Why Brainstorming Doesnt Work

Why Brainstorming Doesnt Work Brainstorming doesnt work. It leads to ideas that conform to each other, and not to novel new ways of thinking.  The idea of brainstorming in a group seems to make sense, but the end result, the final product, is less than it could have been if group brainstorming could have been avoided. Sounds sacrilegious to say that, doesnt it? Why Do We Brainstorm? You have a blank screen in front of you. Youre pretty  desperate for an idea. Youre not sure about where to  find something to write about. Your project or product is in need of something and youre not sure where to go. It seems that you cant come up with the idea on your own, so you turn to the group and brainstorm. Brainstorming originates from Alex F. Osborn who, in the 1940s, wrote a book sharing the creative secrets he used at his advertising agency, Batten, Barton, Durstine Osborn. He called his book Your Creative Power and it became a runaway success. His idea of   getting a group together and storming the problem with your brain caught on and pretty soon the idea of brainstorming was the standard way for business, education, government, and the military to solve problems. The concept behind Osborns idea is that brainstorming was a method that would free participants from inhibition, self-criticism, and criticism by others so that a specific problem might receive the maximum ideas possible. For years, no one questioned the validity of the concept.  Brainstorming seems like the best way to apply the idea that we are stronger as a group than we are if we are alone. It seems logical to bring in your whole team, start throwing around ideas, and building on them. The best will rise to the top and youll get ideas that one person alone could not have come up with. We assumed that the group, and not the individual, can achieve more success with each persons creativity springboarding off of anothers. We were wrong. Brainstorming is where the ideas are born before reality sets in.In A Brainstorming Group, We Think Alike Strong personalities rule the show. Leadership unconsciously steers ideas towards preferred conclusions, or asks questions that beg a specific kind of answer. Team members fear negative evaluation from those higher up and their input is limited and the ideas they share are only the ones they deem reasonable. Why does group brainstorming so consistently fail despite the protestations of those who swear by it? How could they miss seeing whats happening? 1. We see what we expect to see. The end of a brainstorming session will leave us with exactly what we intended it to: lots of ideas to choose from.  From all appearances, it looks like a success. Clearly, the group can come up with more ideas in total than an individual person can. (Taylor, Berry, Block; Administrative Science Quarterly 1958, PDF) But mere quantity doesnt answer the question: does group participation help or hurt creative thinking? You dont know about all the ideas that were stifled in the process. In fact, if youve ever heard a team member say, weeks or months down the road of a project when something needs changing, I thought of that but didnt want to say anything you can bet your brainstorming session didnt work. A full whiteboard doesnt mean your brainstorming session gave you the best possible results. It might have only given you lots of output. 2. Personalities that dont mix. Any time you get a group of people together, you quickly see who is dominant, who is vocal, who is quiet, who is meek, who is extroverted, who is introverted, who is passive, and who is aggressive. To expect this group to provide creative ideas unfettered and freely is a foolish assumption. Personalities are always at work (and sometimes at war) in a group. Our ideas are a personal thing. We all naturally have a tendency to both want to get along with others, and to not appear foolish in front of others. Asking certain personality types to be willing to temporarily throw these driving forces to the wind is asking too much. Consider the introvert, whose creative energy is derived by not being around other people. Putting him or her in a group with extroverts and expecting a great performance is asking too much. The introverts best ideas often come when people are not around to distract and wear on them. A passive person might prefer to not have conflict, while an aggressive person requires it as fuel for their engine. Who do you think will speak up and who will quietly acquiesce to the popular idea? 3. The rise of the lowest common denominator. Brainstorming curtails creativity unconsciously. We all want to get along. Few people actually like conflict (though some do). A kind of equilibrium is reached, to the detriment of the group. Brainstorming also makes us lazy. When in a group focused on being creative, the idea is that you will feed off of each other, and springboard even further with the help of ideas that you would not have come up with.  The reality is that brainstorming allows for social loafing, a term used in a 2010 Applied Cognitive Psychology study by Nicholas W. Kohn and Steven M. Smith. According to Kohn and Smith, group brainstorming means that the participants compare themselves to the others, leading to social loafing and social matching. Social loafing occurs when individuals give less effort in a group because responsibility is diffused. Social matching is a tendency to conform to peers. According to Latanà ©s (1981) social impact theory, larger groups lead to greater conformity and greater downward performance matching. The larger the group, the more they conform to each other and actually match their input and performance to the lowest common denominator. In other words, group brainstorming participants are less productive than they would be on their own. 4. Idea plagiarism and fixation is rampant. Kohn and Smith continued their exploration of groups and the creation of ideas, explaining that we are unconsciously influenced by the ideas around us. Using Dunckers candle problem as an example, they showed how the ideas of others infect our own ideas in such a way that we cannot even discern when flaws that were present in the original idea are carried over into our own ideas. We create a solution built on the flaws of another. If we are left to come up with ideas without the input of others, our ideas tend to truly be unique and not merely derivative. The moment we are surrounded by the ideas of others, we absorb them as our own. Sometimes the idea of another unconsciously becomes our idea. This ties into fixation, or how, in a group, we become fixated on a solution and though we might generate many ideas, they are all fixated on a relatively narrow set. In other words: you might end up with lots of quantity after a brainstorming session, but did you ever have that feeling that not a single idea even came close? That they were all off in the same way? You had a group of people who absorbed each others ideas, flaws and all, and the solution became a too-narrow one despite the number of ideas that surrounded it. Brainstorming works best on your own. A group weakens the results.Solving The Group Brainstorming Problem Re-injecting anonymity to the procedure will directly reduce several of the barriers that make group brainstorming fail. It removes the fear of being judged by fellow team members and by leaders for possible silly ideas or suggestions. It allows voices to be heard that would otherwise be drowned out by others in a verbal-dominant meeting. These methods dont, however, address the social loafing aspect and the problem that comes with wanting our ideas to fit together and conform to levels perceived as appropriate or acceptable. Brainstorming, One Person At A Time The idea of brainstorming, a no-holds creative attack at a problem, isnt wrong. We cant rely purely on passive luck and gestalt to solve all of our problems. There are times we have to run hard at a problem from any and all directions to find a chip in its armor. Its when we mix this brainstorming with a group that those group dynamics are put into play and the creative power of individuals is actually lessened. Thats where singular brainstorming comes into play.  You can brainstorm on your own, as one person, without a group. The same rules apply regarding the removal of inhibition and self-criticism.  When brainstorming on my own, I use a few basic techniques as I attack a problem: 1. Get The Obvious Out Of The Way There will always be one or two ideas that immediately pop into your head. Just write them down. Get the obvious solutions out of the way so you can move on from them. I find that I free up thinking space once I write down all of the obvious solutions and ideas. Its one way I get past the self-criticism and inhibition problem that brainstorming is meant to avoid.  I tell myself that, if all else fails, I can always come back and revisit those initial sensible solutions.

Definition of Gerrymander

Definition of Gerrymander To gerrymander is to draw the boundaries of electoral districts in an irregular way so as to create an unfair advantage for a particular political party or faction. The origin of the term gerrymander dates back to the early 1800s in Massachusetts. The word is a combination of the words Gerry, for the states governor, Elbridge Gerry, and salamander, as a particular electoral district was jokingly said to be shaped like a lizard. The practice of creating oddly shaped electoral districts to create advantages has endured for two centuries. Criticisms of the practice can be found in newspapers and books going back to the time of the incident in Massachusetts that inspired the term. And while it has always been viewed as something done wrongfully, nearly all political parties and factions have practiced gerrymandering when given the opportunity. The Drawing of Congressional Districts The United States Constitution specifies that seats in Congress are apportioned according to the U.S. Census (indeed, thats the original reason why the federal government has conducted a census every ten years). And the individual states must create congressional districts which will then elect members of the U.S. House of Representatives. The situation in Massachusetts in 1811 was that the Democrats (who were political followers of Thomas Jefferson, not the later Democratic Party which still exists) held the majority of seats in the state legislature, and could therefore draw the required Congressional districts. The Democrats wanted to thwart the power of their opponents, the Federalists, the party in the tradition of John Adams. A plan was devised to create Congressional districts that would divide any concentrations of Federalists. With the map drawn in an irregular way, small pockets of Federalists would then be residing within districts where they would be heavily outnumbered. The plans to draw these peculiarly shaped districts were, of course, highly controversial. And the lively New England newspapers engaged in quite a battle of words, and, eventually, even pictures. The Coining of the Term Gerrymander There has been dispute over the years of who exactly coined the term gerrymander. An early book on the history of American newspapers stated that the word arose from a meeting of the Boston newspaper editor Benjamin Russell and the famed American painter Gilbert Stuart. In Anecdotes, Personal Memoirs, and Biographies of Literary Men Connected With Newspaper Literature, published in 1852, Joseph T. Buckingham presented the following story: In 1811, when Mr. Gerry was governor of the commonwealth, the legislature made a new division of the districts for the election of representatives to Congress. Both branches then had a Democratic majority. For the purpose of securing a Democratic representative, an absurd and singular arrangement of towns in the county of Essex was made to compose a district. Russell took a map of the county, and designated by a particular coloring the towns thus selected. He then hung the map on the wall of his editorial closet. One day, Gilbert Stuart, the celebrated painter, looked at the map, and said the towns, which Russell had thus distinguished, formed a picture resembling some monstrous animal. He took a pencil, and, with a few touches, added what might be supposed to represent claws. There, said Stuart, that will do for a salamander.Russell, who was busy with his pen, looked up at the hideous figure, and exclaimed, Salamander! Call it Gerrymander!The word became a proverb, and, for many years, was in popular use among the Federalists as a term of reproach to the Democratic legislature, which had distinguished itself by this act of political turpitude. An engraving of the Gerrymander  was made, and hawked about the state, which had some effect in annoying the Democratic Party. The word gerrymander, often rendered in hyphenated form as gerry-mander, began to appear in New England newspapers in March 1812. For instance, the Boston Repertory, on March 27, 1812, published an illustration representing the oddly shaped Congressional district as a lizard with claws, teeth, and even the wings of a mythical dragon. A headline described it as A New Species of Monster. In the text below the illustration an editorial said: The district may be exhibited as a Monster. It is the offspring of moral and political depravity. It was created to drown the real voice of the majority of the citizens in the country of Essex, where it is well known there is a large federal majority. Outrage Over the Gerry-Mander Monster Faded Though New England newspapers blasted the newly drawn district and the politicians who created it, other newspapers in 1812 reported the same phenomenon had occurred elsewhere. And the practice had been given a lasting name. Incidentally, Elbridge Gerry, the Massachusetts governor whose name wound up being the basis for the term, was the leader of the Jeffersonian Democrats in the state at the time. But there is some dispute whether he even approved of the scheme to draw the oddly shaped district. Gerry had been a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and had a long career of political service. Having his name dragged into the conflict over the Congressional districts seemed not to harm him, and was a successful vice-presidential candidate in the election of 1812. Gerry died in 1814 while serving as vice president in the administration of President James Madison. Gratitude is expressed to the New York Public Library Digital Collections for the use of the early 19th century illustration of The Gerry-Mander.

What dose future hold for organanized labor in the u.s commercial Research Paper

What dose future hold for organanized labor in the u.s commercial aviation industry - Research Paper Example The decline in organized labor was to such an extent that by the beginning of the 21st century, it represented less than 10% of private sector workers although in the public sector organized labor still represented about 35% of all workers. In 2005, there was another setback to organized labor, when two of America’s most powerful unions – SEIU and Teamsters – resigned from AFL-CIO. The commercial aviation industry has been undergoing several setbacks due to rising prices for jet fuel, increasing uneasiness about the legacy carriers moving towards bankruptcy which can disrupt the market place, and issues such as public liability potential for unfounded pensions of major carriers (ENO, 2005). Strategies in the commercial aviation and airlines industry has been evolving based on two factors – growing concern for passenger safety and ever increasing and changing consumer demands and expectations (Appelbaum & Fewster, 2003). The strategy thus has to focus on ho w the HR department aligns the activities, policies and procedures with the employee and labor relations. Despite these challenges, passengers traveling by air is on the rise and is expected to double by 2025 (ENO, 2005). The aircraft operations are expected to triple which implies that public confidence in safety is back to normal. It is feared that public safety may be taken for granted in the future, which could lead to under funding of safety measures. It is very important that Air Traffic Management (ATM) system handles the growing congestion in the skies efficiently and safely. However, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the past two decades had failed to bring about significant improvement. There are inefficiencies built into the current labor contracts within the airline labor unions. According to a union representative the airline management cannot ‘plead temporary insanity’ regarding the

Genetically Modified organism uses and applications Essay

Genetically Modified organism uses and applications - Essay Example GMO has far and wide many uses and applications. The technology used in GMO is called modern gene technology (Lee, 2008). Genetic engineering has led to the development in pharmaceutical and medicinal drugs technology. Many organism that are of medicinal significance haven been developed in bioreactors rather than in the field. This has so far diversified the cultivation of an organism in the reactors. Example of the organism: Chlamydomonas rehardtii (alga) and Physcomitrella (moss). The diversification has led to a great monitoring in order to get the desired results on time. Important researches in the establishment and development of treatment of different diseases and ailments have applied other genetic models to come up with modified drugs. Genetic engineering in agriculture has fetched some of the best output (Ciola, 2005). There is increased yield per unit area, reduction in production cost, enhanced composition of nutrient, resistance to diseases and pesticide, enhanced nutri ents, food security among others. There has been also advancement in crops that matures faster in harsh climatic and weather conditions that would not have otherwise matured (Lee, 2008). In the same regard, the number of animals has fetched better prices in the market due to the increased production and also resistance to diseases such as foot and mouth. A good example is the salmons which have grown at a very faster rate. In addition, soil salinity has affected many parts of the world in all agricultural aspects. This has led to poor growth, and in some cases the crops have fail to grow. For instance San Joaquin Valley is an example of diverse effect of salinity. GMO research will produce crops tolerant to saline condition such as mangrove in agricultural plants. A Mangrove gene (Avicenna marina) has been implanted into tobacco plant thus resisting salt, and other ionic stresses (Ciola, 2005). Global population has been increasing tremendously, and this has resulted to food shortag e and famine with conclusive statistics of one child dying in every two seconds worldwide. These deaths emanate from starvation without taking into account people who are very poor and undernourished. There is a need to embrace genetically engineered technology not only to the farmers, but also to the societies worldwide to produce better crops in the shortest time possible with the greatest output (Lee, 2008). Research on insects has been an area of concern and importance in equal measure, in the quest to curb and control parasitic diseases. For instance, development of GM mosquitoes has been made to represent SM1 protein, which prevents the passage of plasmodium (malaria parasite) into the gut of mosquito. This leads to the interruption of its cycle and makes it resistant. GM mosquitoes being released into the environment may eradicate transmission of malaria without using harmful chemicals such as DDT (Koch et al, 2010). Transgenic animals have genes introduced through transfecti on gene called transgenic. Introduction of DNA segmentation is integrated into the animal cell. This phenomenon is applicable to various organisms and it is often called transformation. Rabbits and mice are some of the transgenic animals. Mice are often preferred to other animals because it has favorably disposed gestation period, estrous cycle, producing several offspring per pregnancy, vitro fertilization and also availability

Technical Writting Essay Example for Free

Technical Writting Essay Company Introduction Texans r Us is in search of a Microsoft trainer to train the staff in Microsoft Office Programs. This Request for Proposal (RFP) will layout the company background and scope of work and will describe the project. If your agency would like to be considered for this project submits a written proposal that concentrates on the points of this RFP no later than Feb 18, 2013. The goal of this project is to fully train the staff of Texans r Us in Microsoft Office Programs. Upon completion of the training each staff member will be proficient in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Project Introduction The goal of the project is to have the entire staff of Texans r Us trained in Microsoft Office programs. Texans r Us consist of four to five employees per location with five locations. The timeframe for this project is as follows: * October 18: Distribute RFP to various agencies * October 22: Deadline for agencies to submit proposals. * October 25: Texans r Us will be available for agency inquiry. * November 8: Contact agencies that will be considered as well as agencies that will not be considered * November 15 – 19: Agencies will be presented to team members * November 22: Contact agency chosen and draw up contract. *November 29: Start date for new agency and meeting with team members. The budget for 2013 training will be prearranged by Texans r Us when agency is elected. The range for the budget is $20,000 $30,000. Administrative information The desired qualifications for the selected agency: * Microsoft Certified Professionals. * Client references. * Excellent writing and verbal skills. The required format for submitting proposals are to include a title page, letter of transmittal, executive summary table of contents and list of visuals. There should also be an introduction and a clear and concise plan for executing the project All proposals submitted will become the sole property of Texans r Us and will not be shared with second or third party clients. If there are any further questions please contact Eli Mata at 555-555-5555.

No Privacy in America :: George Orwell 1984 Technology Essays

No Privacy in America Feeling the need to be â€Å"at the cutting edge of the new† and â€Å"the first on your block to have it† puts us in a race with ourselves to keep pace with the evolving technological world. Cell phones, e-mail, GPS, EZ-Pass, and the entire World Wide Web – all these inventions enable us to live in a world where people across the planet are only milliseconds away. All these new inventions, however, also have a drawback in common – they serve as locating devices for each and every one of us. Privacy has vanished. In George Orwell’s novel, 1984, Big Brother was a character of fiction. He was able to oversee everything and virtually controlled the daily lives of millions of people. Now, as we advance technologically, the thought of Big Brother watching over us isn’t so far-fetched. He could be the government monitoring the actions of you and your family, or he could be your boss at work secretly watching you when you think you’re alone. Or he could even be those closest to you, tracking your every move. Big Brother no longer has to work hard to monitor us, for we’re inadvertently providing his eyes and ears. There’s no question that cell phones are great inventions. I have one and take it with me everywhere I go. â€Å"Never leave home without it,† I tell myself. My cell phone allows me to stay in contact with everyone, all the time. I can call home when I’m out to let my parents know where I am, or I can call my friends to see where we’re going to hang out that night. I even have the New York Yankees scores text-messaged to my cell phone every three innings so I never miss a beat. The benefits of having cell phones are obvious, yet the drawbacks are something to ponder. In this new age of cell phones the concept of â€Å"getting away from it all† has virtually disappeared. When I was visiting a college in April of my senior year in high school, my cell phone rang at least twice each day with people from back home in New Jersey trying to contact me. Sometimes it was my friends calling just to see if I wanted to hang out that night, forgetting that I was 250 miles away.

Book Review: Train to Pakistan Essay

Khushwant Singh opens his novel Train to Pakistan in a seemingly peaceful village on the countryside of Punjabi. Although the small village is fictional, it is important to note the historical significance this village, its people, and the time period represent in the novel. Revered as a one of the finest and best-known renditions of the Indian tragedy of partition, Train to Pakistan embodies more than a fictitious community. The following literary analysis will depict the consequence of human calamity by analyzing the political history of India, the social and cultural struggle of the people, and the moral message and character development. It is evident that Singh did not want to make this novel a political recount because he shies away from describing the political role of the British and the Indian people in much detail. However, to understand the novel’s progression, it is essential to examine the historical background. Singh bases his relatively short novel in the year 1947 in India; in other words, in the midst of the India Independence Act of 1947 which resulted in the dissolution of the British Indian Empire. Unfortunately, the British withdrawal did not lead to a unified, free India, but instead divided into two, struggling, newly instituted states of India and Pakistan. At midnight of August 15 of 1947, the two governments of India and Pakistan simultaneously declared independence, officially trying to separate Muslims from Sikhs. This violent divide between the two governments lead to the displacement of approximately 12.5 million men, women, and children and a death toll between several hundred thousand to one million. The violent nature of partition created an atmosphere of mutual hostility and suspicion that still hangs in the air between the two sides today. Singh, who was thirty at the time of partition, published one of the few first-hand accounts of this human tragedy that is now fading into history. Nevertheless, he captivates his audience in the retelling of a major human dispute. This leads into the social and cultural struggle determined by the setting of Train to Pakistan. In the brief novel, we, as the reader, get the chance to know many of characters in great detail. Examination of these varied groups of people not only increases cultural and social understanding of that time and place, but also shows that the blame could not be placed on any one group; everyone was responsible. In fact, in the opening sentences of the book Singh writes, â€Å"Muslims said the Hindus had planned and started the killing. According to the Hindus, the Muslims were to blame. The fact is, both sides killed. Both shot and stabbed and speared and clubbed. Both tortured. Both raped† (1). From a reader’s stand point, it is important to note this passage’s significance. Singh wanted to make it clear that blame must be shared for these inhumane acts. As I stated before, Singh opens his novel by recreating a tiny village in the Punjabi countryside called Mano Maj ra. Set next to a railway line that crosses the rising Sutlej River, the lives of the inhabitants of Mano Majra would fatefully change one summer season. The fictional village on the border of Pakistan and India is predominantly made up of Sikh farmers and Muslim tenants. Singh depicts how the residents of Mano Majra lived in an almost ignorant seclusion, surrounded by mobs of Muslims who hate Sikhs and mobs of Sikhs who hate Muslims; however, in the village the people had always lived harmoniously. Villagers were unaware about the happenings of larger scope than the village outskirts, which Singh depicts in the mystery of the trains full of murdered people. This obliviousness made them especially vulnerable to outside views. In fact, the most heart-rending passage in the book comes out of the people’s cluelessness when the government makes the decision to transport all the Muslim families from Mano Majra to Pakistan. One Muslim said, â€Å"What have we to do with Pakistan? We were born here. So were our ancestors. We have lived amongst [Sikhs] as brothers† (126). The dumbstruck villagers are overtaken by events as a small joint army convoy, containing one unit of Sikh soldiers and one of Baluch and Pathans, arrives in the village and orders the Muslims to board within ten minutes. They do so with the barest minimum of their meager belongings. The Muslim officer politely shakes hands with his Sikh colleague, and sets off with his caravan to Pakistan, leaving the non-Muslim families without a chance to say goodbye. After the Muslims flee to a refugee camp from where they will eventually go to Pakistan, a cluster of religious agitators come to Mano Majra and instill in the local Sikhs a hatred for Muslims and convinces a local gang to attempt mass murder as the Muslims leave on their train to Pakistan. This entire scene takes place after we are familiar with the characters, and it is painful at many levels: the poverty in which these people live; the terrible uncertainty they are suddenly cast into; and at least temporarily, the eclipse of people’s humanity. To continue, if these groups of people (i.e. government workers and ordinary citizens) are scrutinized on a closer level than their religious affections, a more detailed social structure emerges. First, government officials were corrupt and manipulative of villagers. They could arrest anyone they chose for any reason, more often than not for their own benefit. They did just enough in terms of dealing with the dispute so that nobody could say that they did not do anything, as I will point out later with Iqbal and Juggut. The law enforcement was completely at the whim of the local government, meaning that in practice, there was no law. Also, small amounts of educated people trickled in and out of villages, trying to instill in people democratic, communist, or other western ideologies, though the common people were turned off and confused by their dissent. An example of this is when a villager explain, â€Å"Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians—or the Pakistanis† (48). More than midway through the novel, Singh depicts a scene in which the villagers learn that the government was planning to transport Muslims from Mano Majra to Pakistan the next day for their safety. To better understand the situation surrounding the Partition of India, Singh provides information about both religions involved. The book sheds light on the various religious practices of both Sikhs and Muslims in rural India, including daily life for individuals from both practices. For example, the practice of prayer for Muslims is described in the novel: â€Å"The mullah at the mosque knows that it is time for the Morning Prayer. He has a quick wash, stands facing west towards Mecca and with his fingers in his ears cries in long sonorous notes, Allah-o-Akbar† (4). Singh points out practices of Sikhs as well, â€Å"The priest at the Sikh temple lies in bed till the mullah has called. Then he too gets up, draws a bucket of water from the well in the temple courtyard, pours it over himself, and intones his prayer in monotonous singsong to the sound of splashing water (5)†. These daily routines are not necessarily provided to exemplify the differences between the two religions, but more so how they rely and have a friendly tolerance for one another and the unfortunate changes the compatibility would undergo. In addition to giving an understanding of human actions and pointing out that everyone was responsible, Khushwant Singh sketches his characters with a sure and steady hand, and we come to know quite a cast. Foremost, Hukum Chand is the regional magistrate, and the most influential character in the story for many symbolic purposes. It becomes noticeable that he is a morally conflicted man who has probably used his power over the years with much corruption. He is often described with a dirty physical appearance which is important emblematically because it is as if he is overwhelmed with unclean actions and sins and is trying to wash himself of them. Hukum Chand’s ethical issues are also shown in one of repeated encounters he has with two geckos. Allegorically, we can likely infer that these geckos represent Muslims and Hindus in conflict and on the verge of fighting one another. When the geckos start fighting, they fall right next to him, and he panics. The guilt he gets from not helping when he has more than enough power to do so literally jumps onto him: â€Å"Hukum Chand felt as if he had touched the lizards and they had made his hands dirty. He rubbed his hands on the hem of his shirt. It was not the sort of dirt which could be wiped off or washed clean† (24). Alcoholism is another tool Hukum Chand uses in attempt to clean his conscience. He feels the guilt of his actions by day but is able to justify them with alcohol and visits from the teenage prostitute Haseena, a girl that is the same age as his deceased daughter. In all his conflictions, Hukum Chand is able to acknowledge that what he is doing is bad, but is still unable to promote good possibly inferring to the weakness of the human will or at least of those in power. The two other main characters featured in the novel are Iqbal Singh and Juggut Singh, and they are likely meant to be contrasted. Iqbal is described as a slightly effeminate, well-educated and atheist (which is symbolic as his ambiguous name makes his family religion unidentifiable) social worker from Britain who thinks politically and cynically. Iqbal can easily represent modernity as he has purposely forgotten his traditional Sikh heritage and culturally adapted to the Western life style by cutting his hair and going through circumcision. Juggut, conversely, is a towering, muscular, and uneducated villager who places action over thought and is known for frequent arrests and gang problems. When the Hindu money-lender is murdered, it is as if the novel is warming Iqbal and Juggut up for comparison, as they were both arrested for the same murder they did not commit and were placed in adjacent cells. In that time, a train pulls up full of dead corpses, obviously symbolic and representative of the violence and torment the two sides, Muslim and Sikh, placed upon one another. Upon the prisoners’ release, they learned that a gang was planning to attack the train taking Mano Majra’s Muslim population to Pakistan. They each had the potential to save the train, though it was recognized that this would cost their lives. Although Singh leaves us questioning who the heroic figure of the novel is, it is easy to place Juggut in the role of martyr. He acts on instinct after he found out about the fiasco that was going on, and then sacrifices his life to save the train. Iqbal, on the other hand, spends pages wondering to himself whether he should do something, revealing a moral irony: â€Å"The bullet is neutral. It hits the good and the bad, the important and the insignificant, without distinction. If there were people to see the act of self-immolation†¦the sacrifice might be worth while: a moral lesson might be conveyed†¦the point of sacrifice†¦is the purpose. For the purpose, it is not enough that a thing is intrinsically good: it must be known to be good. It is not enough to know within one’s self that one is in the right† (170). The questions of right versus wrong which Singh poses throughout the book are numerous, including those of what one should do when one has the opportunity to prevent something bad, when an act of goodwill is truly worthwhile, and how much importance is the consciousness of the bad. Train to Pakistan represents what one calls an â€Å"eye-opener.† Many times people block out or remain ambivalent to difficult circumstances surrounding them, but Singh writes, with multiple gruesome and explicit accounts of death, torture, and rape for the public to read, to make the case that people need to know about those improbable dangers.

Marriage Is a Private Affair Essay

Cultural, gender, religious and racial peculiarities can either impede or enhance effective human communication and understanding. According to Chinua Achebe, â€Å"Marriage is a Private Affair†. We may ask what is marriage? It may be defined in many ways Prof. Makoine in his guideline sheet defines it interactively as â€Å"wedlock/ relationship in which two people have pledged themselves to each other as husband and wife with or without legal sanction. † According to the same definition a private affair is â€Å"exclusive/ belonging to a particular person or group event or happening. Marriage is fundamental ,it’s a private affair, the author tries to show that marriage means different things in the different cultures also marriage and private are interchangeable it mean two or more people get into contract, whereas in some culture it also a unity establish between two or more people. Marriage is an exclusive event that happen between two people. According to the writer, he does not exclude the family out of the process of marriage but he concludes that whatever decision we make it is considered to be private affair which has to be between people that sign the contract. The two people involved take responsibility for the outcome of their decision. So as the saying goes, â€Å"marriage is for better for worse† What are other original and contemporary definitions of marriage? The original concept as religiously depicted both in Islam and Christianity is that marriage is a bond between a man and a woman, where both become one. There is an exchange of dowry for security and goodwill. The Webster’s New Pocket dictionary defines marriage as the â€Å"married life†, and marry as â€Å"join as husband and wife, 2. take as spouse and 3. nite†. The implications of such definitions is that there is a dichotomy in meanings culturally, racially and religiously. The concept of privacy of marriage can be read in many ways: it could mean private between two people irrespective of their family’s feelings. It could also be its my business whether I want to marry a male or a female, I don’t need anyone’s support or permission. I have the freedom to choose. In† â€Å"Chinua Achebe’s† drama the freedom to choose is still available to â€Å"Nnaemeka† but the choice he makes is painful to him and the family. The impending pain is envisaged by â€Å"Nnaemeka†and this makes him say, â€Å"It would not be wise to break the news to him by writing. A letter will bring it upon him with a shock, I am quite sure about that. † In this case â€Å"Chinua Achebe† portrays the privacy of marriage to a particular tribe and the difficulty when people have to break that privacy and go outside their tribes to choose a spouse. The reaction of â€Å"Nnaemeka†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s father to the situation is indeed dramatic, he could not imagine his son marrying someone whose family he did not know. This is vividly displayed in the following conversation in the story, â€Å" Whose daughter is she, anyway? â€Å"She is Nene Atang. † â€Å"What! † All the mildness was gone. â€Å" Neneataga, what does that mean? † The father felt this was beyond acceptance and his pain was palpable. In this case they are of the same religion even though â€Å"Nnaemeka†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s father may not accept this. He disparages the future wife’s religion by saying, â€Å"Teacher did you say? If you consider that a qualification for a good wife I should like to point out to you, â€Å"Emeka†, that no christian woman should teach. The privacy of the of culture and language was broken and the old man’s heart was broken too as he felt the loss of his son. He goes on to try to dissuade his son to no avail and the writer admits that, â€Å"his father eventually gave hm up as lost. † Emeka exercised his freedom but at the cost of loosing his community and family’s support and inclusion. The act itself was considered sacrilegious as an old man said weeks later, â€Å"It has never been heard,† people do not marry across language lines. Privacy was broken! However the issue of love transcends culture, religion and language barriers. Instead of Emeka to change his mind he hoped his father would heal. The story says, â€Å"Nnaemeka for his own part, was deeply affected by his father’s grief. But he kept hoping that it would pass away† (â€Å"marriage is private affair†, page †¦). He was adamant though about marrying the woman of his dreams despite the strong opposition. He goes on to say, â€Å"Nene Atang from Calabar. She is the only woman I can marry,† (page†¦ ). The reality though is in the end we weigh what is truly important as Nnaemeka’s father found out. The story brings us to the point of his awakening,â€Å"His mind immediately returned to the children. How could he shut his door against them? † He realizes that as a father his daughter- in – law had reached out to him with an arm he couldn’t resist, the arm of compassion to your own blood. The writer concludes by saying, â€Å"That night he hardly slept, from remorse – and a vague fear that he might die without making it up to them. † (page †¦) the father was stubborn and being xenophobic, he was gloomy and cut relationship off with his grandchildren since he was not dynamic in nature and could not accept changing times.

For Sale vs. On Sale

For Sale vs. On Sale For Sale vs. On Sale For Sale vs. On Sale By Maeve Maddox A reader asks, When do you use the expression â€Å"for sell† instead of â€Å"for sale†? Short answer: Never. ESL learners must be puzzled when they see ads like these on the Web: I have a nice Play Station 3 drum set for sell for 35 dollars. We have a wristband for sell for $100 in the Des Moines, Ames, Carroll, Denison region of Iowa. Find out if there are other products like yours already  for sell. Cheap Authentic (unused) Cartridges for Sell Sell is a verb. Sale is a noun. Something that someone wants to sell is â€Å"for sale.† Purebred Border Collie Puppies for Sale Gently Used Clothing for Sale Reliable Used Cars for Sale The expression â€Å"on sale† may also present a little confusion to ESL speakers. Sometimes â€Å"on sale† means that items for sale are being sold at a price lower than normal: Prices slashed: all jump drives on sale at half price This weekend only: premium mowers on sale at 20% off When â€Å"on sale† is preceded by go, no drop in price is implied. â€Å"To go on sale† means â€Å"to become available for purchase†: Ticket packages offer the exclusive ability to select tickets before they go on sale (i.e., before people who don’t have ticket packages are allowed to buy them.) An iPhone with a Sapphire Screen May Go on Sale Soon (i.e., it may soon be possible to buy an iPhone with a sapphire screen) When will Google Glass finally go on sale? (i.e., when will Google Glass be available for purchase by consumers?) â€Å"For Sale† and â€Å"On Sale† have their uses, but â€Å"For Sell† is an unfortunate error. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:12 Types of LanguageThe Six Spellings of "Long E"20 Criminal Terms You Should Know

25 Quotes to Inspire Thoughtful Written Sentiments

25 Quotes to Inspire Thoughtful Written Sentiments Sometimes its easy to take friends and family for granted, which is why showing appreciation is so important. As philosopher Voltaire said, Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. When you take the time to express thanks and gratitude, you help build and strengthen bonds of trust and love. It doesnt matter whether you send a card or make a phone call. Appreciation, however you express it, builds bridges and fosters healthy relationships. Of course, appreciation should always be sincere. For example, when you praise a family member for their cooking, mention what you specifically liked about the dish, and thank them for preparing it so well. If a friend has thrown you a surprise birthday party, offer your sincere thanks. Remember to say what you enjoyed most about the celebration. Everyone loves a thoughtful thank-you card, but finding the right words to show your appreciation is not always easy. The following is a list of quotes on the subject of appreciation and gratitude from well-known artists, writers, world leaders, and others to help you create your own special sentiments. You could also include the entire attributed quote if it makes sense. Maya Angelou: When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed. Guillaume Apollinaire: Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy. Thomas Aquinas: There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship. Marcus Aurelius: Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them. Leo Buscaglia aka Dr. Love: Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. Henry Clay: Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the gratefully and appreciating heart. Ralph Waldo Emerson: A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. Helen Keller: Words are never warm and tender enough to express ones appreciation of a great kindness. Dalai Lama aka Tenzin Gyatso: The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness. Washington Irving: Sweet is the memory of distant friends! Like the mellow rays of the departing sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart. President John F. Kennedy: As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. Steve Maraboli: Forget yesterday - it has already forgotten you. Dont sweat tomorrow - you havent even met. Instead, open your eyes and your heart to a truly precious gift - today. Willie Nelson: When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. Marcel Proust: Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. Albert Schweitzer: At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. Mark Twain aka Samuel Langhorne Clemens: To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with. Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. Voltaire: Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. William Arthur Ward: Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I may not forget you. Booker T. Washington: Any mans life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day. Mae West aka Mary Jane West: Too much of a good thing can be wonderful! Walt Whitman: I have learned that to be with those I like is enough. Oscar Wilde: The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention. Thornton Wilder: We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. Oprah Winfrey: Be thankful for what you have; youll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you dont have, you will never, ever have enough.

Stress Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Stress - Essay Example This paper discusses the problems brought about by stress; possible solutions to problems on stress and a case study from the University of Michigan. Problem: Stress Stress is depends on the mind and body’s capacity to adapt to demands as required by the environment (Olpin and Hesson, 2013), whether at work, home or in universities. There are three aspects of stress that should be considered. First is the personal view of the individual experiencing the stress; and this can become either a positive or negative factor. The second aspect is the individual’s reaction to the entirety of the events rather than the specific event alone, and this will be the key to either a positive or negative result. The third aspect is the capacity or threshold by which the body can hold the stress, meaning the capacity to handle the stress and if such exists in the individual, this yields good results. However, when the individual fails to handle the stress, the effect is negative (Olpin a nd Hesson, 2013). But when an individual begins to see only the negative side of the stress, this is where the problems on stress come in. Stress has various effects on individuals. This may be emotionally, physically, behaviorally or psychologically; as a whole, stress poses risks to a person’s health. High amounts of stress push the individual to exert more energy to be able to meet the demands in the environment. Many scientists have studied and established that stress is a factor in increased blood pressure and over-fatigue. Some psychological problems like anxiety and depression are also effects to stress. Although anxiety is normal to human beings, anxiety disorders are more serious because these psychological disorders can disrupt a person’s ability to live a normal life. Anxiety disorders like agoraphobia or social anxiety disorder are some of the most common types, which, if untreated develops to depression and increases even the tendency of suicide after the onset (â€Å"Stress†, 2013). Addiction and dependence on other things, like food or alcohol, to cope with stress is also an effect of stress. A study conducted by Gluck (2006) studied the effect of stress as a trigger to excessive eating, or binge eating. This kind of eating disorder may result in obesity, or much worse, anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN). Solutions The most important thing to maintain the balance in wellness of a human being is stress reduction and management. The first way in managing stress is avoiding substances like drugs and alcohol. The initial relief may be felt however, this becomes more problematic in the long run and will eventually add more stress. Support from family, friends, colleagues and other persons that you may feel comfortable with, will be helpful as well. Knowing that there are people whom you can talk to and are willing to listen to you lightens the burden that the stress gives you. Exercising and having a massage could als o help relieve stress. By doing something else, a hobby or just going to the mall or walking in the park, takes away the mind’s focus on the stress that a person experiences. It is important that stress is channeled positively so that there is more fulfillment for one’s self, rather than the destructive effects (Centers for Disease Control and