Data analysiis and literature review Assignment

Data analysiis and literature review - Assignment Example The research does not establish a relationship between the salaries of the executives and the years spent in the company (Curwin, 2002). The data obtained in the research clearly indicates a variance in the relationship between the salaries of the executives and the years spent in the company. In some cases, the executives have spent quite a long duration in the company but their salary falls under the average level. The time spent in the company can have use in the determination of the salaries of the executives in the case where the other economic factors about the company are kept constant. The time spent in the company is also utilized in determining a company’s executive salaries given that the executive has the relevant experience in the general operations of the company. In addition, the companies can pay their executives based on the duration spent in the company given that the company’s performance reflects on its returns (Morris, 2003). Company’s executive’s salaries are determined based on their performance as well as the company’s performance. An executive salary is determined by the performance of the company in terms of the returns and fulfillment of its objectives. For example, an executive who have spent many years in the company and has implemented several effective policies in the departments they have been working. The executive who has been performing exemplarily in the finance department for many years can be rewarded based on their performance. On the other hand, the executives’ salaries are determined by the performance of the company based on returns and ability to reward their executives (Wright, 2000, p.600). When an executive is imported from another company to boost the performance of failing company, they accept reduced the salary with the expectation of a salary review after the company’s performance improves. Moreover, an executive who has been working to enhance the company’s performance

Media In The Vietnam War

Media In The Vietnam War Throughout Americas history, the United States has won the majority of all of its major conflicts. Up until the Vietnam War, America was seen as invincible and unbeatable. At the time, television and personal audio recorders were becoming more mainstream. News by television was growing for the first time, people were turning to TV rather than the newspaper or radio to learn about current events.  [1]  The news was uncensored, and citizens, for the first time, were able to view the reality of war. Although the Vietnam War initially had the publics full support, uncensored anti-war news coverage on the newly developed commercial television influenced popular sources of entertainment, like music artists, which in turn led people to protest the war; the protests, combined with the major losses and defeats in the conflict, prompted the government to withdraw from Vietnam. The Vietnam War was a Cold War conflict that officially started on the first of November, 1955. President Lyndon B. Johnson took full advantage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which occurred in 1964; the resolution allowed the President to use conventional military power in south Asia without the approval of Congress. President Johnson used this incident as a reason to escalate troop levels in Vietnam, thus escalating the conflict.  [2]  The escalated conflict, which turned into a full-scale war, was fought between North Vietnam and its Communist allies and South Vietnam supported by anti-communist nations. The larger strategy at hand was the containment of communism. Started as a Russian revolution, the Soviets had started spreading Communism throughout the world. Although the war technically started in 1955, it wasnt until the early 1960s that US troop levels began to grow rapidly.  [3]  In 1968, the US launched the infamous Tet Offensive, an operation in which there were many casualties on both sides.  [4]  The Tet Offensive marked the period in which approval for the war started to rapidly decline which would later cause the U.S, five years later to start a peace process in which the US would eventually withdraw from Vietnam.  [5]  This peace processes ended two years later in 1975 with the capture of Saigon by North Vietnamese forces.  [6]   Although veterans sharing their experiences of war happened in any previous war, the Vietnam War was exposed much more through new technology such as television, and personal audio recorders. At the same time the Vietnam War was starting, citizens started switching where they would get their news information. A series of surveys conducted by the Roper Organization for the Television Information Office from 1964 until 1972 demonstrates the growing power of television; multiple answers allowed, respondents were asked from which medium they got most of their news, 58 percent said television; 56 percent, newspapers; 26 percent, radio; and 8 percent, magazines.  [7]  By 1972, 64 percent said television while the number of respondents who primarily relied on newspapers dropped to 50 percent.  [8]  TV was more attention-grabbing than newspapers and radio the visual element allowed user to feel as if they were in the middle of the intense battles and death. Additionally, intense vis uals helped explain the complex nature of war to Americans who might not understand the militarys technical language. Furthermore, anchors, who hosted the news programs quickly became famous in fact, Walter Croncrite, a major anchor at the time was often cited as the most trusted man in America.  [9]  This trust in the media led people to quickly believe their word as fact, clearly spreading the medias bias throughout Americas culture. When footage of the Tet Offensive started coming out in early 1968, the dominant view that the war was just was quickly flip-flopped. The media started showing more anti-war footage, with a focus on critics of the Johnson administration.  [10]  Most importantly, the footage of the My Lai massacre, where hundreds of Vietnamese were killed in cold blood by Americans, acted as a main example of why peace needed to be established.  [11]  Later on, the media focused on domestic anti-war movements, which further exemplified how the Vietnam War was unjust. Not only were Americans seeing the war in a new way, they were also seeing more casualties coming back from the front. All the way from the beginning of the war to the end, the casualty rates were rising at a constant rate. By 1968, there was an average of 1200 men who died per month in Vietnam.  [12]  Correlating with the increase in deaths at the front, more and more American soldiers were sent to Vietnam, and by 1968 over half a million troops were stationed there.  [13]  At the same time, naturally, the approval rating for then-President Lyndon B. Johnson plummeted to an all time low even as low as 35% during the Tet Offensive.  [14]  Because American approval for Johnson went steadily lower over time, it can be inferred that it was because of his actions during his time as president. Since there were so many casualties and little progress was being made in Vietnam, most people thought the war was unwinnable, which was later confirmed in 1968 by the top news anchor o f the time, Walter Cronkite.  [15]  This notion that the war was unwinnable furthered the American publics cause to end the war and bring the remaining soldiers home. This general feeling of an American demise in Vietnam eventually spread to popular entertainment and popular culture. Although the media generally spread the anti-war message, music artists picked up its caused and spread the message of peace to the younger generation. Artists such as Edwin Starr, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen were incredibly popular in the 1960s and early 1970s. Much of their work consisted of anti-Saigon lyrics which displayed the harsh realities of war, and explaining why our soldiers should come home. These songs and artists sparked the counter culture of the time generally knows as hippies. These peace loving people carried out the messages of these artists peace, love and respect; their main goal was the end the Vietnam War and to create peace.  [16]  This counter-culture spread rapidly, especially among young people. Because of its amazing popularity, the media covered most of youth rallies and protests, such as draft card burnings and Human-Be-Ins.  [17]  This excessive media attention spread the counter-culture even further, spreading its ideas across the Unite d States. Because more people were being aware of these acts of civil disobedience, more people were tempted to follow the crowd. As more people got caught up in the movement the number of people at the protests rose, from as little as 700 participants in 1964 to 500,000 total in 1967.  [18]  This primarily shows how an anti-war bias spread by the media found its way into popular culture, which then caused many citizens to protest the war. Even those who did not go out and protest, which was the majority of the country, regarded the Vietnam War as a mistake.  [19]   Throughout the 60s and early 70s time, American citizens were constantly fighting against American involvement in Vietnam. Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated every year to bring American troops back home. The number of people demonstrating kept rising as the approval rating for the war lowered exponentially every year.  [20]  As more people started demonstrating, pop-culture heavyweights, such as boxer Muhammad Ali and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. publicly endorsed peace. Not only did this lead to an increase in media coverage of the issue, but it also lead those who were fans of those public figures to become active in the fight for peace in Vietnam. Civil disobedience was on the rise more than 16 million American citizens dodged the draft by the end of the Vietnam War.  [21]  Also, in 1967, a group of flower power hippies marched on the Pentagon where they were blocked by National Guard troops, and subsequently they put flowers in their gun barrels (Appendix A).  [22]  A photographer, Bernard Norman Boston took a photo of the incident, and it became the runner up for the Pulitzer Prize that year, further broadcasting the strength of the counter-culture movement in the United States. The more media converge there was, the more people decided to join the movement for peace. The media even had a profound effect on the soldiers stationed in Vietnam; some GIs decided to resist the commands of the US army. The army in Vietnam, according to Marine Colonel Robert D. Heinl Jr., a veteran combat commander with over 27 years experience in the Marines, and the author of Soldiers Of The Sea, was on the verge of collapse: By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and non commissioned officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near mutinous. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Sedition, coupled with disaffection from within the ranks, and externally fomented with an audacity and intensity previously inconceivable, infest the Armed Services  [23]   Not only was the army mutinous, but there were also many fragging incidents that occurred on bases. Fragging, is where there is a bounty placed upon a commanding officer, and that man is to be murdered, and whoever does it gets a monetary reward. These bounties were placed in underground army newspapers which majority of the army read.  [24]  In the year of 1970 alone, there were 209 reported fraggings.  [25]  The people responsible for the fraggings mostly got away with it too, as the armys justice system was quite corrupt: The Armys Judge Advocate Generals Corps estimated that only 10% of fragging attempts resulted in anyone going to trial..  [26]  Although there were those who took action against their superiors, there were also those who ran away. By 1970, the U.S. Army had 65,643 deserters almost four infantry divisions worth of troops.  [27]  In 1966 the desertion rate was 14.7 per thousand, in 1968 it was 26.2 per thousand, and by 1970 it had risen to 52.3 per thousand; absence without leave was so common that by the height of the war one GI went AWOL every three minutes.  [28]  From January of 67 to January of 72 a total of 354,112 GIs left their posts without permission, and at the time of the signing of the peace accords 98,324 were still missing.  [29]  The army also resisted politically, releasing underground news papers to solders. By 1972 around 300 anti-war and anti-military newspapers, with titles like Harass the Brass, All Hands Abandon Ship and Star Spangled Bummer had been published by enlisted men.  [30]  Hundreds of GIs created these papers, but their influence was far wider with thousands more who helped distribute them, and tens of thousands of readers.  [31]  They were also those determined to stop the war based on the act of sabotage; in June of 1972 the USS Ranger was apparently disabled by sabotage, and it had to return to its home base for repairs.  [32]  A movement that embodied this ideology wa s SOS Stop Our Ship. They used petitions to try and get their superiors to ground naval operations.  [33]  Even the troops, who may have had a lack of media knowledge, knew the war was wrong, and they decided to do something about it. They did all of this not only because they were saving themselves from being killed unnecessarily, but also because they knew the war which they were fighting was either not worth the fight or it was unjust. The media was the most decisive factor that drove the United States to end the war. Indirectly, they caused the public to accept that the war was unwinnable and that it would keep taking up the time and resources of the U.S. By conveying their message to popular culture artists, the media was able to target a larger audience, which was also coincidentally more active group socially. These people led protests which were both seen and heard by the national government. The media instigated these protests, displaying primarily anti-war protests on the daily news. Not only was the war being lost overseas, a battle against the government was being fought at home to end the war. Because of the constant pressure from Americas citizens and the North Vietnamese Army, the U.S decided to withdraw from Vietnam, letting Saigon fall into enemy hands, but at the same time, sparing many American lives. Although the media may have ended up tarnishing the honor of the United States with its first major loss since its creation, it stopped a cycle that would have ended up killing more American soldiers. Without the media causing an end to the war in Vietnam, the US would have been in a much worse place than it is today. Word Count: 2101

The Search for Self and Identity in Jack Kerouac’s On The Road :: On The Road essays

Quest for Identity in On the Road In Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road, the author tries to convey to the audience that everybody is naturally dishonest and morally deceitful. Morals are defined by one's religion, the laws of the country, or some combination of the two. One's identity captures and plays out that individual’s moral. My morals follow the Christian beliefs, Texas state laws, and the laws of the United States. Although one's own morals can change, basic things such as stealing and murder are wrong and illegal by federal law. Numerous characters performed many acts proving this point such as Montana Slim, who says in order to get money, follow a man down an alley and rob him, or Dean, who never feels remorse for beating Mary Lou after a fight. These along with other characters display such actions that show that everyone is morally deceitful. In Part 1, Chapter 4, Sal tells Montana Slim that he only has enough money to buy some whiskey. Slim says to Sal, "I know where you can get some." "Where?" "Anywhere. You can always folly a man down an alley, can't you? ...I ain't beyond doing it when I really need some dough." (27) At this early point in the novel, Sal is still figuring out who he is and what life is like on the road. He seems like a young naive schoolboy being bullied by an older, wiser kid. Slim knows what he is talking about because he has been on the road for some time now. He has probably robbed quite a few people throughout his experience on the road. This act is, by law, wrong and dishonest. In Part 2, chapter 6, while Dean, Mary Lou, Ed Dunkel, and Sal stopped at a gas station on the way to New Orleans, Dunkel casually steals three packs of cigarettes. The way the narrator says it is that he stole them without even trying. He then justifies it by saying that they were fresh out (139). The language used is just so "non-chalant," as if stealing was no big deal. Stealing, like robbing, is illegal and morally wrong. The part that is most disturbing is that Dunkel feels that stealing cigarettes is okay, that it is necessary for survival just like food or water. Stealing food or water in order to survive can be justified, but not cigarettes.

Tips on Writing Statement of Purpose for Graduate School

Tips on Writing Statement of Purpose and Personal Statement Essays for Graduate School and Fellowship Applications Examine samples written by other students. The Undergraduate Research Programs office on the 4th floor of Sweet Hall has a binder with sample statements of purpose for a wide variety of fields. You cannot take the binder out of the office, but there are comfortable chairs and you can read through the binder there. One thing you will notice: every student has a different history, different strengths and weaknesses, so there is no one way to write this type of essay. Arrange for individual editorial consultation.After you have absorbed the tips suggested here and you have developed some kind of draft, send an email to Renee Courey at [email  protected] edu with a Word attachment of your draft (with your name on it) along with days and times that you’re available, and either she or another associate will set up an appointment. Avoid doing this at the last minute. T he schedule may be booked, and very often essays need to be re-conceived or there are other major revisions. So, when you make an appointment, allow for plenty of time for follow-up meetings. You can also set up an appointment at the Stanford Writing Center – check with SWC on how to do this.Personal statements and statements of purpose are perhaps the most important parts of applications. There is little you can do to change your GPA or your curriculum vitae (the academic version of a resume), but these statements can be written in many different ways, emphasizing different aspects of your interests, goals, personality, and style. They present the unique qualities that make you the candidate that a committee wants to select, and a good statement of purpose can also affect those professors who will write letters of recommendation for you.Consequently, you need to pay particular attention to their composition. Admissions and approval committees have been known to accept candid ates with uneven academic records or reject otherwise excellent candidates on the basis of these statements. Essays for law school and medical school applications have their own unique characteristics. While many of the tips outlined here are useful for these essays, the demands of graduate school and fellowship essays are different. Law school and medical school essays are closer to the type of essay you wrote for undergraduate admissions.Admissions committees are not that interested in how much you know about law or medicine, since they don’t expect you to know very much, and research, while important to write about, is not as crucial as for graduate programs. For law, you are expected to demonstrate that you can reason and write, and that you have some kind of intellectual capacity and drive and a sense of human connections, and that you are motivated to become a lawyer. For medicine, you are expected to recount any experience with medicine (such as shadowing doctors), tha t you have compassion, in addition to demonstrating that you can reason and write.Again, the tips here are primarily directed at graduate school and fellowship essays, and if you are interested in these professional schools you can extrapolate from these suggestions – and consult with the appropriate staff at UAP. Read the description of the essay carefully, and make sure that you answer the question in the way that it is worded. Pay attention to the word length indicated in the instruction and do not exceed it. These essays are usually very short, and you need to be concise and strategic about which interests or goals you decide to highlight.Do not try to â€Å"fudge† the prompt: answer the question as stated (although most will simply say something like â€Å"Write a short statement of purpose†). Some fellowship applications may require a personal statement that addresses concerns of the fellowship. For example, the Udall asks for an essay responding to Sen. U dall's speeches and writings concerning the environment, the Soros seeks a personal account of what it means to be a New American and how the Constitution and Bill of Rights affect your life, and the Truman asks a series of interlocking questions.Such essays call upon all your critical capacities to present an analysis, opinion or personal reflection, and they are similar to other essays you have written in college. Statements of purpose are required of all fellowship and graduate school applications. These essays require you to describe clearly your interests, your proposed intellectual projects leading towards major research or dissertation, as well as your plans for the future. They are the committee's introduction to you as a scholar and potential colleague.A statement of purpose or interest is very different than the personal essay you wrote for undergraduate applications. It is NOT a general biographical sketch, nor is it primarily a personal reflection upon your decisions to enter a field, nor does it focus on your extracurricular activities (unless those activities pertain to your scholarly interests). You will not be asked something like â€Å"View a photograph and describe it. † Being a scholar, researcher or teacher will demand your best communication skills, so your essay should reassure the committee that you can communicate effectively and with a deep understanding of your field.You should write in a personable manner but this is somewhat different than writing a personal essay for undergraduate admissions. Keep in mind that you are writing to a particular audience, usually of faculty in your field (unlike your undergraduate admissions essay, which was directed to a general admissions committee). In other words, if you are applying for a chemistry PhD program, you will be addressing fellow chemists, for history, fellow historians, etc. If you are applying to an interdisciplinary program (e. g. History of Consciousness at Santa Cruz), your audience is a diverse group of scholars (literature, history, philosophy, etc. ) all united by a similar concern. If you are applying to a fellowship, your audience is liable to be more general or interdisciplinary. Be prepared to produce many drafts. These essays are among the most difficult pieces of writing you may do related to graduate school (other than your dissertation and your first job letter) because you must make so many strategic decisions on how to present yourself in such a short amount of space.Allow yourself a lot of time for drafts, and do not get frustrated because of the many times you will need to rewrite. Making multiple revisions is an inevitable part of the process. Show your drafts to faculty members, particularly those writing letters of recommendation, fellow students, and others. Accept criticisms with as little defensiveness as possible. On occasion you will get conflicting opinions on the presentation of your ideas and you will have to decide which dire ction to take.If you have a leading faculty mentor, you may defer to his or her opinion over others. The â€Å"trick† of this essay is to transform supplication into conversation, to change begging into exchange. Readers want to get a feeling of your intellect, and in a successful essay they will want to continue the discussion you’ve initiated, which they can only do if they admit you into their program. They will want you to be a part of their community of scholars because you have something to offer. They ask: â€Å"Would I be interested in talking to this student about her research over lunch? Concentrate on demonstrating what you know about your field and what you hope to accomplish in graduate school and even beyond. Is there a particular area of the field that you find interesting? What do you hope to contribute to the field? Avoid digressions. Demonstrate your knowledge of the field by making appropriate references to leading scholars, major writers, and curre nt debates or concerns, employing appropriate technical terminology. Avoid jargon that you believe is fashionable in order to appear flashy: most committees can tell superficial use of buzz words.You usually do not need to explain concepts in depth, since admission committees are usually already familiar with the field (although brief explanations for a more general reader may be necessary for fellowship applications). If you do write about an aspect of the field that may be somewhat unusual or controversial, your ability to briefly explain technical or theoretical aspects is a crucial component of how your essay is judged. You are not simply offering a summary of a field, so your ability to present your own arguments demonstrates how creatively you engage the entire field.Make concrete references to the program you are applying to and to the faculty you would like to study with. However, make sure these references are sufficiently broad so that you do not sound as if you want to st udy with just one person or have an excessively narrow interest in the field. You may not realize it, but that one person you want to study with may be on sabbatical for two years. Very often, the question is not whether or not you are capable, but whether or not you are a good â€Å"fit. So, don’t make your interest with the program so narrow as to allow any excuse for an awkward fit. Investigate the program – review their web site, talk to graduate students, visit in person, if you can – to discover its focus, how graduate students are involved in research, its â€Å"politics† vis-a-vis the field. Do not inadvertently position yourself on one or other side of a controversy within the department or field. Often, the discussion of the particular program is at the very end of the essay (which allows you to simply place the appropriate paragraph for each school).This is a regular convention of this genre, everyone expects it, and you do not need to worry b ecause you too write your essay this way. However, you can write it differently: references to a particular program can be woven into the body of the text, as well. This is far more difficult – and requires an original essay for each school – but it can be very effective. While you should discuss the particular area of your field from which you may develop a dissertation topic, do not present an overly detailed proposal of your anticipated dissertation.Most young scholars do not have their dissertation topics determined yet, and admission committees anticipate that. Many committees will regard a detailed description of a dissertation topic with suspicion, even deciding that a young scholar who has so determined his or her topic without advanced work is not open-minded enough to other influences in the field. One of the pleasures faculty have is in molding their graduate students. If you seem to have a closed mind, they may find this unappealing. However, if you do have areas of interest, you should explain them – just refrain from writing a detailed proposal.You are fashioning a â€Å"fictional† version of yourself. While your account is always based on truth, you have a great deal of freedom in constructing the image of who you are. You decide what goes in and what does not, and in what order. The notion that you are writing fiction can allow you some distance; the idea that this is â€Å"fiction† can free you up to be more creative and less uncomfortable that you are â€Å"baring your soul. † However you construct yourself, never lie. Not only is lying wrong, but lies are usually easily detected and self-defeating.Construct coherence. No matter how different your intellectual or other relevant experiences may be, seek out some way to bring everything together as a coherent whole. This is tricky and difficult – but everything can be described as part of one sort of process or development or another; there are a lways underlying connections. Trying to determine these questions is an excellent topic for brainstorming with other people who can see you more clearly because they have more distance. Techniques for writing drafts.There are many ways to open your essay, many choices on the order in which to present your involvement in the field, many different aspects of your academic career to highlight. However, many people get hung up on producing an exciting opening. In your initial drafting process, experiment with presenting yourself and highlighting your interests in many different ways before settling on which approach is most compelling. One technique is to write separate, independent paragraphs or groups of sentences describing different aspects of your work (such as your research projects) or experiences without worrying about how they connect or flow.At least in this way you can begin to articulate the important elements of your essay and you have material to work with. You can experim ent by avoiding any opening and writing the body of your essay; or you can experiment with trying to write one short paragraph that concisely says everything. Be playful in your experiments before you settle on one approach. Openings. Openings tend to get people hung up. Everyone wants to make a good, first impression. But, often, once someone sets upon an opening, it tends to shape the rhetorical flow of the rest of the essay, even distorting the essay.One suggestion is NOT to have an opening but simply to start – avoid the high-stake gambit altogether. An opening that uses an anecdote about your interest in the field is very popular. It can be very effective, and it’s a common way that people can express their interests. But it’s so popular that it may come across as trite, unless it is a very powerful, appropriate anecdote, and it must be short. (Often, people need to write an anecdote in order to get themselves going, and when the anecdote is done, take a lo ok at what happens next: that may, in fact, be your opening. Opening with a personal narrative (e. g. , how I became passionate about this subject) can be effective, but, again, this approach is very popular and even overdone (â€Å"When I was six I was hit on the head at the playground, and ever since then I’ve wanted to be a neuroscientist†). If you do use personal narrative, make it very brief and to the point. Don’t spend half your essay relating a story. Another popular approach is to present a chronology of your development. While a chronological account may be tempting – and may be necessary for you to do at an early stage of writing – it is a fairly ow-level rhetorical mode. Another possibility is to open with at the most sophisticated level of your development, such as the advanced research or honors thesis you are currently completing, and then describe how you got to that point in the field. Often, an analysis of some aspect of your rese arch interest or of your own development can provide you with a way to discuss your overall development. Present your interests according to an underlying theme, framing idea or argument that then draws from the history of your involvement to illustrate your idea.No matter how different your activities may be, you can draw a coherent picture of your development. At first you may not think that climbing Mount Everest connects readily to a doctorate in mechanical engineering or medieval studies – but if presented the right way, it could. Don’t reject any experience out of hand. And don’t leave out things which you think are obvious. For example, your honors thesis or research may show up on your c/v, but you give the meaning or â€Å"spin† to that reality in your essay.Do not present a complete list of courses in the field you have taken or an undifferentiated, comprehensive description of your interest. You will need to make strategic decisions on how you present your interest, deciding what is primary, secondary, etc. , and making such decisions may be difficult, even painful. You will have a transcript in your application, so you don’t need lists that don’t â€Å"spin† explanations. Address any anomalies in your transcript. If you have any lapses, unusual low grades, withdrawals or anything else that seems strange, explain them in as non-defensive a way as possible.For example, the fact that the first two years of college you were a mediocre student until you discovered your intellectual passion or you withdrew from classes one quarter because of illness or family problems. If you spent time in jail or joined a guerrilla army, you need to figure out how to explain your history. In many respects, you do not need to explain everything – and some things may be none of an admissions committee’s business – but you do need to say something. If you do not explain the situation, your readers will i nvent explanations for themselves – and their fantasies will probably be far worse than the reality.Avoid excessive, unreasonable enthusiasm. Extreme effusion backfires. For example, statements such as â€Å"I love 19th century British literature so much that I feel that I live in the 19th century† or â€Å"I AM Nietzsche† or â€Å"I live and breathe sea urchins† suggest possible psychosis, not reasonable enthusiasm. For the most part, exclamation points should be avoided. Check your writing style for unconscious attempts at forced sincerity or authenticity. This is a form of â€Å"begging† and it’s tough to spot, since you often don’t see if for yourself.For example, check to see if your adjectives are excessive (â€Å"I took an amazing/astounding/awesome class†). Often, no adjective is fine or a more restrained one has a better effect. Review â€Å"triples† or â€Å"doubles† to see if they are indeed necessary a nd reveal important information. For example, if the flow of rhetoric has you saying â€Å"I am dedicated, hard working, and committed,† you should note that dedicated and committed are almost identical and the repetition has the effect of undermining your sincerity. The reader gets a subliminal message flashing of â€Å"Baloney! Don’t follow rhetorical flow; follow the logic of your underlying coherence. Be conscious of inflammatory or biased language. You may hold strong opinions about the field or be motivated by particular causes. Do not mask your opinions, but be aware of presenting yourself in a tactful, judicious fashion. You can express various views in such a way as to present yourself as having an opinion yet remaining open-minded. You want to avoid coming across as an extremist or as a crank that cannot enter a dialogue with others. No jokes.Humor and sarcasm depend upon a shared field of reference – and you have no idea if you and your readers have such a mutual understanding. Most of the time, self-deprecating humor comes across as simply deprecating yourself, and sarcasm can easily be misunderstood. One student who spent ten years working as a writer for situation comedies refrained from using humor: if she refrained – and she knows the business – you can too. This doesn’t mean that you should be leaden or dull, but avoid jokes or smirks or a wise-guy tone. Do not write what you think the committee wants to read.Be yourself. Often, applicants believe they should write according to some image of proper â€Å"academic† seriousness or style. Your personal style and passion should shine through the essay. Although this is a formal essay and you should avoid slang or overly casual constructions, its tone should be engaging, even personable (though not personal). Poofread the essay, roofpread the essay, prufreed the essay. Have your friends proofread it. While this is not a grammar test, excessive typos and other mechanical errors indicate poor work habits and do not make a good impression.Most admissions committees allow one typo (such as â€Å"to† for â€Å"too†), but when the typos start adding up you’re sending a bad message. After all this advice and warning, keep in mind that this is actually an exciting process. Perhaps for the first time in years you are attempting to present a coherent intellectual portrait of yourself. In the process you may actually gain a clearer vision of your interests and goals – and feel even more confident that graduate study is the direction you want to go. Contact the URP office for editorial review.We will be glad to review your essay at any stage of the process. As you can tell, this is more than a narrowly defined writing process, so we may ask you questions about your interests, your academic career, and other pursuits to see if additional experiences should be included. We’re not trying to be nosey, but st udents often leave out aspects of themselves that they think are obvious or not important when in fact they are very valuable. Adapted from original text by Hilton Obenzinger  © Copyright 2005 Stanford University.

Lady in a Machine Shop: Margaret E. Knight

Margaret E. Knight was born in York, Maine in1838. Margaret was very interested in tools and machinery even as a young child. Woman in that period were not considered to be mechanically inclined or to be interested in machinery.   Children especially were not thought to be creative enough to invent things. Margaret, however, began inventing things at a young age and had her first success very early in life. She witnessed a horrible accident at the cotton mill where she and her brothers worked. Many people had tried over the years to make the looms safer for the workers but no one had come up with an idea that worked. Margaret spend hours and hours creating a safer design for the loom piece in question and at the tender age of 12 she had her first working invention. The covered shuttle she invented is still in use on cotton looms today. In 1868, Margaret moved to Massachusetts and began working at the Columbia Paper Bag Company. Paper bags at that time were envelope shaped and held closed by having twine or string wrapped around them. Square bottom bags were rarely used because they had to be made by hand and were very expensive. Margaret decided that there was definitely room for improvement and set about trying to create a machine that would cut, fold and paste square bottoms bags by itself. This would make the bags much less expensive to produce and do the work of many people with only one machine. She worked days at the Columbia Paper Bag Company and while she worked, she studied the machines that were in existence there already. At night, she took her ideas home and spent hours building and rebuilding models of a machine she thought would create a better paper bag machine. It took a very long time and a massive amount of work to get what she wanted from the  machine. She tested and adjusted and changed things in the plan until it was just what she wanted. Once the design of the machine was perfect, she hired some one to make the actual machine for her. The models had not been very sturdy and she wanted one made of iron that would hold up to a full days work. While Margaret was doing all this, a man named Charles Annan stole her idea and had a patent put on it under his own name. Margaret had put too much work into this machine and was not going to sit by and let someone else take the credit for it. She took Charles Annan to court over stealing her idea and her patent. Charles Annan was confident that he could win by convincing the judge that no woman understood machinery and would never be able to design and build a machine complex enough to make square bottom paper bags. Charles Annan underestimated Margaret Knight and it cost him the court battle. Margaret brought in all her drawings, plans and models of the machine. She explained how it worked and why it would improve the method currently used. Her knowledge and documentation proved to the judge that she was the rightful owner of the design and the machine. Margaret got her patent for the paper bag in 1870. She co-founded the Eastern Paper Bag Company in 1870 as well and put her invention to work. She is known as the Queen of Paper Bags and her invention is used to this day, along with the design she created for the square bottom paper bag. References: Tag Brill, M. (2001) Margaret Knight Girl Inventor Mill brook

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A Tale Of Two Cities Essays - Literature, English-language Films A Tale Of Two Cities In the fictitious novel Tale of Two Cities, the author, Charles Dickens, lays out a brilliant plot. Charles Dickens was born in England on February 7, 1812 near the south coast. His family moved to London when he was ten years old and quickly went into debt. To help support himself, Charles went to work at a blacking warehouse when he was twelve. His father was soon imprisoned for debt and shortly thereafter the rest of the family split apart. Charles continued to work at the blacking warehouse even after his father inherited some money and got out of prison. When he was thirteen, Dickens went back to school for two years. He later learned shorthand and became a freelance court reporter. He started out as a journalist at the age of twenty and later wrote his first novel, The Pickwick Papers. He went on to write many other novels, including Tale of Two Cities in 1859. Tale of Two Cities takes place in France and England during the troubled times of the French Revolution. There are travels by the characters between the countries, but most of the action takes place in Paris, France. The wineshop in Paris is the hot spot for the French revolutionists, mostly because the wineshop owner, Ernest Defarge, and his wife, Madame Defarge, are key leaders and officials of the revolution. Action in the book is scattered out in many places; such as the Bastille, Tellson's Bank, the home of the Manettes, and largely, the streets of Paris. These places help to introduce many characters into the plot. One of the main characters, Madame Therese Defarge, is a major antagonist who seeks revenge, being a key revolutionist. She is very stubborn and unforgiving in her cunning scheme of revenge on the Evermonde family. Throughout the story, she knits shrouds for the intended victims of the revolution. Charles Darnay, one of whom Mrs. Defarge is seeking revenge, is constantly being put on the stand and wants no part of his own lineage. He is a languid protagonist and has a tendency to get arrested and must be bailed out several times during the story. Dr. Alexander Manette, a veteran prisoner of the Bastille and moderate protagonist, cannot escape the memory of being held and sometimes relapses to cobbling shoes. Dr. Manette is somewhat redundant as a character in the novel, but plays a very significant part in the plot. Dr. Manette's daughter, Lucie Manette, a positive protagonist, is loved by many and marries Charles Darnay . She is a quiet, emotional person and a subtle protagonist in the novel. One who never forgot his love for Lucie, the protagonist Sydney Carton changed predominately during the course of the novel. Sydney , a look-alike of Charles Darnay, was introduced as a frustrated, immature alcoholic, but in the end, made the ultimate sacrifice for a good friend. These and other characters help to weave an interesting and dramatic plot. Dr. Manette has just been released from the Bastille, and Lucie, eager to meet her father whom she thought was dead, goes with Mr. Jarvis Lorry to bring him back to England. Dr. Manette is in an insane state from his long prison stay and does nothing but cobble shoes, although he is finally persuaded to go to England. Several years later, Lucie, Dr. Manette, and Mr. Lorry are witnesses at the trial of Charles Darnay. Darnay, earning his living as a tutor, frequently travels between England and France and is accused of treason in his home country of France. He is saved from being prosecuted by Sydney Carton, who a witness confuses for Darnay, thus not making the case positive. Darnay ended up being acquitted for his presumed crime. Darnay and Carton both fall in love with Lucie and want to marry her. Carton, an alcoholic at the time, realizes that a relationship with Lucie is impossible, but he still tells her that he loves her and would do anything for her. Darnay and Lucie marry each other on the premises of the two promises between Dr. Manette and Darnay. Right after the marriage, while the newlyweds are on their honeymoon, Dr. Manette has a relapse and cobbles shoes for nine

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