in a standardised way. Douglas, an Interpretivist, would disagree with Durkheim’s positivist methods. He says that official statistics are not valid. To determine a death it is up to the ‘interpretations and decisions’ of the coroner and that statistics are nothing more than a ‘social construct’. Atkinson, also and Interpretivists says that it is impossible for coroners to objectively classify suicides because their decision is based on a ‘commonsense theory of suicide’ which is based on whether there is a suicide note, the method of death, the location and the deceased’s life history etc. When adapting quantitative methodological procedures to derive specific data, official statistics is often used as a source of sociological evidence to simply enhance or complement practical research methods. However when looking at what is gained from the use of official statistics, it is important to recognize the limitations, which serve as a major downside to developing and attaining an unquestionable and flawless research. In addition, not all documents are easily available e. g. the Black Report (1980) which identified inequalities in healthcare, was released in very select circumstances. Not all secondary data give us a valid, true and detailed picture of what is being measured, not just official statistics. Diaries/e-mails, it could be possible that the author lied or exaggerated about their activities Also, a document may not be reliable. Public documents are likely to be higher in terms of reliability than private documents like letters and personal documents such as diaries and e-mails data may be fake or unrepresentative. In conclusion, official statistics can be very useful in sociological research. Nearly all secondary data can’t be trusted and official statistics might be the only appropriate form of research for your topic.

What advice would you give the actor playing the part of Othello at 3 key points in the play?

‘Othello' is a typical example of a Shakespearean play, in which a noble, well-respected individual is reduced to a mere mortal, all because of a fatal flaw in their personality. ‘Othello' tells the story of a highly respected army general, who is happily married, and is used to the high life, but the cause of his downfall, is that while training and working in the army, he did not learn the true meaning of love and trust. This left him very gullible to the deceitfulness and lying of others. ‘Othello' is set in Venice, which at the time was the height of glamour and culture. It was set here to give the audience an idea of just how much of a commercial center one place can be. Nowadays, we could associate the then popular Venice, to a modern day Paris, or Sydney, because these are the places that are the height of ‘good living', and are developing new ideas all the time, just like Venice was over 400 years ago. Othello was a black, well-trained army general. The colour of his skin left him vulnerable to racism, as this was very frequent at the time. He would sometimes be referred to as ‘the moor', and would be regularly teased, all because of the colour of his skin. Othello was happily though married though, with Desdemona, even though the age difference between the two was reasonably large. In the end though, it was his innocence to marriage, which was the cause of his undoing. Othello, being an army general, was very well respected throughout Venice, but it was no surprise that someone would quickly become jealous of his success, and try to snatch it away from him. It could only be the one person, who was aware of his weaknesses and whom spent the most part of his life along side Othello. Lago. Throughout the play, I should want the audiences opinion of Othello to change. At first I would like the actor playing Othello to act very self confident, and very calm under pressure. This will show the audience that at first Othello was a great leader, and could handle almost every situation in a relaxed and chilled out manor. After Lago's rumours and hints about Desdemona though, I should want the audience's opinion of Othello to change. Instead of appearing calm and confident, I would like the actor playing Othello to stutter and repeat words, and appear as if he loses confidence about himself. Acting like this, the actor playing Othello, will now panic instead of staying cool, and speak unconfidently instead of his normal poetic and fluent style. In the middle of sentences, he will stop to think about what he is going to say, because he is unconfident of his own ability to choose the right words. This will show the audience how just one flaw in your character, can deteriorate your life away, until you do not believe in yourself. This is what happened to Othello. At the beginning of the play, in Act 1 Scene 2, Othello is confronted by Brabantio, this is because Brabantio thinks that Othello has been ‘tupping' his daughter, Desdemona. This scene shows how calm Othello can be under pressure, as he reacts to Brabantio's abuse, in a chilled out way. He says â€Å"Where it my cue to fight, I would have known it without a prompter†, this emphasizes just how controlled Othello is, and to show this, I would want the actor playing Othello to say these words very lightly and calmly, and with this the audience should see quite clearly that Othello has a very controlled personality. Othello also shows how calmly he acts under pressure, when he instructs the soldiers accompanying Brabantio to â€Å"Keep up your bright swords, for the dew may rust them†, this is another great example of how in control Othello is, because instead of reacting like any other person, and threatening Brabantio, he instantly deflates the atmosphere with these words. With this, comes a very effective direct response to Brabantio. This is shown well when he states, â€Å"Good signor you shall more command with years than your weapons†. With this line, Othello makes it clear that he has a lot of respect for Brabantio, even though Brabantio had very recently insulted Othello with abuse such as â€Å"That thou hast practis'd on her with foul charms†, and â€Å"Abus'd her delicate youth with drugs and minerals†. During this scene I should want the audience to see the good side of Othello. I would want them to see that Othello can be a very controlled and clever person, the person playing Othello should show this by keeping his lines fluent and poetic, and using light gestures and body language, in order to keep the situation between him and Brabantio from spilling over. He should seem to pick his words carefully, so that he could not possibly give one reason for Brabantio to feel at all threatened or mad with him. In this scene Act 3 Scene 3, Lago is planting the seeds of doubt in Othello's mind, regarding Desdemona, and her actions behind Othello's back. With this, Othello's mood changes, and so he becomes uncertain and acceptant of Desdemona's actions. Then, at the end of the scene, Lago has told Othello so many lies, that he explodes in anger, and threatens Desdemona's life. The audience should then see the contrast in personalities of Othello, and the deterioration in which they have taken throughout the last two scenes. The actor playing Othello repeating words unnecessarily, and stuttering in the middle of sentences should show this. At the start of this scene, Lago can sense that his ploy his working, â€Å"The moor already changes with my poison†. This shows that Lago has detected a change in personality of Othello, and that the poison he has injected into Othello may well spread to be even more violent. Othello then enters the scene, and instantly the audience should be able to see the difference in the way in which he acts. One of his first sections speeches contains the word â€Å"farewell† no more than three times. This shows that Othello is suffering under the stress of Lago's rumours, and so is beginning to repeat words over and over again. Just before that Othello had broken into a traumatised speech, â€Å"I swear 'tis better to be much abus'd than but to know't little†. This means that he would rather be beaten, than know only a part of what Desdemona is doing behind is back. This shows how much he fears that Desdemona is having an affair. At this point the audience should be seeing the despairing side of Othello, his language has now changed from calm and poetic, â€Å"My parts, my title, and my perfect soul shall manifest me rightly†, into a desperate cry for help and certainty, â€Å"I think my wife be honest, I think she is not†. He then grows to accept the rumours, and so becomes aggressive, â€Å"Villain, be sure to prove my love a whore†. This shows that now Othello thinks Desdemona is cheating on him, he must prove her guilty, this is a sign of acceptance from Othello, and so now he will believe virtually anything Lago tells him. Lago takes this opportunity to anger Othello further with an even bigger lie than before, he goes on to say that he â€Å"lay with Cassio†, and during his sleep Cassio cried out, â€Å"Sweet Desdemona, let us be wary, let us hide our love†. Then he says that Cassio â€Å"kissed me hard, as if he plucked up kisses by the root†. Othello then reacts to this lie with some imagery, â€Å"O monstrous, monstrous! † and â€Å"I'll tear her pieces! † This shows that Othello has believed everything Lago told him, and is now even angrier than before. Then Lago tells his final lie, this will finish off Othello, and make him so that he will never love Desdemona again, it is about Othello's prized possession, a red handkerchief. Lago tells Othello that he has seen the handkerchief in the possession of Cassio. This causes Othello to react ruefully, â€Å"If that be†¦ † he says. This shows that Othello has had enough of Desdemona, even though he has not witnessed any of these ‘happenings'. He says that line, leaving the audience to wonder what Othello could well do to Desdemona. And then, in his anger and confusion, he says the line â€Å"O blood, blood, blood†. Repeating the word blood over and over again, can only make the audience think of what is on his mind. The actor playing Othello should use strong body language when angry, bold gestures could be used to indicate that Othello is feeling very mad, and is liable to over-heat at any given time. In this scene Othello discovers that Lago has being lying all of the time, but he has already killed Desdemona. Othello, at first, believes the rumours about Desdemona, â€Å"She was false as water†, where true. Then Othello confronts Emilia about her husbands actions, at first he accuses Lago, â€Å"Thy husband knew it all†, but then, Othello realises that Lago is his best friend, and so convinces himself that Lago was telling the truth, â€Å"My friend, thy husband, honest, honest Lago†. At this point in the play, Othello is feeling sorrow for himself, and how badly his relationship with Desdemona is deteriorating. To show this to the audience, the actor playing Othello must speak unconfidently, and in a quiet voice, this way the audience should be able to see how Othello's mood has changed from the start of the play, when he has confident and calm. Now that Othello has discovered Lago's lies, he feels a strong remorse towards him, â€Å"Are there no stones in heaven but what serves for the thunder? Precious Villain! † Othello should now acting as with remorse towards Lago. For the audience to see this, the actor playing Othello should, when talking about Lago, curse his words, and become aggressive, snappy and violent. The audience should now be seeing how aggressive Othello could be, this a big difference from the quiet Othello that they have just witnessed minutes previously. Now that Othello has realises what he has done, he pleads the demons of hell for torture, â€Å"O cursed, cursed slave! Whip me, ye devils†. With this implied, Othello now counts himself as the most unfortunate of men, â€Å"That's he that was Othello†. Even being an army general, Othello cannot find it in himself to kill Lago, â€Å"If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee†. This shows the audience just how good friends Othello and Lago used to be. Even though Lago has ruined Othello's life completely, Othello still cannot kill Lago. Still though, Othello mourns the death of Desdemona, saying â€Å"For in my sense 'tis happiness to die. † Cassio then tells Othello of how â€Å"he himself confessed†, talking about Lago steeling Desdemona's handkerchief. Othello cannot believe himself, that he thought Lago's story to be true, he replies â€Å"O fool, fool, fool! â€Å", referring to his own mistake. Othello is now in a state of devastation, and with this he says, â€Å"I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee; no way but this, killing myself to die upon a kiss†. With this, Othello gives the corpse of Desdemona one, final kiss, and kills himself, falling upon Desdemona in peace. At the end of the play, the audience should be feeling sorry for Othello, because of the tragedy he has been lured into. With the drama and sadness that his final line brings, this is the only possible feeling that the audience could possibly have towards Othello. His action throughout the final phase of the play, should have been acted out with no energy, because at this time in the play, Othello has been mentally and physically drained. The audience should be able that, through no fault of his own, the fatal flaw in his character was exposed.

Gender Inequality Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Gender Inequality - Essay Example According to my analysis, Women are more affected by the Gender Inequality in work places, Families, Politics, National and International affairs. While in some Institutions religion and tradition are the main factors leading to discrimination against Women to a lower status. My analysis has shows that in some society's women begin to experience discrimination right from Homes, sometimes from childhood up to the maturity stage. However, history has noted that Gender Inequality has its roots dated back to over one thousand year within Arabian Peninsula. During that period, the Arab's were in the habit of burying their female children alive, soon after they were born. They had a tradition that portrayed females as unwanted creatures. But with the advent of Islam the dirty tradition was wiped away. What I also learnt explains how in some societies women are not allowed to attain any position like men. Unfortunately, women are denied the right for Education because of Gender Inequality. Though they are allowed to attend schools, their chances of attaining the highest level usually restricted by the norms of religion and tradition. In such societies, only men get the privilege of reaching the highest level of education. I observed that Gender Inequality is on the increase in many parts of the world, especially in the African Continent. In northern part of Nigeria for example, Gender Inequality is on the highest rates, reaching to about 55%. Females are denied the right for education, especially in the rural areas. They have a traditional belief which says: "Females are born to grow and produce children's, cook foods for their husbands, and children's. According to another analysis that I made, I found that in some Institutions if a certain family allows women to attend the highest level of education, such family will be discriminated from others with a negative perception. They will be regarded as the "devils that betrays the tradition of their forefathers. In some societies, despite awareness and education, Gender Inequality is practicing by discriminating against women in work places. Some employers do not offer jobs to female, preparing to offer the vacancies to their counterpart. Even in places where the employers agreed to employ females, they offer them lower salaries, because in such places women are regarded as unproductive element. In chapter 10, from a book Introduction of Sociology written by three authors, under a subject "Gender Inequality" I came across an analysis made, on hoe women hold occupation of the lower rank. The authors have this to say: "The increase of women in the work places in the twentieth Century has influenced many aspects of social life. Though high proportions of women are in labor force around the world, they are concentrated in low paying routine occupation" In another paragraph, they also have this to say: "Despite more women moving into higher ranking position, pay between the sexes remains unequal". (Introduction to Sociology)". I have learnt that the Gender Inequality does not exist only in African continent, but it is a Global problem that affected the entire races. It is a natural phenomenon that causes greatest challenges

Report Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 3

Report - Coursework Example In addition, being self-aware makes me more employable in the sense that depending on my strengths and weaknesses, I can clearly define the most suitable working environment and conditions to which I will be of maximum productivity. For instance, the awareness of strong working values makes me eligible to any working environment be it team working or solo working. I have learnt that my strengths provide a good foundation for my pursuit of the sale and marketing career. Though, despite the advantage provided by my self-awareness, I also need to research on the sales and marketing job market and get the set specific targets to achieving the career objective. In addition, I have learnt that I also need to learn more about other factors that affect the employment process; factors like CV writing, job hunting and several more and that I need to improve my writing communication. Finally, I have learnt is that I need to acquire career facts in order to be employable. I need to know the entry requirements, key employers, recruitment schedules, useful social media websites as well as sources of work experience since all these factors play an important role in employment. The evidence previously provided shows the absence of the STAR program utility. One way that I could provide better evidence is by giving the exact details of what I actually did while working at the food processing company. My computer literacy enabled me to perform tasks using Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. On top of these Microsoft utilities, I also used custom made software for the company to perform a special task like calculating the expiry date of a given type of process food. Subsequently, I could have provided more details in describing my positive attitude towards work. For example, despite joining the food company at a young age (18 years of age), I was optimistic that I could do whatever my elder colleagues were capable of doing. This positive attitude

Project Reviews Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Project Reviews - Research Paper Example cope of the project, how many people works in that particular project, level of skills of the personnel, the time required for the project completion, project familiarity, resources available, the risk associated with the project, the project complexity and how often the communication is carried out within the project management systems (Barkley, 2006). While carrying out the project reviews it is fundamentally right to factor in the actionable information that gauges the extent of success of these projects. It should be able to scrutinize the project and determine the things that went well as well as those that met with failure in the process of project implementation. Besides, it should be able to capture things that struggled and created bottlenecks in different phases of the project implementation and take into account the preparation of the feedback mechanisms. The project review should take comparisons of the required specifications in consideration of the end results and whether the project is on track or in deviations. The actionable information helps in putting the lessons learnt in taking care of the project quality, budget, overall impacts, time delivery schedule and the project deviations from the requirements. The review should not be biased in any way and it should be able to identify risks that have occurred or yet t o occur in the process of project implementation. Honest project reviews is helpful since it puts projects on the right tracks by identifying the shortfalls and successes (Barkley,

Law and Policy Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Law and Policy - Case Study Example The organizational policies that deal with information security are drawn from a number of U.S. laws that include: the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act, 1996, the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) as well as the Computer Security Act of 1987 (Furlani, 2006). To ensure that it is compliant with all relevant information security laws and regulations, Digitol IT Solutions Ltd has employed information security professionals who are responsible for ensuring that everyone working there understands every single policy and government legislation. These policies act as a guideline on how technology should used and information handles within the company. Ensuring confidentiality is vital in any information system (Zevin, 2004). At Digitol IT Solutions Ltd there is a policy that states that it is wrong for an individual or a group of individuals to access a computer without authorized access. There are some levels of information which are only available to a few members of staff. For instance, financial information of customers is not available to everyone. Only the accountants who deal with payments are allowed to access this confidential information. The policy restricting access to certain computers is in line with the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act, 1996, a federal regulation that makes it a criminal offence for unauthorized persons to gain access to a certain computer where they have been denied entry (Department of Justice, 2011). Another of the company’s information security policy restricts the number and kind of customers who can have full access of their website. Due to fear of hackers and malicious internet users who might want to cause harm or steal some of the company’s technology for ulterior motives, the company requires only trusted users to gain full access to their online services. This policy not only keeps the company’s website secure, it also ensures that sensitive information is not le aked out to unscrupulous individuals. This way the integrity of the company is kept intact and confidentiality is maintained, as is required in the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act, 1996 and the Computer Security Act of 1987. These two laws aim at ensuring that an organization has the proper mechanisms to ensure that all information systems are safe (Department of Justice, 2011 and National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2011). Digitol IT Solutions Ltd operates a rather liberal kind of business, and people have the freedom to be as creative and imaginative as they can. These two skills are pivotal to the success of the company. However, there are strict guidelines as presented in one of the terms of conduct policies, which direct what kind on information or content is allowed into the company’s computer system. An employee of the company was recently relieved of his duties and charged in court for failing to comply with the organization’s poli cies requiring him to upload obscene content on the website from his computer. The court found him guilty of flaunting the Communications Decency Act which stipulates that obscene and indecent material should not be allowed in cyberspace (National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2011). The company also reserves the right to block certain websites from being accessed by its staff. For instance, no one is allowed

Introduction of research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Introduction of - Research Paper Example The paper is going to examine and discuss the function of aniline substituents by looking into the intensities of SERS of different anilines in gold and silver colloids by utilizing a Raman spectrometer which has a 785 nm excitation wavelength. The Chemical Enhancement factors of the Surface Enhanced Raman and detection limits for aniline and its mono- and di-substituted meta derivatives are established and comparisons made. The inductive impacts of withdrawal of electrons as a result of substituents and the steric needs of chemical adsorption influence the strength of signals of different vibrational modes of the aromatic ring and amino group. By utilizing the transmission electron microscopy (TEM), the level of improvement is also linked to the ways of setting up the silver and gold colloids, which are characterized by exploring the structural morphology of the nanoparticle and its level of aggregation. Introduction: What is Raman Effect? Raman scattering or Raman Effect is the ine lastic scattering of photons from an atom or a molecule (Sur, 2010). It was discovered by a well known Indian physicist C V Raman in the year 1928. Generally, most photons are elastically scattered from an atom or a molecule, with the scattered photons having the same energy and wavelength as the incident photons (Sur, 2010). This phenomenon is known as ‘Rayleigh scattering’ and it accounts for the blue color of the sky (Sur, 2010). There is however a difference in frequency between the scattered photons and the incident photons. This physicist discovered the Raman Effect as he was working on the molecular diffraction of light and observed this effect in liquid. The Other Russian scientists Gregory Landsberg and Leonid Mandelstam first observed this effect in crystals (Sur, 2010). Raman won the Nobel Prize in 1930 for his work on inelastic scattering of photons. The history of SERS SERS was discovered accidentally in 1974 as people attempted to perform Raman on the elec trode with an original idea of generating a high surface area on that extremely roughened metal. With time, people realized that the surface area was not the fundamental point on this arena. Periodical searches were made in the dark, which led to progress in 1977 when different groups found out that the rough silver electrode can produce a Raman spectrum that is a million fold more intense than what was expected (Ferraro, 1994). The huge signal confirmed surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). SERS have recently overcome the disadvantage of the small cross section of Raman spectroscopy completely, and therefore can be utilized to study the single molecule spectroscopy (Ferraro, 1994). Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has experienced renaissance recently in its development as a result of the remarkable discovery of single molecule SERS (SMSERS). This has also led to the explosion of interest in nanophotonics and plasmonics (Dieringer, 2005). Since excitation of the locali zed surface Plasmon resonance (LSPR) of a nanostructured surface or nanoparticle Is centered at the heart of SERS, it is vital to have in control all of the factors influencing the LSPR with an aim to maximize signal strength and ensure reproducibility (Dieringer, 2005)

Why did a world capitalist civilization emerge when it did Essay

Why did a world capitalist civilization emerge when it did - Essay Example 165) One word often used in connection with world capitalism in the twenty first century is â€Å"globalization† (Amin, 1997) Other ideologies like socialism or feudalism do exist in areas of the contemporary world but they find themselves surrounded by a network of other nations, states and large commercial organizations which largely dictates how resources are transferred from place to place, and ultimately steers the growth, decline or stability of large areas of the planet. There are local differences, of course, since each country develops out of one of a number of previous older and separate civilizations, but there is a sense in which they also join a coherent, single world-wide capitalist civilisation. Wallerstein describes this as capitalist civilisation as â€Å"universalism through particularism and particularism through universalism† (Wallerstein, 1984, p. 167). He sees its main characteristic as a continuous search for more and more profit to drive more and more growth. This paper traces the origins of modern capitalism civilisation back to its origins in the past. The question to be answered is when and where it originally emerged. One needs only to think of the hand-to-mouth existence of small, isolated and largely rural societies in the Middle Ages to realise what a significant change global capitalism has brought to the world: â€Å"Matters would change dramatically, however, with the violent remaking of the globe that commenced c. 1500 as the Spanish, Dutch, English, and French began seeking their fortunes far beyond their own national domains.† (Bryant: 2006, p. 407). The discovery of new lands full of untapped resources set off a chain reaction that led some two hundred and fifty years later to the industrial revolution. It is clear that capitalist civilisation must have begun after medieval times. Looking back through history it is generally agreed that origins of capitalism as a world civilisation are to be sought in W estern Europe in the period around the middle of the eighteenth century that has come to be called â€Å"The Enlightenment†. Other parts of the world, notably the Ottoman Empire, Persia and Japan were taking steps in the same direction, and some historians such as Pomeranz (2000) and Goody (2004) have argued that there were parallel moves in the direction of capitalism going on in non-European regions. The fact remains, however, that the scale and speed of European industrial expansion and commercial activity dwarfs anything that historians have been able to prove elsewhere. Vast quantities of goods were shipped to and from the colonies that Western Powers set up, specifically for the purpose of supplying industrial needs back home. Even more significant than that was the extent of the stimulus that occurred with the Enlightenment’s focus on science and technology: â€Å"And as economic historians have extensively documented, it was not the comparative cheapness of co lonial resources that provided Europeans with their decisive advantage, but the astounding productivity gains that came with mechanization and the factory organization of labour.† (Bryant: 2006, p. 434) An important first step was the invention of labour saving devices which increased food production in the small farms and fields. This in turn released labour to work in newly constructed factories who processed raw materials for local or European markets. By the middle of the eighteenth century the economies of scale that emerged were able to produce surpluses which were then reinvested to drive forward ever greater productivity. This cycle of development contains the germ of a capitalist culture and so we can conclude that the first stirrings of capitalist civilisation emerged in the mid eighteenth century

Health Care Project Essay Example for Free

Health Care Project Essay Team B has chosen prescription drugs for our health care reform project and how our current economic status is influenced. We will give ideas and solutions to show how to decrease the drug pricing. Ways that can be implemented toward a solution. Pharmaceutical company’s need to amend their business practices from a high profit, low development model to a moderate profit, moderate to high development model. Structures and regulation that will explain the competition, barriers to entry, and regulations. Taking a look at drug pricing from different perspective, like cost, research, and development, marketing, and the manufacturing of pharmaceutical drugs. The Monopoly of pricing who is involved, and the curves associated with it. Price discrimination how it changes who’s involved and what the criteria are for groups as well as pricing for individuals. How cost of co pays differ from brand names to generic and how the drug formulates come into play. How to make the system work for everyone that will amount to higher than just a 30-day supply, pharmacy assistance programs, local charity programs, and low income opportunities. Better ways to enforce existing legislation, vote in new legislation, and regulate prices across the board. The above affects the insured and non-insured American’s. For most American households, paying for health care to include prescription drugs and medical bills has been one of the hardest financial strains out there. According to a report published by (Consumer Reports, 2012), many have cut back on other household expenses or taken potentially dangerous measures with their health to afford their medications. The most affected population is the working-age Americans who do not have prescription drug insurance coverage. More than half of the people who completed the survey requested by Consumer Reports took one or more prescriptions had to reduce other household expenses or make changes in how the general population manage their finances. These reductions included how much they spend on their groceries, entertainment, activities with the family, and using their credit cards to purchase medications. The problem  was more severe with younger people than elderly people age 65 and older. â€Å"84 percent of them said they had to resort to such measures† (Consumer Reports, 2012) as previously listed. Prescription drugs or better yet the cost of prescription drugs is a discussion in the country of importance. The rise of the cost of prescription drugs is of important to many people in the United States and plays a huge role in the economics of health care. The elevated pricing of prescription drugs has become a focal point of politics and in need of some governance. Even though healthcare and prescription drugs are seen as a private sector issue, the discussion of some socialist measures put into place is a definite need for the economy. Some of those ideas include price-capping expensive drugs and even importing drugs from Canada. Healthcare and prescription drugs have been privatized; however, the government has a huge influence on them both. According to the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, the government, including state, and federal, has contributed more the 2.7 trillion in 2011. This shows that we have hidden, or more politically correct, blurred the view of a socialist healthcare system. The currently health care system with health care reform has caused confusing for co nsumers. Many people are struggling to pay for the high cost of medication they are on. Some of the patients have to take a different type of medication, which is called alternative medication because their insurance denied paying for it in addition; the process to get approval from insurance takes longer time and more paperwork back and forth from doctors and insurance companies. In reality, health care consumers are the victims, they suffer from their medical illnesses, and they suffer for the high cost of prescription drugs. Health care reform in theory is helping more than forty million people to have health coverage, the demand curve shifts to the right. The important matter at the present time is the supply to cover that many people to have a quality care whereas the economy is gradually recovering. The unemployment rate is not changing much, it is still relatively high. When the prescription drug cost much of our income, seeking for other solution becomes a must do from consumers, they tend to dismiss their prescriptions or buying medication from online market, w hich may cause bad health than curing purpose.

Effective Study Skills Essay Example for Free

Effective Study Skills Essay Why it is so hard to concentrate while studying, or even to study effectively? The hardest part of studying is concentrating on the material at hand. Memorizing everything is nearly impossible, but with a better understanding of effective memorization skills you can improve your memorization skills surely. Did you know that the most effective method of studying is to use notes, or note-cards? Some people actually have trouble taking notes, due to improper note taking methods. Although there are many different methods for effective study skills, there are three that have been proven to be the most effective: concentration, memorization, and ote taking skills. Have you ever found yourself reading a paragraph, and when you finish you think to yourself, What did I Just read? Well 10 and behold; it happens to the best of us. One proven method of concentration is to get yourself into a quite, but not completely silent to where you hear yourself think, environment. Also if you will adjust yourself to where you are not slouching or hunching over, as these positions tend to make you ache or get sleepy. The next step is to read at a steady pace, not too fast to where you forget and not to slow to where you read the same thing over and If youre like me then you probably forget a lot of things you read on a daily basis. I sometimes find myself wishing I was like a computer and I could Just store anything and everything, except for viruses. We, as human beings, cannot and will not ever be able to remember everything; however we can remember key items, but only with the proper techniques. The key to remembrance is to review more than once, and take breaks in between your study sessions. Also be sure to prioritize what you plan to study and how you plan to conduct your study sessions. Another proven memorization technique is to take notes, which we will discuss next. Proper note taking is probably the hardest of the three steps, due to most people not knowing what to take note of. Many people can take notes great, but some have trouble knowing what to write down, or if the note they Just wrote is even note- worthy. Any form of note-taking that requires compilation of information by categories, rather than in narrative form is best done using index cards. Index cards are a life saver when it comes to taking notes, and the best part is you can use them for Q ; A, highlights, key points, or even paraphrasing. One of the best pieces of advice is that if the note doesnt sound note-worthy, its probably not. Effective study skills can mean the difference between an A and a B. In most cases it can make a world of difference in your school of choice or even your life long career decisions. Many people today think that they had it rough when they went through school, well in my young age, we too have it rough and the only way to stay on top is through self improvement. Just remember the next time you sit down for a study session; concentration is the key, memorization will help you unlock the door, and taking notes will hopefully keep you from forgetting to lock it behind you. Effective Study Skills By hahaitsmine

The Channel Tunnel Project Construction Essay

The Channel Tunnel Project Construction Essay Two centuries ago, in 1802, a French mining engineer called Albert Mathieu was the first one to propose a tunnel under the English Channel to link the UK and France. Since that time several proposals have been put forward however none of them could be realized due reasons such as lack of technology or the critical relationship between these two countries. In July 1985 a proposal submitted by the Channel Tunnel Group/France-Manche (CTG/F-M) beat those put forward by their four main competitors and was accepted. This proposal was amongst others more favoured by the British and French government due to the privately funded nature, financial robustness and technological simplicity. Scope of the Project The channel tunnel was project was completed over 7 years time, involving 15,000 workers at the peak of construction. The tunnelling commenced in 1988 and began to operate in 1994. Eleven tunnel boring machines were used on both sides of the channel to cut through the chalk marl and to construct 3 tunnels, 2 for rails and 1 for maintenance. The shuttle terminals are at Folkestone and Coquelles near Calais and the main aim for constructing such a massive tunnel of 32 (50km)miles length, of which 23.6 (30km )miles are underwater, was to allow people to travel between those countries in an unprecedented travel time of only 35 minutes. Main Participants The main participants were Channel Tunnel Group/France-Manche (CTG/F-M), which formed a new entity called Eurotunnel (ET), a bi-national company. ET was owned by banks and 10 other companies and is the owner and operator of the project for 65 years, until 2052. and client of the contractor Transmanche Link (TML). Design, construction and commissioning fell in the responsibility area of TML and commissioning of the project. An interesting sidenote is that both groups consisted of employees from France and the UK. This project is supervised by the Intergovernmental Commission (IGC), on behalf of both governments to ensure the Eurotunnels compliance with the Concession. This body was in charge of the reviewing design, procedures, specifications and in particular issues related to environment, operation and safety of the tunnel. The Maà ®tre dOeuvre, an independent Consulting engineer, has been appointed technical auditor and was reporting to ET, the IGC and the Banks. Technology Used Eleven tunnel boring machines (TBM) have been used in total on both, the French and the British sides, to work their way through the chalk marl stratum, which is between the gray chalk and glauconitic layer. ( See Figure XXX). On the English terminals 6 TBMs were operating while on the French side five TBMs were used. Due to the high pressure nature of the water which were present in the folded and faulted chalk on the French side, three special TBMs, namely Earth Pressure Balance machines (EPBM), had to be used. On the English side, simpler but faster open face TBMs started digging from the Shakespeare Cliff. On average the TBMs worked 873 m per month. In the best month it set a world record of 1,719m per month which yet has to be beaten. Project Life Cycle 1) Initiation April 1985 Promoters were formally invited by the French and UK government to submit scheme proposals for a fixed link between those countries -January 1986 Mandate awarded to the Channel Tunnel Group/France-Manche -Feb 1986 Treaty of Canterbury is signed allowing the project to go ahead Setup of IGC to supervise the project -April 1987 French Parliament allows the project 2) Planning Design and Financing Jan 1987 Design phase was relatively short as it was based on the 1975 project and the proposal which was submitted in 1985. Aug 1987 TML and 5 banks (Founder Shareholders) put initial equity of  £47 million (Equity 1) -Sep 1987 Loan syndication of  £6bn with the European Investment Bank (EIB) Oct 1987- Private placement of  £206m in shares with institutions (Equity 2) Nov 1987 Public Issue (Equity 3) worth  £750 million and  £5bn bank loan is agreed Nov 1990 Rights Issue (Equity 4) Second round of financing worth  £566 million Nov 1994 Rights Issue (Equity 5) Second round of financing worth  £566 million 3) Execution and Controlling June 1988 First tunnelling commenced in France Dec 1988 British TBMs start to drive towards France Dec 1990 Service tunnel breaks through under the sea linking the UK and France 4) Closure (Delivery) Dec 1993- Contractor TML hands tunnel over to client ET May 1994 The tunnel was formally opened by HM The Queen and President Mitterran -June 1994 First passenger train travelled through the tunnel beneath the English Channel, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ A brief definition of the roles and responsibilities of the project sponsor and the project manager at each of the stages of the life cycle shown above. The project manager was appointed in the initiation phase after the concessioner agreement was signed. Separate project managers were appointed to manage the British side and French side; they were Atkins and Partners (UK) and Setec (France) respectively. During the initiation phase the project managers planned the project, agreeing on milestones and determining the tasks that would need sub-contracting. The project sponsors Eurotunnel justified the funding required and set up the success criteria. In the equity phase the project manager did not have a very big role. The optimistic plan to open the tunnel by May 1993 meant that the design phase was short with insufficient accuracy and detail. This had many repercussions and was the main contributor to the delays felt later on in the project. In this stage the project manger was managing the over all drive of the project and ensuring the design met the concessions specifications. Eurotunnel set the time, cost, and quality specifications and set all minimum constraints. All major changes made to the design had to be approved by the sponsor. In the Development phase the project manager had to make a variety of managerial decisions to maintain and bring the project back on the required time schedule. The project manger was also in charge of ensuring there was sufficient linking of tasks. The two teams met monthly to review progress and adapt schedules. Eurotunnel monitored the project progress from an objective point of view. Eurotunnel also reviewed and had final say on all major changes made to the design in this phase. In the Delivery phase the project manger and the sponsors review the project and decide whether the deliverables had been met. The contractors TML and the project managers handed over full responsibility of the channel tunnel to Euro-Tunnel who would have to fulfil the Concessions agreement for the rest of the duration in which they would run the Tunnel. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ A statement of the ORIGINAL PROJECT OBJECTIVES: TIME The channel tunnel took 7 years to build. The first train carrying passengers and their cars journeyed to France on the 22nd December 1994. The initial plan has foreseen the tunnel to be ready on the 15th May 1993 therefore the work has been completed more than one and a half after schedule. COST The Channel tunnel is the largest privately funded project in history. It was clear from the beginning that the two governments would not get involved in the funding of the project as this was the only basis on which Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister, would accept the project. Funds have been raised through equity raising in capital markets and loan agreements. In total more than 200 banks, including the founder shareholder banks Natwest and Midlands in the UK and the French banks Credit Lyonnais, Banque Nationale de Paris, Banque Indosuez raised a total capital of  £4bn in various equity issues. The actual completion costs were at an 80% cost overrun in 1994 compared to the cost estimate of  £2600 compared by the contractor group TML in 1985. Underestimation of rolling stocks, changes in the fixed equipment work and terminals as well as the initially poor tunnelling process all contributed to the cost overrun. QUALITY As mentioned above an organizations such as Intergovernmental Commission(IGC) and Maà ®tre dOeuvre (MdO) was a form of engineering supervision employed by the Eurotunnel. The main task of this body was to monitor all activities on the project and write quarterly reports to keep government and banks updated whether the project was executed in accordance with the requirements of the Concession and the quality assurance standards established by TML. To achieve the required quality of standards a classification system has been used on the management plane to make the whole process more flexible by assessing and prioritizing the tasks. Although quality requirements were of equal importance for every single task, the management style was categorized in 3 different levels according to complexity, maturity of the technology and overall impact of the task.

The Root Causes of Deforestation :: Environment Evironmental Essays

The Root Causes of Deforestation In the second chapter of his book, Tropical Deforestation: Small Farmers and Land Clearing in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Thomas K. Rudel hypothesizes that the cause of rainforest destruction goes beyond the traditional immiserization model. The immiserization model holds that there are two groups of people separately causing deforestation: powerful businesses such as the plantation owners and extractive enterprises; and landless peasants. Instead, he contends that these groups of people, along with the local and international governments, banks and markets all cause deforestation by their mutual interactions. His idea is supported by the pattern of deforestation. Instead of rising steadily as the population grows, it goes in spurts. Peasants seize the opportunity to develop new land when it is opened up by penetration roads built by the government or large extractive corporations. Owning land along a road is the best way to ensure that they profit from their labor. That way peasants have direct links to transportation for their products and don't have to deal with middlemen who take a large share of the profits. He cites resources indicating that deforestation rates increased when international banks loaned money to countries for frontier development projects. Similar results were achieved by development of extractive industries. Rudel refers to both the government and these industries as lead institutions because of their role in opening transportation routes that are used by peasant farmers who settle along them, clearing the land. Many nations also sponsor colonization programs, wealthy patrons hire peasant laborers, or groups of peasants band together to mutually profit from the land that they help clear together. These examples of growth coalitions are similarly responsible, in conjunction with the agencies that clear the transportation routes, for the destruction of the tropical forests. This leads him to the conclusion that the most important link in thi s system of destroying tropical forests is the creation of new transportation routes penetrating the forested land. At the end of the chapter, Rudel addresses the issue of indigenous communities' involvement in the deforestation. He states that "the argument [for the growth coalition -- lead institution hypothesis] assumes that rural inhabitants have a strong market orientation despite the presence of indigenous peoples throughout the tropics who have only partial commitments to participation in market economies. If the case studies demonstrate a close association between growth coalitions and deforestation among indigenous peoples as well as peasants, the explanatory potential of the argument increases" (Rudel 40).

a tree grows in brooklyn :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A Tree Grown in Brooklyn   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, what a splendid name for this book. Most people that have not read this book might only think that this book is about a tree growing in Brooklyn. Not knowing that this book is really about Francie Nolan. Francie is the tree that is growing in Brooklyn. She is growing up so quickly, not because she wants to, but because she has too. Francie was basically forced to grow up in her mid-teens. She had to help support her family. The world that Francie lived in also contributed to her growth into womanhood.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn takes place during the early 1900's, in the slums of Williamsburgs , Brooklyn. The slums are where the Nolan family lives their whole lives, although Francie later moves out and travels into New York City for her well paying job.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Nolan family consists of four strong hearted people. The Nolan's are very unique for a family who lives in the slums of Brooklyn; they are a pretty decent family of four. Kate is the beautiful young mother of Francie and Neeley and the wife of Johnny. Kate holds a janitress job to keep her family together and from starving, she is basically the sole provider for the family. Johnny, Kate's drunk husband, is considered to be a good man, but he is nothing but a drunk who, has an off and on again job as a free lance singer/waiter. Their daughter, Francie, who is the main character of the book, is a very intelligent young woman. Francie always wants to do the best in everything that she tries. Last but not least is the youngest Nolan, Neeley. He is Francie's younger brother. He is also loved the most by his mamma. Neeley is Katies Favorite and this is quite obvious. The Nolan's are unique. They have hope that life will get better.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Nolan family have an old tin-can bank that they keep in a closet in their house. Katie was told to have this bank to accumulate money to buy land so she could pass it on to her children. They put as much in as they can afford every day, and it slowly accumulates little by little. This book shows that, a penny saved, is a penny earned. And that every little bit counts. It makes you realize that money is not everything.

Harriet Ann Jacobs Essay

In the autobiography, â€Å"Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl†, it tells the story of a female slave named Harriet Ann Jacobs. Losing her mother and father at such a young age, she experienced firsthand the account of a slave life. She deliberates in great detail the humiliation, sacrifice, and struggle specific to female slaves of the late nineteenth century. Though she understood the risks involved in publishing an account of her life, she moved forward with the idea and published her story under the pseudonym Linda Brent. Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery in 1813 in Edenton, North Carolina to Delilah and Elijah. While growing up she enjoyed a relatively cheerful life until she was six years old when her parents died. After the death of her parents, Harriet and her younger brother John were left to be raised by their grandmother, Molly Horniblow. Molly was an older woman who was well respected in the slave community, as well as by the slave owners. She was never mistreated, and she frequently baked goods for the people in her community. Harriet Jacobs gained the knowledge for all of her educational essentials from her first mistress, Margaret Horniblow. She taught Harriet how to read, write, and sew which gave her advantage over the rest of the slaves. It also would attract some unwanted attention. Margaret would later on will Harriet to her twelve year old niece whose father would subject Harriet to aggressive and unrelenting sexual harassment. Dr. Flint sexually harassed and physically abused the teenaged Harriet for as long as she was a servant in his household. Afraid that one day Dr. Flint would make his antics reality, she began to have an affair with a prominent white lawyer named Samuel Tredwell, whom she later on beared two children for. Instead of discouraging Flint, she enraged him. He then sent Harriet away to a life of hard labor on a plantation he owned, threatening to break in her young children as field hands, seeing that they legally belonged to him. She soon ran away from the plantation and spent seven years hiding in a tiny attic crawl space in her grandmother’s house. During those seven years she put to use the skills that her first mistress had taught her, and watched over her children through a small chink in the roof. Being cramped in the attic for so long, left her permanently physically disabled. In 1842, Harriet was finally able to escape to the north, and found work as a nanny in the household of a prominent abolitionist writer, Nathaniel Parker Willis. She later on is reunited with her children in New York, and farther down the line her employer purchases her freedom from Dr. Flint. While reading this autobiography you acquire a feeling that is very unusual. Most slaves that you hear about usually have harsh lives and are extremely unhappy, but in this particular case it was the complete opposite. Harriet’s life wasn’t hard not one bit. She was never mistreated because her father’s mistress found her to be very appealing, and she didn’t have to do any hard labor. But, she also wasn’t allowed her freedom which is what she anxiously longed for. That particular entity is what places everything into perspective. At the end of the day whether she liked it or not, she was still a slave. She could not walk away from her situation, she could not undertake everything that she wanted to do, and she definitely could not enjoy her life to the fullest because she belonged to someone, and that someone was a jealous, aggressive man named Dr. Flint. Harriet Jacobs insisted on telling her story honestly and completely, determined to make white Americans aware of the sexual victimization that slave women commonly faced and to dramatize the fact that they often had no choice but to surrender their virtue. Jacobs knew that her contemporaries would see her not as a virtuous woman but as a fallen one, yet she published the story anyway. She wanted to bring light to a situation that slave women faced every day. She was an incredibly strong woman for doing so, and by directly confronting the cruel realities that plagued African American women in the late nineteenth century, Harriet’s work occupies a significant place in African American literary tradition.

Loss of Biodiversity

Meaning The definition of biodiversity encompasses the degree of variations in organisms and/ or species within an ecosystem. The loss of biodeversity would be the diminishing of dfferent species within that ecosystem. For example, a lake may be the home to many types of fish. A change in the lake's temperature or chemistry may affect a food source for a certain type of fish. This type of fish may die out and leave the lake with one less species in it. The loss of one fish or food source may impact other populations and furthe diminish species diversity. CauseInvasive Species – plants or animals which have moved to a habitat where they were not naturally found and are more successful than local species. Habitat loss – Agriculture, housing and industry are destroying the habitats of many plants, animals and microbes. Our development means we must destory or decrease the natural ecosystems. Many animals have a certain range that they must maintain in order to live. If the y do not have access to this area, their lives are significantly altered. Pollution – Our oceans, rivers, lakes and lands have become rubbish bins for society's industrial and organic waste.Plastic in our garbage causes enormous problems. It kills or injures many marine animals and birds either through accidental entanglement or ingestion of the material in the mistaken belief that the plastic is food. For example, sometimes bags are misidentified as jellyfish. Climate Change – Many plant and animal species are unlikely to survive climate change. For some species there will no longer be anywhere to live. Exploitation – We have drastically reduced some fish populations, hunted some whales to the verge of extinction and destroyed whole forests and their ecosystems.Blast fishing is another practise which reduces the coral reefs in the sea. It is practiced in many areas. This is the process whereby dynamite is placed into an area in order to catch a large quantity o f fish. Coral reefs especially are devastated by this activity. It is most prominent in undeveloped countries where this practice has existed for years. Effect The ecosystems deteriorate to an unsustainable level, at which the results would be incredibly expensive to reverse (ex. in Bangladesh and India, the over-logging of trees and forests makes floods during the monsoon seasons deadly. environmental changes – Loss of one species may cause a chain reaction, resulting in a change to the ecosystem itself. gives us less choice as humans – If certain species are lost, they are no longer available to us either as food, as enjoyment, or as resources for things we may not even know about yet. For example, if we deplete all the yellowfin tuna in the ocean, we no longer have this species available for our consumption. If we are divers or underwater explorers, we no longer can see this fish in its own environment and receive pleasure from this act.Solution Stop climate change from running out of control. In order to tackle climate change world needs international climate deal that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions on global level. Stop deforestation. Tropical rainforests are the areas of the richest biodiversity in our planet, providing living environment for millions of different species. Reduce environmental pollution. Pollution is not only happening in land but also in our oceans having very negative impact on marine biodiversity. Animals and plants can't thrive in polluted environment.Education and the Media Through educating people about the severity of this issue, there will be (hopefully) less exploitations of resources, pollution, and habitat losses. In addition, the media could be used to spread these types of thoughts and again, emphasize the importance of biodiversity, the detrimental effects it has on ecosystems, and how it impacts us. Biodiversity also needs to be more studied in order to give us the necessary knowledge needed to protect animal and plant species from going extinct.

Analysis: Narrative and Story Essay

The stylistic analysis of Richard Gordon’s story â€Å"Doctor in the house† by Arailym Zharmukhamed from IN-11-2 â€Å"Doctor in the house† was written by Richard Gordon, a famous English writer. He was born in 1921. He had been a surgeon and anaesthetist, he wrote numerous novels, screenplays for film and television and accounts of popular history, mostly dealing with the practice of medicine. He was most famous for a long series of comic novels on a medical theme starting with â€Å"Doctor in the House†, and the subsequent film, television, radio and stage adaptations. Everything that author described in the story â€Å"Doctor in the house† was true to life, that is why it made this story so popular among people. The subject of the story is sitting for examinations. Well, now I’m going to analyze the story. The story is short. And narrative mode of the text are both narration and description. The author describes us what examination means for students and narrates about exam itself and his own experience when he was a student. The plot structure of the story is interesting one. The exposition of the text starts with the explanation what examination means for a medical student and what examination means in whole. After the explanation we come to the inciting moment when the narrator takes his exam. I slowly pass to the climax of the story when Richard is waiting for the results. And I come to the resolution when he has learnt that passed the examinations. Having analyzed the plot structure, I would like to give the summary of the extract. The story takes place during the examination for medical students. As the narrator mentions it’s something like a death. The exam is consists of two parts, they are written papers and oral examination. 3 hours are allowed for the paper. Students swott up the spot questions, because there is rarely any frank cheating in medical examinations. When the narrator is finished with the written papers, he meets Grimsdyke who knows that there’s a special system of marking the tripos and the narrator shouldn’t worry about it. As for the viva, it was a judgement day, because a false answer and the student is finished. There were 5 other students with the narrator who were passing the viva. When it was his turn to pass it he easily copes with the first question, but stumbles through the second, that is why the days after the viva are black ones. At last the day when students could learn their results comes. It’s the Secretary who simply should say â€Å"pass† or â€Å"failed†. The narrator worries so much that even doesn’t hear the  Secretary who named his number. So it turned out that the narrator passed his exam. His feelings are mixed. Now, I’m gradually passing to the main characters of the story. Here is only one main character – the narrator. The method of character drawing is indirect. He is round, dynamic, protagonist character. The narrator is a medical student. During the whole story we can see him passing through examinations. The day of the examination was the worst thing on the earth, something like death for all students. If you want to pass it you should be ready. So, I think he is well-read in medicine, hard-working person, because there is rarely any frank cheating in medical examinations, so a student should know the material and help himself. He managed with this. I also can say that he is very observant. The narrator notices different kind of emotions on people’s faces. For example he talks about porters who look dispassionately down at students, he sees an awkward expression of self-consciousness and superiority in students faces, he notices that the woman’s suit was neat but not smart, that her hair tidy but not striking, that she wore enough make-up to look attractive. The narrator is an interesting character, he likes to compare people with somebody. For examples, he compares porters with policemen, examination is something like death as he mentions, the Old Stager with a photographer at a wedding. He can easily find the right word to describe the person. So, I can say that he is smart. We also know he passed his exam, it means his knowledge of medicine are good enough and maybe one day he’ll become a doctor. On the whole, I can say that he creates an image of an ordinary student. I slowly come to the author’s style of the text. If to look at the text, we may notice that it is written in the first person narration: â€Å"I walked down the stairs feeling as if I had just finished an eight-round fight†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ,†I was shown to a tiny waiting-room†¦Ã¢â‚¬  or â€Å"I stood before table four. I didn’t recognize the examiners.† And so on. Speaking about vocabulary of the story, it is important to say that the language is expressive, emotional. Richard Gordon uses lots of thematic words such as â€Å"student, cheating, the examiners, to pass, tripos the viva, written papers†, etc. The author uses stylistic devices and expressive means to achieve desired effect in describing characters and examination itself. Well, on the whole the text is emotionally moving. Now I want to provide some examples of Stylistic devices. Richard Gordon uses simile, metaphor, hyperbole, allusion,  metonymy. By the simile â€Å"examinations are something like death†, the author shows what the students feel before it, their condition; â€Å"like a prize-fighter†, here Richard Gordon wants to show the atmosphere of contest between the student himself and the examiner; by using metaphor â€Å"well-trodden paths† the author shows the attitude to the medical textbooks; â€Å"frustrated brilliance† about a gone hope of a student; by using a hypebole â€Å"an examination is nothing more than an investigation of a manà ¢â‚¬â„¢s knowledge†, the author shows what the examination is. Or â€Å"But the viva is judgement day. A false answer, and the god’s brow threatens like imminent thunderstorm† to show the importance of examination for students; the author excellently uses the allusion referring to the Bible’s Judgment day. We discover that final exams are death and the Secretary as an archangel corresponds where they would go to the paradise or to hell. So, we can see that the text is rich in stylistic devices, it makes it vivid. It’s important to mention that the syntax of the story also helps to make the story vivid. Each sentence is complete. The structure of the sentences is characterized by a strict adherence to logic, the author uses parallels constructions which help to reflect the tense during anticipation of the narrator’s result: â€Å"The world stood still. The traffic stopped, the plants ceased growing, men were paralysed, the clouds hung in the air, the winds dropped, the tides disappeared, the sun halted in the s ky.† Having analyzed stylistic devises we can describe the atmosphere and tone of the story. In the beginning the atmosphere is strained, in the middle of the test when students start examination it becomes nervous, but in the end it’s relaxed because the narrator has known that he passed the exam. The tone is serious because the narrator describes the examination and shows the importance of it for students. Having realized the story we can easily find the theme and the main idea of it. The theme of the story is worries about examination. The main idea is that examination is a real challenge for students and a real testing of being ready for different difficulties. And now, I’m trying to conclude my thoughts. In our world, there are full of difficulties and various problems. I’m sure no one can say that he is free from spoiling his nerves and health in order to overcome some important destiny barriers. As a matter of fact, who can agree that life is more interesting, when it flows as a calm river of constantly and monotonously changing events? A person  becomes experienced and strong only having felt the whole disgrace of the world he has a chance to live in. And what an amazing quality our memory has; it specially chooses the worst recollections and with the sense cruelty reminds us our past mistakes and annoyances, making us feel that awful feelings again and again. The fact that nothing can be as memorable as our misfortunes was remarkably proved by Richard Gordon. Having a great medical practice, the author reveals his own recollections of the old days, when he was just a student, stumbling through the most scaring trial in his life – the finals. He colourfully describes all the sides of his extremely important event. Cheating is practically impossible, all the knowledge is an inseparable mass in the heads of young and full of hopes students. Oral and writing examinations become some kind of a â€Å"judgment day†. And not everyone becomes that lucky, who will take the diploma from the professor’s hands. With an irony the author gives us the description of students’ feelings and behaviour. Some of them have â€Å"superiosity in their faces†, others were trying to complete the last brilliant sentence, â€Å"dissatisfied with the period allowed for them to express themselves†. After years such event seems to be extremely funny. The author showed us the atmosphere people sometimes have to be in. Recollecting my own experience I can say that in many cases my feelings were the same. Everything, which happens to us sooner or later turns into the simple recollection. Of course it puts a trace in our mind, and not always pleasant one. Author gives us a way to understanding of such things. It is humour, the best â€Å"cure of the injures† the life gives us. Remembering this rule a person is able to overcome many life trials, becoming stronger and wiser. In this case even the best professor can’t be compared with the teacher we all have – our past. For me, every time the examinations require from me much effort and nerves for preparation and passing them. So, heaving read this story, I found that Richard Gordon is a master of witty descriptions of serious and important events in people’s life. Not many authors are able to achieve this effect in his or her works, but Richard Gordon made this perfectly.

School Kills Creativity †Ken Robinson

1. I agree with this statement, my explanation is that everybody got an education since they was born. First, you have to define the word â€Å"education†. In my opinion education is same as imitation because everyone learns by imitate from what people have done. Students learn mathematic by the method that ancient people made, baby or kids learn everything from what they have seen. You can see that when we were young, we imitated the way we speak from our parents, and we drew the picture from what we see. In that time, we enjoyed that moment.So, we can say that education is in our instinct. 2. 3. What he say happen to us because we have been taught to live in the same pattern, we have to do something in the same way, we have to do something in the same pattern, to make mistake is prohibited. If you learn from history, many things come from the mistaken; Alfred Nobel found Dynamite when he tries to make other thing. Another reason why I agree with his word is that we’re all taught by the same way, so after graduated, we’ll be something like a textbook that you can find it easily.Creativity is the thing that can’t be taught. It has in everyone but education system obstruct it. School kills creativity – Ken Robinson In his speech at the TED conference in February 2006, Sir Ken Robinson claims for a reformation of the current creativity retarding worldwide education system. His point of departure is that children are born with huge talents, wasted by the contemporary education system. While children are not afraid of being wrong, school and the ecological system eliminate this attitude. Read also  How Powerful Do You Find Atticus Finch’s Closing Speech?Robinson thinks that this, making mistakes, is the only way to develop new ideas, although getting on in life means not making mistakes. People, especially children, should have more space to be wrong, accordingly to possibilities of creating something new. Being developed in the 19th century, the education system is focused on providing the requirements for a job in the industry and academic ability. The orator points out that the hierarchy of subjects around the world is the same: first comes math and languages, followed by humanities and concluded by the arts, especially usic and art, after that drama and dance. In Robinson’s opinion this is the right order of priorities for a scientific career, but not for people of the future which have to solute the world problems in a more creative way. Talented people do not get the sense of achievement, because things they are good at are not valued at school; hence, their high creative potentials are wasted. Furthermore Sir Ken Robinson mentions an â€Å"academic inflation† around the world, since conditions for job entrance referring to one’s academic degree are raised.Intelligence is diversely based on visual, tonal, kinesthetically, dynamic and abstract influences as a result it is the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things. That is why the whole body has to be educated to use the whole spectrum of human capacity. Therefore fundamental principles of the education system have to be changed in order to send the next generation into a better future. In my personal experience, around two years ago when I was in high school, I lost all of my confidence and didn’t know what I have to do. My score were lower than other students in the class.The teachers used to ignore me and treated me as a troublemaker. After finishing some internship in America, I’ve realized that I was not that kind. Peopl e who I had met in America, especially my boss and my co-worker, encourage me to do what I really want to do. And finally I have a confidence that I can do everything if I want to. Good morning. How are you? It's been great, hasn't it? I've been blown away by the whole thing. In fact, I'm leaving. (Laughter)  There have been three themes, haven't there,  running through the conference, which are relevant  to what I want to talk about.One is the extraordinary evidence of human creativity  in all of the presentations that we've had  and in all of the people here. Just the variety of it  and the range of it. The second is that  it's put us in a place where we have no idea what's going to happen,  idea how I have an interest in education —  actually, what I find is everybody has an interest in education. Don't you? I find this very interesting. say you  actually, you're not often at dinner parties, frankly, if you work in education. (Laughter) You're not asked . And you're never asked back, curiously. That's strange to me.But if you are, and you say to somebody,  you know, they say, â€Å"What do you do? †Ã‚  and you say you work in education,  you can see the blood run from their face. They're like,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Oh my God,† you know, â€Å"Why me? My one night out all week. † (Laughter)  But if you ask about their education,  they pin you to the wall. Because it's one of those things  that goes deep with people, am I right? Like religion, and money and other things. I have a big interest in education, and I think we all do. We have a huge vested interest in it,  partly because it's education that's meant to  take us into this future that we can't grasp.If you think of it, children starting school this year  will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue –despite all the expertise that's been on parade for the past four days —  what the world will look like  in five years' time. And yet we'r e meant  to be educating them for it. So the unpredictability, I think,  is extraordinary. And the third part of this is that  we've all agreed, nonetheless, on the  really extraordinary capacities that children have —  their capacities for innovation. I mean, Sirena last night was a marvel,  wasn't she?Just seeing what she could do. And she's exceptional, but I think she's not, so to speak,  exceptional in the whole of childhood. What you have there is a person of extraordinary dedication  who found a talent. And my contention is,  all kids have tremendous talents. And we squander them, pretty ruthlessly. So I want to talk about education and  I want to talk about creativity. My contention is that  creativity now is as important in education as literacy,  and we should treat it with the same status. (Applause) Thank you. That was it, by the way. left.Well I heard a great story recently — I love telling it —  of a little girl who was in a drawing lesson. She was six  and she was at the back, drawing,  and the teacher said this little girl hardly ever  paid attention, and in this drawing lesson she did. The teacher was fascinated and she went over to her  and she said, â€Å"What are you drawing? †Ã‚  And the girl said, â€Å"I'm drawing a picture of God. †Ã‚  And the teacher said, â€Å"But nobody knows what God looks like. †Ã‚  And the girl said, â€Å"They will in a minute. †Ã‚  (Laughter) When my son was four in England —  actually he was four everywhere, to be honest. Laughter)  If we're being strict about it, wherever he went, he was four that year. He was in the Nativity play. Do you remember the story? No, it was big. It was a big story. Mel Gibson did the sequel. You may have seen it: â€Å"Nativity II. † But James got the part of Joseph,  which we were thrilled about. We considered this to be one of the lead parts. We had the place crammed full of ag ents in T-shirts:  Ã¢â‚¬Å"James Robinson IS Joseph! † (Laughter)He didn't have to speak, but you know the bit  where the three kings come in. They come in bearing gifts,  and they bring gold, frankincense and myrhh.This really happened. We were sitting there  and I think they just went out of sequence,  because we talked to the little boy afterward and we said,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"You OK with that? † And he said, â€Å"Yeah, why? Was that wrong? â€Å"They just switched, that was it. Anyway, the three boys came in —  four-year-olds with tea towels on their heads —  and they put these boxes down,  and the first boy said, â€Å"I bring you gold. †Ã‚  And the second boy said, â€Å"I bring you myrhh. †Ã‚  And the third boy said, â€Å"Frank sent this. † (Laughter) What these things have in common is that kids will take a chance. If they don't know, they'll have a go.Am I right? They're not frightened of being wrong. Now, I don't me an to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is,  if you're not prepared to be wrong,  you'll never come up with anything original —  if you're not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults,  most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. way. We  where mistakes  And the result is that we are educating people out of  their creative capacities. Picasso once said this —  he said that all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.I believe this passionately,  that we don't grow into creativity,  we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out if it. So why is this? I lived in Stratford-on-Avon until about five years ago. In fact, we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles. So you can imagine what a seamless transition that was. Actually, we  just outside Stratford, which is where  Shakespeare's father was born. Are you struck by a ne w thought? I was. You don't think of Shakespeare having a father, do you? Do you? Because you don't think of  Shakespeare being a child, do you? Shakespeare being seven? I never thought of it.I mean, he was  seven at some point. He was in  somebody's English class, wasn't he? How annoying would that be? (Laughter) â€Å"Must try harder. † Being sent to bed by his dad, you know,  to Shakespeare, â€Å"Go to bed, now,†Ã‚  to William Shakespeare, â€Å"and put the pencil down. And stop speaking like that. It's confusing everybody. †Ã‚  (Laughter) Anyway, we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles,  and I just want to say a word about the transition, actually. My son didn't want to come. I've got two kids. He's 21 now; my daughter's 16. He didn't want to come to Los Angeles. He loved it,  but he had a girlfriend in England.This was the love of his life, Sarah. He'd known her for a month. Mind you, they'd had their fourth anniversary,  because it's a long t ime when you're 16. Anyway, he was really upset on the plane,  and he said, â€Å"I'll never find another girl like Sarah. †Ã‚  And we were rather pleased about that, frankly,  because she was the main reason we were leaving the country. (Laughter) But something strikes you when you move to America  and when you travel around the world:  Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. Every one. Doesn't matter where you go. You'd think it would be otherwise, but it isn't.At the top are mathematics and languages,  then the humanities, and the bottom are the arts. Everywhere on Earth. And in pretty much every system too,  there's a hierarchy within the arts. Art and music are normally given a higher status in schools  than drama and dance. There isn't an education system on the planet  that teaches dance everyday to children  the way we teach them mathematics. Why? Why not? I think this is rather important. I think math is very important, b ut so is dance. Children dance all the time if they're allowed to, we all do. We all have bodies, don't we? Did I miss a meeting? Laughter) Truthfully, what happens is,  as children grow up, we start to educate them  progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads. And slightly to one side. If you were to visit education, as an alien,  and say â€Å"What's it for, public education? †Ã‚  I think you'd have to conclude — if you look at the output,  who really succeeds by this,  who does everything that they should,  who gets all the brownie points, who are the winners —  I think you'd have to conclude the whole purpose of public education  throughout the world  is to produce university professors. Isn't it?They're the people who come out the top. And I used to be one, so there. (Laughter)  And I like university professors, but you know,  we shouldn't hold them up as the high-water mark of all human achievement. life, another   them. There’s  not all of them, but typically — they live in their heads. They live up there, and slightly to one side. They're disembodied, you know, in a kind of literal way. They look upon their body  as a form of transport for their heads, don't they? meetings. If  by the way, get yourself along to a residential conference  of senior academics,  and pop into the discotheque on the final night. Laughter) And there you will see it — grown men and women  writhing uncontrollably, off the beat,  waiting until it ends so they can go home and write a paper about it. Now our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability. And there's a reason. The whole system was invented — around the world, there were  no public systems of education, really, before the 19th century. They all came into being  to meet the needs of industrialism. So the hierarchy is rooted on two ideas. Number one, that the most useful subjects for work  are at the top.So you were probably steered benignly away  from things at school when you were a kid, things you liked,  on the grounds that you would  never get a job doing that. Is that right? Don't do music, you're not going to be a musician;  don't do art, you won't be an artist. Benign advice — now, profoundly mistaken. The whole world  is engulfed in a revolution. And the second is academic ability, which has really come to dominate  our view of intelligence,  because the universities designed the system in their image. If you think of it, the whole system  of public education around the world is a protracted process  of university entrance.And the consequence is that many highly talented,  brilliant, creative people think they're not,  because the thing they were good at school  wasn't valued, or was actually stigmatized. And I think we can't afford to go on that way. In the next 30 years, according to UNESCO,  graduating through  combinati on of  technology and its transformation effect on work, and demography  and the huge explosion in population. Suddenly, degrees aren't worth anything. Isn't that true? When I was a student, if you had a degree, you had a job. If you didn't have a job it's because you didn't want one.And I didn't want one, frankly. (Laughter)  But now kids with degrees are often  heading home to carry on playing video games,  because you need an MA where the previous job required a BA,  other. It’s  And it indicates the whole structure of education  is shifting beneath our feet. We need to radically rethink  our view of intelligence. We know three things about intelligence. One, it's diverse. We think about the world in all the ways  that we experience it. We think visually,  we think in sound, we think kinesthetically. We think in abstract terms, we think in movement.Secondly, intelligence is dynamic. If you look at the interactions of a human brain, as we heard  yest erday from a number of presentations,  intelligence is wonderfully interactive. The brain isn't divided into compartments. In fact, creativity — which I define as the process  of having original ideas that have value —  more often than not comes about through the interaction  of different disciplinary ways of seeing things. The brain is intentionally — by the way,  there's a shaft of nerves that joins the two halves of the brain  called the corpus callosum. It's thicker in women.Following off from Helen yesterday, I think  this is probably why women are better at multi-tasking. Because you are, aren't you? There's a raft of research, but I know it from my personal life. If my wife is cooking a meal at home —  which is not often, thankfully. (Laughter)  But you know, she's doing — no, she's good at some things —  but if she's cooking, you know,  she's dealing with people on the phone,  she's talking to the kids, she's painting the ceiling,  she's doing open-heart surgery over here. If I'm cooking, the door is shut, the kids are out,  the phone's on the hook, if she comes in I get annoyed.I say, â€Å"Terry, please, I'm trying to fry an egg in here. Give me a break. † (Laughter)  Actually, you know that old philosophical thing,  if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it,  did it happen? Remember that old chestnut? I saw a great t-shirt really recently which said, â€Å"If a man speaks his mind  in a forest, and no woman hears him,  is he still wrong? † (Laughter) And the third thing about intelligence is,  it's distinct. I'm doing a new book at the momentcalled â€Å"Epiphany,† which is based on a series of  interviews with people about how they discovered  their talent.I'm fascinated by how people got to be there. It's really prompted by a conversation I had  with a wonderful woman who maybe most people  have never heard of; she's called Gillian Lynne —  have you heard of her? Some have. She's a choreographer  and everybody knows her work. She did â€Å"Cats† and â€Å"Phantom of the Opera. †Ã‚  She's wonderful. I used to be on the board of the Royal Ballet in England,  as you can see. Anyway, Gillian and I had lunch one day and I said,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Gillian, how'd you get to be a dancer? † And she said  it was interesting; when she was at school,  she was really hopeless.And the school, in the '30s,  wrote to her parents and said, â€Å"We think  Gillian has a learning disorder. † She couldn't concentrate;  she was fidgeting. I think now they'd say  she had ADHD. Wouldn't you? But this was the 1930s,  and ADHD hadn't been invented at this point. It wasn't an available condition. (Laughter)  People weren't aware they could have that. Anyway, she went to see this specialist. So, this oak-paneled room,  and she was there with her mother,  and she was led and sat on this chair at the end,  and she sat on her hands for 20 minutes while  this man talked to her mother about all  the problems Gillian was having at school.And at the end of it —  because she was disturbing people;  her homework was always late; and so on,  little kid of eight — in the end, the doctor went and sat  next to Gillian and said, â€Å"Gillian,  I've listened to all these things that your mother's  told me, and I need to speak to her privately. †Ã‚  He said, â€Å"Wait here. We'll be back; we won't be very long,†Ã‚  and they went and left her. But as they went out the room, he turned on the radio  that was sitting on his desk. And when they  got out the room, he said to her mother,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Just stand and watch her. † And the minute they left the room,  she said, she was on her feet, moving to the music.And they watched for a few minutes  and he turned to her mother and said,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn't sick; s he's a dancer. Take her to a dance school. † I said, â€Å"What happened? †Ã‚  She said, â€Å"She did. I can't tell you how wonderful it was. We walked in this room and it was full of  people like me. People who couldn't sit still. People who had to move to think. † Who had to move to think. They did ballet; they did tap; they did jazz;  they did modern; they did contemporary. She was eventually auditioned for the Royal Ballet School;  she became a soloist; she had a wonderful career  at the Royal Ballet.She eventually graduated  from the Royal Ballet School and  founded her own company — the Gillian Lynne Dance Company —  met Andrew Lloyd Weber. She's been responsible forsome of the most successful musical theater  productions in history; she's given pleasure to millions;  and she's a multi-millionaire. Somebody else  might have put her on medication and told her  to calm down. Now, I think †¦ (Applause) What I think it comes to is this:  Al Gore spoke the other nightabout ecology and the revolution that was triggered by Rachel Carson.I believe our only hope for the future  is to adopt a new conception of human ecology,  one in which we start to reconstitute our conception  of the richness of human capacity. Our education system has mined our minds in the way  that we strip-mine the earth: for a particular commodity. And for the future, it won't serve us. We have to rethink the fundamental principles  on which we're educating our children. There was  a wonderful quote by Jonas Salk, who said, â€Å"If all the insects  were to disappear from the earth,  within 50 years all life on Earth would end.If all human beings disappeared from the earth,  within 50 years all forms of life would flourish. â€Å"And he's right. What TED celebrates is the gift of the human imagination. We have to be careful now that we use this gift  wisely and that we avert some of the scenarios  that w e've talked about. And the only way  we'll do it is by seeing our creative capacities  for the richness they are and seeing  our children for the hope that they are. And our task  is to educate their whole being, so they can face this future. By the way — we may not see this future,  but they will. And our job is to help  them make something of it. Thank you very much.

And Then There Were None

And Then There Were None Agatha Christie was born on September 15th, 1890 in Torquay, England. Her name at birth was Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller, and her parents were Clarissa Boehmer of Belfast, Ireland and Frederick Miller, an American. Agatha was the youngest of three children, and grew up very alone because of the age gap of over ten years between her siblings. Her father passed away when she was only eleven years old, leaving her to grow up with her mother’s care. In 1906 Agatha traveled to Paris where she studied singing and piano (Www.sfu.ca). She didn’t discover her talent for writing until she was older. Years later on Christmas Eve (Www.sfu.ca) 1914, the Miller girl became Agatha Christie after marrying war Captain Archibald Christie. The two became parents in 1919 when they had their daughter, Rosalind. Before then, throughout 1914 to 1918, Agatha worked as a hospital and dispensary nurse during World War I. That was where she developed her vast knowledge involving poisons, drugs an d medicines (Www.sfu.ca). In 1920, Christie published her first book, â€Å"The Mysterious Affair at Styles†, in America. The book introduced her most famous character, Hercule Poirot, who would later appear in more than forty more books (Winks 12). After the book was published, Agatha wrote five more mysteries (Www.nd.edu) before publishing the novel that began her huge success; â€Å"The Murder of Rodger Ackroyd† (Winks 2). Seven months after the book was published, Agatha disappeared. Suspects claimed that she was murdered, and others believed her missing case was an act for publicity while the nation searched for her (Winks 3). Her whereabouts were discovered ten days after her disappearance when some people found out that she had registered in a local hotel under the name of the women with whom she had found out her husband was cheating with (Winks 3). In 1928, Agatha and Archibald divorced, which opened up a new door for Agatha’s characters when she develo ped the now famous Miss Marple. Two years later, after a couple more successful books had been published, she met Max Mallowan in Baghdad. Agatha and the archaeologist were soon married and Christie began to approach her highest point as an author. In 1930, Agatha Christie began writing and publishing romance novels under the pen name of Mary Westmacott. Robin Winks said, â€Å"These noncrime novels are not taken seriously today†. Christie was thought to put into play her feelings toward her ex-husband throughout the Westmacott novels (Winks 18). After years of fame, Agatha was awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1956. She also became President of the Detection Club in 1957 and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Exeter University in 1961. Perhaps her most elite recognition was when she was named a Dame of the British Empire by the Queen of England in 1971. Her nickname was in fact the â€Å"Queen of Crime†. On January 12th, 1976, Agatha Christ ie passed away from old age. The author was only exceeded by Shakespeare and the Bible. Her 1940’s novel â€Å"Sleeping Murder: Miss Marple’s Last Case† was published after her death.

American History 1584-1783 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

American History 1584-1783 - Essay Example The introduction of tobacco, Virginias staple crop, created a demand for labor, superseding the supply of indentured servants coming to the colony. However, due to the increase in labor, an increase in skilled labor also resulted - to build houses, to make the hogsheads, to pack and ship the sugar, tobacco, or rice. As the demand for labor grew large, the rising cost of white labor tended to make slaves a less expensive source of unskilled labor than additional servants. Eventually, the majority of the bound labor force then changed from white to black. During this period, the servant became an inevitable, and necessary, source of skilled labor. Slave trade in Jamestown slowly developed as degrees of prejudice towards dark skin formed. The African slaves were continuously held to servitude as colonists considered them typically cheaper to feed and clothe and better "seasoned" for work in Virginias hot climate. As indentured European servants proved unruly and rebellious, and immigration sporadic, the planters turned to African slaves as better sources for labor. Similarities and differences between indentured servitude and slavery. The similarities between slaves and indentured servants were that both could be bought and sold. They lacked proper food and clothing, had poor housing, and had hard work. They often died from servitude, could be hunted and punished for running away, and whipped or branded. Whippings, hard labor, and lack of food and clothing were all reasons for running away. Both were abused. Both the servant and the slave were valuable economic assets to the owners. For most of the seventeenth century the lives of white indentured servants and enslaved blacks were similar. They worked together in the fields; they ate together and slept in the same part of a building. The changes in day-to-day conditions really