Developing the Professional Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Developing the Professional - Coursework Example Reference List 15 Appendices 17 Appendix A 17 Appendix B 18 Skills and Character Audit In this essay, I will shed light on my personal skill set and try to create a framework with which I can develop my existing skill level up to a greater extent. This document will also try to analyze my character and skill set that I developed during Masters Programme. After auditing my present skill set, I will conduct a personal SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) in order to identify critical skill areas which I need to improve in order to ensure my academic and professional development. Before going to the discussion about my skill level, I will try to shed light on the question that why personal skill development is an essential part for a management professional or for a student pursuing management course? Wilson (2009) pointed out that students in the management course should be encouraged to write reflective essays and such reflective writing helps them to identify their skill gaps. Ertmer and Newby (1996, p. 18) defined importance of reflective skill auditing as â€Å"reflection is critical for transforming the knowledge gained in and on action into knowledge available for action.† ... halyi (1996) and Maani and Maharaj (2004) defined intellectual skills as the combination of linear thinking approaches such as empirical testing, analytic thinking, imagination and visualization, creativity, intuition, holistic evaluation and emotional intelligence. However, I cannot boast myself for having all the above mentioned linear intellectual skill sets but I believe that at present, I am complemented with certain level of intellectual skills. Losada and Heaphy (2004) and Vance et al. (2007) stressed on the fact that modern managers use non-linear dynamic pattern of intellectual thinking in order to solve complex business problems. Hence, it is evident from the discussion that developing intellectual skill plays vital role for a modern day managers. In such context, auditing my intellectual skill set will definitely help me to judge whether I am competent enough to handle corporate world challenge or not? Intellectual (thinking) skills Strongly Agree Agree Disagree Strongly D isagree 1. I am a creative person who can adapt my thinking to circumstances 2. I am able to organise my thoughts, analyse, synthesise and critically appraise situations 3. I can identify assumptions, evaluate statements in terms of evidence, detect false logic or reasoning, identify implicit values, define terms adequately and generalise appropriately The first skill set is identifying my capability of being flexible and creative enough to adapt to the situational demand. I believe that my instinct works in well balance manner when it comes to being creative or develop new thinking. For example, during my MSc program in Management from University of Glamorgan, I got the opportunity to showcase my creative when it comes to preparing project with team members or solving a business case study

The Story of Emily Rose Still Popular in 21st century Research Paper

The Story of Emily Rose Still Popular in 21st century - Research Paper Example One such phenomenon, which thinkers and scientists, world across have tried to solve, is what happens to a person after death. Theories such as rebirth, heaven, hell, etc. hold attraction even today. Today as we see, we are usually torn between science as we want everything to be scientifically tested and proven and we also want to believe that there exists life after death even if it is not proven on the merits of science. Hypothesis We are going to study this theory with the help of following hypothesis: The phenomenon of demonic possession and exorcism as seen in the movie "The Exorcism of Emily Rose", surprisingly still popular in the 21st century" History Demonic possession is when a ghost controls emotions, thoughts and intellect or decision making ability of a person. It merges with the person’s consciousness and controls person’s actions. In this definition of â€Å"being possessed† it is clearly stated that some other force has a complete control over a person’s actions and behaviour. However psychology has a different say on the matter. Study of psychology is relatively new in the field of science. After a considerable advancement in physical science or medicine, the attention turned to mind. It was largely observed that although body responds automatically to medicine it is the mind that has a powerful control over healing process in totality. It was then when the scientists started taking note of mental processes and studying functions of brain. However if a particular pattern of behaviour of a person could not be explained it was still termed as super natural or out of the purview of science. Slowly and steadily as the mysteries of brain started unfolding, it was believed that every mental disease had its cure as well. Now the population got divided into two sections, one who wanted scientific proof of everything and the other although believed in science felt there is still a force beyond science to explain certain mysteries. Precisely the reason why people still believe in the concept of being possessed or bein g taken over by either good or bad spirits or demons. Church and science have always stood against each other. Religion or faith has always believed God as a phenomenon which cannot be explained but rather understood and felt and believed in. Science as it goes by the way of proof will ask proof of even God’s existence. In this case there could be one instance or one phenomenon looked at from both perspectives, one that of science and the other that of faith. â€Å"Being possessed† is one such instance viewed suspiciously by both the fraternities. Exorcism is viewed differently in different religions. In Catholicism like other religions it is viewed as demanding the evil spirits to leave immediately the body of possessed by the authority of God vested in the person performing the exorcism.2 The principle objective is to ward the evil off and heal the tormented soul from the suffering. Science however can attribute this to disturbed mental health which can be cured by m edicine and heal the person. In both the cases although the roads are different both mean well and want the patient to heal and live a healthy, happy and normal life. The approaches may differ but the outcome desired is the same. It is possible that a person believing in science also believes in the existence of God and his powers but may not believe in the idea of some other force taking over and controlling human mind and actions. It is precisely at this point both the branches fall apart. Psychologists or Scientists call â€Å"being possessed† as an instance that can happen to anybody. Everyone is susceptible to this.

Handling Difficult Customers Essay Example for Free

Handling Difficult Customers Essay Listed are some of the easons why customers become difficult when communicating technical problems. 1. Wanting a live operator but ending up in an automated telephone loop. Excessive waiting times to be connected to an operator. 2. Representatives rushing callers or even faking a disconnection. 3. Incompetent Representatives, incapable of processing requests effectively. 4. Representative not actively listening to the complaint. 5. Departments not communicating with one another. 6. Condescending Representative using technical Jargon they dont understand. 7. Representatives who sounds bored and disinterested. 8. I will address the complaints: 1) Wanting a live operator but ending up in an automated telephone loop, 2) Incompetent Representatives, incapable of processing requests. 3) Representative not actively listening to the complaint. The support specialist should follow the customer problem resolution and recovery procedures to address the significance of each of concept and overcome challenges that may arise Consumer emotions The first thing that a customer hears is a message saying, miour call is valuable to us. Please hold the line for the next available Representative. Then. they wait, and ait and wait. Finally after what seems like hours to them, they are connected with you. They are already angry with their situation and are faulting the company, now they are really angry about the wait time to get to speak with a live person. They feel that if they were really a valued customer, the wait time would be minimal. Resist the temptation to label the customer as a problem and cut out the negative thoughts. Start the recovery process with an apology after you let them vent. Smile and speak with sincerity, and dont fall into the trap that youre angry or difficult customer is aiting you with. If you feed into the anger, you will only escalate the problem. Your words, tone, and attitude are should be empathetic. This will deflects and diffuses an angry customer. You want to make sure the customer know you are listening and taking their situation seriously. Now the customer is upset that the Representative couldnt or didnt answer their questions and wasted their time. Their expected all the rep to know the particulars about their product without having to put them on hold or transfer the call to someone else. If you do need to work with other departments, please inform the ustomer that you will personally take the matter into your own hands and will need to investigate on the issues. Reassure the customer that you are coordinating the best possible resolution, and if you need to get the assistance achieve it. A great rep always sounds friendly. Customer doesnt like someone who sounds bored and disinterested at their problem. They want to feel that you are about their issue and are interested in resolving their issue. When you answer a customers call, please smile. Keep a positive attitude and be upbeat, they will be able to hear it in our voice. Ownership When upset or angry about a situation, a two minute wait time can feel like nothing at all, or can feel like forever. A company must learn how to influence the customer feelings about the waiting time. Representative must approach these customers with the mind set of the customer has a right to be angry, even before you know the details. Let them vent their feelings, without passing Judgment, and only interject when they start to becomes directly abusive towards you. If the customer senses that they are communicating with someone who is ncapable, it will create another reason to be frustrated or angry. If you dont have the power to solve the issue or answer the question, tell the customer that you own the problem. Let them know that you will apply your personal effort to find a solution, Sounding bored or disinterest is absolutely preventable! Have your environment arranged in a way so that the telephone conversations are customer oriented, convenient, and efficient. Reduce distractions by tuning out office noise, have paper and pencil handy to take notes when necessary. Be prepared to answer the elephone by having it within easy reach, no more than an arms length away. Customer callers do not hear the first two words of the conversation so when answering the phone use buffer words. You can say something like, Thank you for calling , or Good (morning or afternoon) this is.. Dont Just say hello and then wait for customers to answer. Self-control When you respond with hostility, or lose your self-control, you are contributing to the escalation of the situation. You have a snide response, and then the customer is even more fired up and ups the abuse. Instead calmly interject with some empathy. Say l understand your frustration with the situation; I want us to move past this so we can fix the problem that you are calling abo ut. Please allow me to help you. Sometimes the technical problem is in need of more attention because it may impact other customers. You dont want to seem like you dont know what you are doing, so acknowledge the individual customer emotion first. Then resolve the technical issue that you can handle and address bigger issues as a more multi- department activity. Let your customers know that you are listening and you want to help. Write down notes during the conversation. When the customer is done venting, reiterate the priorities from the customer perspective. Address the emotional and technical aspects of the customer concerns. This will put you in focus on the appropriate issues and reassure the customer that you are concentrating on their priorities. Adaptation Our Country is made up of an increasing number of immigrants and transitional residents. These same immigrants were the founding Fathers of our Country. Maybe the caller is new to the English language and was put on hold for so long, or didnt know to press a certain number for a Representative. Companies can take these complaints and adjust the systems to address the needs and accommodate multiple languages. Some companies have taken customer service to the next level and are hiring multilingual customer service providers. Having these systems set can prevent many of the listed complaints from being uttered again. Mistaken customers customers. Their wait time was less than a minute, but they wanted a live operator to pick up the call. To deal with these types of customers, we must learn coping and problem-solving skills to deal with our own personal feelings. Reiterate your empathy nd continue to acknowledge the customer right to be angry. Takes deep breaths, smile and wait patiently for your turn to speak. Problem customers Problem customers do exist and everyone has to deal with them. They can be high maintenance, scammers, litigious, abusive, criminal or Just plain bizarre. When you have one of these on the phone, the best thing to do is ignore the language and behavior and continue to follow the same procedures as with an angry customer. When they have crossed the boundary set by standards, then it is best to let the customer know that your manager or the law department would be best to handle heir situation. In the end, if there has to be compromise from one side of the conversation; let it be from the company. Great service can make customers more comfortable with a company because they do things better for them. Everyone involved wants a fair and fast solution that can be settled simultaneously. If compromising means that you are able to retain customers, then that equals to: business survival. Reference Swartzlander, A. (2004). Chapter 3, 4, 5 in Pearson Education, Inc (Ed. ), Serving Internal and External Customers (pp. 56-75). Prentice Hall.

Use Of Determiners In Newspaper Media Media Essay

Use Of Determiners In Newspaper Media Media Essay This study aims to examine how different strategies and processes are used in sociolinguistics, as a way of adjustment of the writers manner of address, in relation to his or her perception of the addressee; focusing on the use of determiners. The hypothesis for this study is therefore: fewer determiners will be deleted from the newspapers considered up-market (Group 1), than the amount deleted from those newspapers considered mid and down-market (Group 2). This is a complex process of change within the dynamics of conversation and writing.  [1]  It is often said that convergence seems to be the rule in media language. For instance, phonological features in radio broadcasting showed that presenters use measurably more informal pronunciations in stations which primarily address lower class, less educated, and younger listeners.  [2]  As far as newspapers are concerned, the followed classic hypothesis of convergence has been made by S. Hall, who claims that there is reciprocity of producer/reader of which he called the public idiom of the media. However, this does not mean that the readers actually speak what they read or listen to, but there is evidence to suggest that a convergence takes place and that each paper makes its own convergence toward what it sees as a mode of discourse acceptable to its readership.  [3]   Background Research Bell has carried out research into determiner deletion;  [4]  that being words found within the English Language that limit the meaning of a noun and comes before a descriptive adjective modifying the same noun (e.g. the, a, an, this etc.).  [5]  Several studies show that the deletion of articles in such phrases distinguishes tabloids from broadsheet British Newspapers. These are correlationswith assumed class and education and the deletion of determiners seems to imply modernity, populism, and journalistic raciness. Ryden and Bell  [6]  both investigate the use of noun phrase name appositions in the language of newspapers, and in particular the spread of phrases like Opposition leader Neil Knock with the descriptive noun phrase without a determiner preceding the title. This format is relatively recent and is, in Britain, largely but not entirely restricted to the two categories of mid-down market papers The influence of the reader in newspaper style is supported by the research carried out by Bell  [7]  and Jucker  [8]  . Bell, in his studies on naming expressions, states that this practice was more common in papers like The Sun, The Mirror, and The Express than in The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Times. After studying the deletion of determiners Jucker divided British newspapers into three categories: up-market; The Times, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily telegraph, midmarket; Daily Mail, Daily Express, down-market; Daily Mirror, The Daily Star, and The Sun. He found that determiners were deleted more often in down-market papers than in mid-market papers, while there were very few deletions in style with a certain type of reader. Methodology Many considerations were taken in terms of which method would be best to use in order to carry out the investigation into the use of determiners in the media. The first decision that had to be made was which branch of the media would be used as a source for the study. The options ranged from television programs, magazines, internet websites, radio and newspapers. The choice of newspapers was made based primarily on access to previous research, mentioned in the above Background Research section of this report. The fact that a similar study had been carried out byBell et al. in the comparison of determiner usage between the different types of newspaper gave a good basis on which to base this study. Added to this is the intrigue of whether the results obtained will have a similar outcome to those obtained by these linguists twenty years ago. The next step was to realise that in order to study determiners, a content analysis was the only possible method that could be used. It was also the same method used by Bell et al. in their study. However there are many advantages and disadvantages of using this process that led to many limitations to the practical side of the study. It is fairly time consuming which can often limit the researcher to a smaller sample than a less time consuming method. The chance for a margin of error is increased particularly if relational analysis is used. This study does require a level of relational analysis; that being the assumption of what, by todays standard of English, counts as a missing determiner and what does not; which limits the validity of the results, especially if the intention is to directly compare the results found by Bell et al. It is also difficult to computerize and therefore the results obtained have to be manually automated which adds to the total time consumption that using a digital content analysis could perhaps have avoided. On the other hand there are many advantages to using content analysis such as the fact that it can combine quantitative and qualitative operations through the ability to see clearly the context of the deletion or inclusion. This method also has very few ethical issues as it is available to the public and no permission is needed in order to access it. It is also a very unobtrusive means of analysing the use of the English Language. It is also reliable as this study has been done before and can be repeated by the same or other researchers. The study therefore began firstly by selecting a number of different newspapers to compare. This was done by initially selecting an equal number of British papers that are considered up-market newspapers, i.e. The Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and an equal number of mid-downmarket  [9]  newspapers such as The Daily Mail, The Sun and The Daily Star. The six papers aforementioned were picked from those available from the University Shop on campus, with each category of newspaper represented and to be used in comparison with each other. They were then grouped into the retrospective classes: Group 1 included The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian; Group 2 included The Sun, The Daily Mail and The Daily Star. The hypothesis, that fewer determiners will be deleted from the papers in Group 1 than the amount deleted from Group 2, was then decided upon. After the newspapers were selected the specific details of how this content analysis would be carried out was then agreed upon. It was decided that two articles would be analysed from each of the six papers; one regarding a political subject and the other focussing on sport. This was done in order to firstly observe if there was any difference between the uses of determiners between the papers and then secondly if there was a difference within the different papers when the subject matter was different. It was clear that in order to increase the validity of this research the newspapers analysed would have to all be taken from the same date and then the articles chosen were to be about the same topic within politics and sport. The newspapers were therefore collected for analysis on the 6th May 2010 and the similar stories of the day in the two subject areas were then analysed. It was decided that the headlines and tag lines of all the articles would be included in the study. However it was recognised that headlines in general tend to have determiner deletions as standard. After the articles were selected the exact process of working out the determiner deletion was decided upon. Firstly the article word length was counted and recorded, then the entire article was analysed and all the determiners within the article were highlighted and totalled. Then a second analysis of each article was carried out in order to locate where the determiners were missing in accordance with Standard English practice.  [10]  These would again be totalled and recorded in a spread sheet where the number of determiners which have been deleted would be calculated as a percentage of the total determiners that could have been used in the entire article. Although every measure has been taken to improve the reliability, validity and practical issues posed by any method of research, this study is not without its limitations. Firstly not all the variables can be controlled. Firstly, the sex of the journalist whom had written each article is not being taken into account. This means that the results obtained could be reduced in validity, due to the fact that gender could have an influence over the amount of determiners used within the articles. In a similar vein, the age of the journalist is also unknown, which could similarly have an impact upon the amount of determiners used or deleted. It is also a fairly subjective study and it is likely that some determiner deletions could be overlooked depending upon the researcher carrying out the study. Due to the time consuming nature of this method as aforementioned the sample size had to be kept quite small to three newspapers of the two different categories. This reduces the representativeness of the study as not all newspapers have been analysed. Added to this, only one newspaper considered mid-market has been used alongside two considered down market which means the sample is not as representative as it could be. Therefore it is probably unlikely that any generalisations can be made from this study only suggestions. Results The table of results and bar graphs for this study can be found in Appendices 1.0 2.2. Discussion As stated in the hypothesis it would have been expected that this study would produce results similar to those presented by Bell in 1991, though possibly not so polarised and extreme, with up-markets exhibiting the least amount of determiner deletion and mid-down markets the highest. When looking at the sum of the combined averages for up-market newspapers and the mid-down market newspapers it can be seen that the up market newspapers had the combined average determiner deletion of 31.9% and the mid-down market newspapers had the combined average determiner deletion of 44.17%. This suggests that the hypothesis that fewer determiners will be deleted from the newspapers considered up-market (Group 1) than the amount deleted from those newspapers considered mid and down-market (Group 2) is supported by the results found. The newspaper with the highest average deletions was the mid-market newspaper, The Daily Mail, with an average of 15.97% determiner deletion. However, very surprisingly the up-market newspaper, The Guardian, came out with the second highest average percentage of determiner deletion, at 20.78%. Not only is this unexpected because it is an up-market newspaper, but also because The Guardians politics article had the highest determiner deletion percentage within the entire study. Based on the premise that up-markets are aimed at a higher and more educated social class than mid-down markets, and also that politics articles are likely to draw a more sophisticated readership than sports articles, it was anticipated that the former type of newspaper would use a more standard form of English with a lower percentage of determiner deletion. In addition to this, it was presumed that sports articles would also have a higher percentage of determiner deletion than articles written about politics bu t this was not found to be the case with many of the newspapers. The Daily Telegraph was the paper that supported the hypothesis the most as it came in at the bottom with only 6.09% deletion for its politics article, and this is what was supposed would happen taking into account Bells study and findings. Nevertheless, it was The Daily Telegraphs sports article that actually came in with the lowest amount of deletion, with only 3.88%. This finding was unforeseen, but it may be that the journalist writing the politics article for The Daily Telegraph wished to make it snappier so as to attract a larger audience, and believed that deleting determiners would achieve this effect. The Times supports the hypothesis as its sports article contains 15.7% of determiner deletion, but only 7.34% in its politics issue. It is also relatively near the bottom of the table as would be expected, considering it is one of the chosen up-market newspapers. The Times was in fact the newspaper that Bell found had the least amount determiner deletion in 1991, with only 5%. However it has been found that as time has passed journalists from both types of papers tend to use determiner deletion as much as each other. It is perhaps now the case that they are less concerned with targeting a very specific audience and more so with selling newspapers. It seems to be mid-down market papers that have changed the most. Bell found that they all had 73% deletion of determiners or above, whereas this study has found that the highest percentage of a mid-down market newspaper is 20.48% from The Sun. Perhaps these newspapers are trying to make themselves appear less mid-market, and appeal to a more sophisticated audience. Improvements If this study was to be performed again there are a few ways in which it could be improved. Firstly, as two members of the group worked out the percentage of determiner deletion there is immediately going to be a difference in results as deciding where determiners should be and have been deleted is a subjective process. It is not always clear and so perhaps if this were to be replicated each member of the group should work out the percentage from all papers and then compare the findings, working out the average percentage of deletion. Using a larger sample would also be beneficial as one article may not be representative of the whole newspaper, and so there may have been anomalies within the results. The articles chosen were all of varied lengths and so this could have affected the results. It may be that articles tend to have the most determiner deletion at the end and therefore the longer an article is the higher percentage of deletion. It could even be possible that the journalists articles that were chosen to be analysed could have previously or aspired to be a writer for the other type of newspaper, and so arestill writing in that style. This is possibly something that could have been researched to ensure the articles used in this study were written by the same types of authors and were truly representative of the whole papers style. Moreover, there was no focus in the study on one particular sex and therefore next time a comparison between male journalists writing for up-markets and female journalists writin g for the same type of paper could be looked into and compared against mid-down market newspapers. It would be interesting to discover whether females for example chose to delete more determiners than males. Conclusion In conclusion, this study has supported the hypothesis but only to an extent. It has found a very mixed set of results; with some papers supporting the hypothesis and others challenging it. Whilst it was found that a mid-down market newspaper did have the highest average percentage of determiner deletion what was most surprising was that The Guardian has the second highest average percentage of determiner deletion, which would very much suggest that times and the styles attributed to each type of newspaper have changed drastically in the twenty years since Bell performed his study. This may possibly be due to the fact that newspaper sales are continually declining, and so both types of papers are trying to appeal to a wider audience. As suggested by Roy Greenslade, print cant compete with 24-hour news on television and radio,  [11]  and so they need to do all they can to up their sales. If up-market newspapers for example continue to focus on an upper-class audience then they are seriously limiting their number of potential buyers, and so buy removing determiners they make their articles snappier and more accessible to a larger audience. It is also possible that the complexity of the issues reported on in up-market newspapers actually makes it harder to cut out determiners, and therefore the political issues have a higher amount of determiner deletion because their authors try a lot harder to do so. Finally, the results obtained by this study imply that the percentage of determiner deletion could depend more on the journalist writing the article, as opposed to the type of newspaper they are writing for. Bibliography Allen, Robert, The Penguin English Dictionary, (London: The Penguin Group, 2001) Bell, Allen, The Language of the News Media, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991) Giles, Howard and Peter F. Powesland,  Speech Style and Social Evaluation, (London: Academic Press, 1975) Holmes, Janet, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, (Essex, Pearson Education Limited), pp. 137-138 Leonhard, Joachim-Fà ©lix, Hans-Werner Ludwig, Media Science: A Manual for the Development of the Media and Communication Forms, (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter Co., 2002) Jucker, Andreas H, Social stylistics: Syntactic Variation in British Newspapers, (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter Co., 1992) Roy Greensdale, Newspaper Sales Plunge over the Decade, Monday 14th December, 2009 [accessed 19th May 2010] Appendix 1.0 A Table of Results Newspaper Type Article Subject % Deletion Average Combined Average Article Word Count No. of Determiners No. of Deleted Determiners The Guardian Up-market Politics 20.78% 15.39% 870 154 32 Sport 10.00% 795 140 14 The Times Up-market Politics 7.34% 11.52% 727 109 8 Sport 15.70% 634 121 19 The Telegraph Up-market Politics 6.09% 4.99% 31.90% 800 115 7 Sport 3.88% 827 103 4 The Daily Mail Mid-market Politics 16.03% 15.97% 799 131 21 Sport 15.91% 878 132 21 The Sun Mid-market Politics 20.48% 14.37% 767 83 13 Sport 8.25% 587 97 8 The Daily Star Down-market Politics 19.10% 13.84% 44.17% 694 115 22 Sport 8.57% 836 105 9 Appendix 2.0 A Bar Graph Depicting the Results of Determiner Deletions between the Types of Newspapers and Subject Matter Appendix 2.1 A Bar Graph Depicting the Results of Average Determiner Deletions between all Newspapers

The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe Essay examples -- essays research

The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe By C.S. Lewis   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  My favorite character in this book would have to be Peter. He was a little bit of a tough guy yet timid, but wasn’t afraid to fight for his siblings lives. Peter was the oldest amongst his brother and two sisters and was most likely the brains and brawn of the bunch. In this story, Peter has to fight off a wolf to test his courage or, in Aslan’s words, win his spurs. He returns victorious and is knighted by the lion called Aslan. His brother Edmund, a very mischievous boy and a bother to his sisters Lucy and Susan, looks up to Him though he never admits to it. Peter was definitely the highlight of this book.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Four children, two girls and two boys, are in for an adventure of a lifetime their names were, starting with the oldest, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. The story starts off with the children leaving London by train because of war. The place the children took refuge in was a mansion deep in the country where they would be out of harms way. In this mansion there were thousands of rooms, hideaways, secret passageways, many floors and much, much more. Of Course there was nothing more boring than to sit around all day when it did nothing but rain outside. So what do they do? They explore the house of course! And they did. In the process of doing so, they came to a room on the highest floor of the mansion, but all that was in there was a hand-carved wardrobe with not...

Anyone lived in a pretty how town :: Literary Analysis, E.E. Cummings

â€Å"Anyone lived in a pretty how town,† by E.E. Cummings, is a poem that alludes to the circle of life and how birth and death are a natural part of this cycle. This meaning is conveyed by a complex metaphor; broken down, this metaphor slides away to reveal the true social commentary behind it. This poem is an allegory; the speaker uses pronouns with unclear antecedents to mask the true meaning and add poetic flair to the simple belief he or she presents. The first poetic device the speaker uses to convey his or her meaning in this poem is the unorthodox grammar and sentence structure. The poem starts with the lines â€Å"anyone lived in a pretty how town / (with up so floating many bells down)† (1 – 2). In this case, this improper grammar reinforces the point that is the story of â€Å"anyone† (1). As such, the â€Å"how town† (1) represents the fact that the name of the town does not need to be specified, as this happens to everyone in every town. The speaker therefore alludes that the events of this poem are natural and they happen to anyone anywhere. E.E. Cummings deliberately uses â€Å"anyone† (1) and â€Å"no one† (12) as pronouns with ambiguous antecedents to generalize the poem’s meaning to society and all people in it. In this way, the speaker uses these thoughts as social commentary. The speaker also manipulates time to bring out his or her message. Lines 3, 8, 11, 21, 34, and 36 all contain some order of either â€Å"spring summer autumn winter† (3), as in lines 11 and 34, or â€Å"sun moon stars rain† (8), as in lines 11, 21, and 36. As the order of these seasons changes, it indicates the passage of time. This manipulation of time draws attention away from these lines and towards the lines with deeper meaning hidden within. However, there is another form of time: the progression of life. The speaker comments on the growth of children in terms of their maturity levels and how as they get older, children tend to forget their childish whims and fancies and move on. He or she says that they â€Å"guessed (but only a few / and down they forgot as up they grew† (9-10). He or she then goes on to say that â€Å"no one loved [anyone] more by more† (12), hinting at a relationship in development, foreshadowing a possible marriage.

Case study for Wilkerson Company Essay

1. According to the case, if using ABC, Wilkerson should pool overheads into five activities: machine-related expenses, setup labor cost, receiving and production control cost, engineering cost, and packaging and shipping cost. The cost pool/cost driver information for an Activity Based Costing (ABC) system for Wilkerson has already provided by table 2. Based on the information on table 1 and four exhibit in case, we can figure out that the total cost per unit of valves, pumps and flow controllers are $46.17, $58.20, and $115.38, respectively, by using the Activity Based Costing system. Computation Process shows on table 3. After computation, the gross margin % for each product using ABC shows on table 4. The actual gross margin % for valves, pumps and flow controllers are 46.30%, 33.10% and -9.90%, respectively. 5. The difference in the gross margin for flow controllers when the Traditional Cost System is used and when the ABC Cost System is used is caused by the different allocation approach of overhead, increasing manufacturing overhead from $30.00 to $83.38 significantly. Flow controllers were low volume products, but they required more resource. Due to the fact that flow controllers required not only more components and more labor, than pumps or valves, for each finished unit, but also more production runs and shipments, these operating process contributed substantial overhead costs. These overhead costs, however, were not be allocated in the traditional cost system. Compared to the traditional cost system, in which the overhead costs just were allocated to products as a percentage of production-run direct labor cost easily, the ABC cost system provides more accurate information about overhead costs. 6. In order to maintaining Wilkerson Company’s market share of valves and pumps, they have the room to reduce valves and pumps’ price, although they may do not need to reduce their price. Meanwhile, they should increase the price of flow controllers to increase gross margin of these products. The reason that the company raised flow controller prices recently with no apparent effect on demand because the products were underpriced. They should deal with the negative profitability immediately. For the long run, probably the company needs to review their manufacturing operation process. They may have ability to reduce their production runs by innovation. Moreover, they can increase shipping batch size by negotiating with customers to increase order size, which will reduce the number of shipments to saving costs. These approaches  will reduce their overhead costs, increasing their profitability.