Jazz Music in America from 1900 to 1920 Research Paper

Jazz Music in America from 1900 to 1920 - Research Paper Example As the discussion stresses  originating in the United States among African American communities, jazz has played a powerful role with respect to the development of popular music within the 20th century. This form of music was originally the result of a type of synthesis between African and European/American musical instruments/styles. Key elements that help to differentiate jazz from other forms of music are concentric upon the fact that jazz incorporates the following components: swing tones, improvisation, syncopation, blue notes, and poly-rhythms. Additionally, jazz has also incorporated elements of American popular music, further proving it to be one of the most syncretic types of music. As a direct result of the change that has been presented with respect to jazz music, it has continued to evolve and currently represents one of the most dynamic musical genres.  From this paper it is clear that  the transatlantic slave trade can at least be partially understood to have cont ributed heavily to the influx of jazz instrumentation, style and culture from parts of West Africa. During this time, roughly half a million sub-Saharan Africans were taken to the Americas. These slaves were mainly from West Africa and the majority of them originated from the Congo River basin. With them, they brought strong musical traditions.  Understanding concerning jazz music cannot be wholly separated from an understanding of unique societal patterns and/or the politics of a particular era.

Proposing an Hris System Essay Example for Free

Proposing an Hris System Essay Planning the future of the organization will require training, and mentoring from key employees. The current Human Resource Information System does not support the information that is required to complete the project. Management is proposing to implement a new Human Resource Information System. Human Resource Information System is a computerized system designed to bring together information for strategic planning, operational, and, administrative. The most time spent in Human Resource is administrative management. Human Resource Information System is designed to improve efficiency and assist with streamlining paperwork. There are five major categories in a business that the Human Resource Information System supports. Labor relations in the HRIS will support Union negotiation, employee information, and auditing records. Human Resource Planning and Analysis supports organizational charts, attendance analysis, job description tracking, staffing, recruiting, and turnover analysis. Compensation and benefits, wages, benefits, vacation, and pay structures. Compliance regulations are also supported by HRIS; Equal Opportunity Employment, workforce utilization, and applicant tracking. Safety and training development are also supported by the HRIS software. HRIS software is available by many different software companies; the following are just a few HRIS software that are available. Bamboo Human Resource Software, Employee Connect Software, Human Resources Microsystems, J. D. Edwards Enterprise One, and Employee Connect. The software must be compatible with the organizations current job-costing system and will require the reports to coincide. This will need to be a customized feature and will require a tailored software. The software listed above is available to as is and will not support our job cost software. Management would like to implement a new Human Resource Information System before the new fiscal year. The new fiscal year begins in April 2013. The first process will be posting a Request for pricing from multiple pre-qualified Human Resource Information System Software companies. The schedule will only allow a maximum of one month to select a final vendor to begin the process of tailoring the software. The concerns that management have are some of the organizational factors, such as labor force, company budgets, bad planning, and competition. Labor force is down due to budget cuts and the transition to new software will require overtime and possibly hiring temporary help for data entry. The current company budget does not have the profit to support a substantial increase in additional labor. The planning schedule for a new Human Resource Information System will need to be monitored closely. Management is concerned about the possibility of going over schedule and increasing the labor cost more than more than what is in the budget. Management has come up with a budget of forty-five thousand dollars. This budget includes the cost of software, labor force, and new equipment to support the new Human Resource Information System. The return on investment for the new software and equipment that management hopes for will be worth more than the cost. The benefits of having a Human Resource Information System that produces reports for compensation, time off, and labor needs. The new Human Resource Information System will also give our organization the ability to be competitive in capturing labor trends and needs. Planning for the future of the organization will also be a huge benefit factor. The time and cost that will be saved over time will pay for the upgrade in less than two years. When the system is up and running management foresees that four full-time positions will need to be eliminated due to the efficiency and lack of work for the four workers. References Chauhan, A. , Sharma, S. , amp; Tyagi, T. (2011). Role of HRIS in Improving Modern HR Operations. Review Of Management, 1(2), 58-70.

How Being in Love can Change People :: essays research papers

â€Å"How Being in Love can Change People†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the three marvelous works, Matchstick Men, Punch-Drunk Love, and â€Å"Mama Day†, people are all changed greatly, and for the better by romantic or father/child love. How everyone knows that there is no one on Earth who is perfect, yet when there is love, we come so close to it. Within these three works of art, one can analyze how there is actual change through people when there is love present.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Cocoa states in Gloria Naylor’s â€Å"Mama Day†, â€Å"When I had come to New York seven years before that I had wondered about the need for such huge buildings. No one ever seemed to be in them very long; everyone was out on the sidewalks moving, moving, moving- and to where?† Cocoa starts out as a lost cause, going to New York as a resident tourist. Meeting George saved her vision of New York . . . . He knew what it was really about, â€Å"New York wasn’t on those Manhattan sidewalks, just the New Yorkers. My city was a network of small towns, some even smaller than here in Willow springs. It could be one apartment building, a handful of blocks, a single square mile hidden off with its own language, newspapers and magazines- its own judge and juries. You’d never realize that because you went and lived on our fringes.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Cocoa was living in New York and had resided there for seven years, but was she seeing the real New York? Or was she seeing a New York fantasy world? †¦A forever-tourist New York resident. George insists that New York is much more than its’ buildings or looks, it’s the little things, â€Å"To live in New York you’d have to know about the florist on Jamaica Avenue who carried Yellow roses even though they didn’t move well, but it was his dead wife’s favorite color. The candy store in Harlem that wouldn’t sell cigarettes to twelve year olds without notes from their mothers. That they killed chickens below Houston, prayed to Santa Barbara by the East River and in Bensonhurst girls were still virgins when they married.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One of the reasons why George offered to show Cocoa around New York was because she needed a â€Å"guide†. She had lived in New York for seven years and still had thought like a tourist, the same way of thinking she had had when she arrived seven years earlier.

Shakespeare Festival

I have decided to assess Amanda Hussein's interpretation of Shakespearean well- known King Lear. Amanda transported the tragedy of this play from the eighth century before Christ, to the sass in a world where the show and performing is everything. This King Lear was introduced in a Chicago style with two actresses walking down the theatre stairs and presenting England's king. This roaring entrance shifted the audience back In time to the correct time setting, making It clear from then and onwards where this play was set.In an unknown location In the sass, King Lear (magnetically portrayed by Alluding) is deciding on which of his three daughters should have his land: Cornelia, Goner† and Reagan. The last two, are the real antagonists of the play, and when their father asks them how much they love him, they falsely herald their love for him. Cornelia, who in truth is the only daughter who truly loves him, hardly speaks explaining that there are no words to explain how she feels a bout his father. King Lear though breaks Into a rage and sends her away, thinking he now understands who deserves his lands.We then see a subplot, which assn very clear as I had difficulties connecting the dots of the two plots. Two men, whose identities I still haven't figured out, try to conspire against Gloucester and try to take his place. The play keeps jumping from one side of the plot to the other, where we see the two evil sisters Goner† and Reagan making their plans. As time passes, Cornelia keeps being loyal to both King Lear and her mean sisters, forgiving them all. The actual plot wasn't easy to grasp by the audience, as the audience most of the time was positively struck by the clear but extremely effective staging and the convincing acting.The stage was set out in a way that as soon as you entered the theatre, you immediately wondered what was going to happen, and knew that you were about to see something very unusual. The curtains were only partially open, leavi ng a space of about 5 meters which made all members of the audience focus on what was going on. This was obviously thought of and had a successful Impact on the spectators who directed their eyes where everything was happening. On the floor, three colored drapes were carefully lying parallel to the stage: magenta, blue and green.These, other than the lights, were the only colored items on stage as the actors were all wearing black suits with white shirts, with the exception of King Lear, who wore a black fedora hat. The costumes perfectly mirrored the time period, and the fedora hat, typical of the sass, was one of the many gems of this play which made It as a whole, amazing. Eight black stools were set In three rows on the drapes and near these stools is where all the acting was going to happen. The middle stool was of course reserved to King Lear.In the front row, on the sides, there were the two sisters General and Reagan, whilst in the last row, right behind Lear, there was the innocent Cornelia. On the left and right of the set, two girls and two boys stood, making the pattern pleasing to the audience. Manta's set out of the stools was very effective, because since we are In theatre, the presence of all actors on stage, which, without a doubt, made this interpretation of Shakespearean King Lear fascinating, was the use of lighting and freeze-frames.The lights were one of the main characters as they were always used. More than this, they were matching the three drapes on the floor which made it also aesthetically pleasing to the audience's eye. Since the setting of the stage was very minimalist, lights helped the audience understand what was going on, where something was happening, and highlighted the actors' emotions. For example, the use of green light when General and Reagan, the two mean sisters, were conspiring, gave importance to their feeling of new and wickedness.Also, the use of Strobe lights in one of the final scenes where King Lear becomes mad, really drew special attention to his feelings and stressed this scenario of chaos. Not only this, but the use of Strobe lights, which was undoubtedly thought f, directly included the audience which felt in the same situation of discomfort as King Lear himself. Depending so much on lights, this play had no need of special sound effects, and in fact had none. As I said, freeze-frames were abundantly (and correctly) used in the play.Amanda, thanks to the layout of the stage, afforded to have all actors on stage at all times. What happened was that when an actor had to deliver his or her lines, he or she had the freedom of using the space on the stage however they thought was appropriate (although it was clear that the director did her bob in keeping everyone where they were supposed to be). If the actors didn't happen to be in the scene that was going on at the moment, they would by frozen standing in front of the stool, heads down, hands held in front of them, silent.The only excepti on went for King Lear who sat with his head in his hand, giving to the audience a constant message of desperation and confusion which I thought was brilliant. On certain occasions though, the changing of the scene made them move. All of the actors would simultaneously walk around their stool once, grab the stool, and in reflect unison noisily place it on the ground to sit on it. Not only the unanimity of the eight actors left the theatre speechless, but the moment the stools touched the ground, the lights would change color, making this perfectly synchronized scene change sudden, but expected at the same time.All of these techniques made the actors who weren't part of the scene disappear, and made us focus on the actors acting. All actors did an outstanding Job performing this version of King Lear. Since everything was very minimalist and brought in an unknown location, it was vitally important that the actors gave the play the depth it deserved. I honestly believe that Amanda did a fantastic Job in directing everything, because you could really feel the effort that she put into every second and line of the play.Positions, lights, costumes, and acting was very well thought of, and it was clear when they all performed that all the details counted. The characters and actors which stood out the most, out of the eight, were the three sisters and King Lear. Cornelia was interpreted by Aviators, who never stepped out of character, and although had to portray a shy personality, she engaged to be heard by everyone in the audience. Her body language, as well as the other two sisters', was coherent to what she was saying and feeling from the very first scene when she â€Å"expressed† her love to her father, to the very last.General and Reagan were interpreted by Lucia and Sofia. The two actresses created a very strong bond between the two of them, and with the audience. Their acting, I feel, was very Lucia and Sofia moved around the stage, gave a clear understand ing that they fully felt what their characters were experiencing, as their emotions of envy, Jealousness and wickedness contaminated the stage. Last, but without a doubt not least, is Ludicrous performance of King Lear. I strongly believe that his whole rendition was, as I already said, magnetic.When he was talking using that deep voice he gave to his King Lear, all eyes were fixed on him and every word he said, he filled it with a deepness which the other actors honestly lacked. Ludicrous acting was charismatic, and touched everyone. One of the last scenes, when King Lear becomes mad, his body language and voice tone gave me goose bumps. This though, wasn't only because of his acting, but also due to the fact that Amanda had the brilliant idea to rate a sound blanket during the scene where Lear is going crazy, and all the actors slowly approach him chanting louder and louder â€Å"die! Ii! Die! â€Å". This, together with the acting, and the Strobe lights, is one of the scenes wh ich made this play so unforgettable to me. I was completely hypnotized by the end of it, and it took me a while to come back in the real world as the whole play was fixed in my head and Just didn't want to come out. Amanda indeed managed to communicate throughout her directing many emotions to me, and to the rest of the audience.

Money Changes People

Money Changes People There was a time period were I was very wealthy, were I can get mostly everything I wanted. My family and I would go to Vegas every single weekend and when it came to my birthday we would go to chucky cheese but not just any chucky cheese, we would go to Beverly Hills chucky cheese. Well one day all of that went down hill, my father got obsessed in buying any random shit from the store that we didn’t even need he would always say â€Å"we’ll need this one day† but that one day never came.It was a hot summer day when our payment of our house but now we couldn’t even pay because we ran out of money just because my dad, but I wouldn’t blame him only because I would buy some random game that wasn’t even worth buy it and I didn’t play it all. Well there was only 3 more days to pay or the police would come and I panicked and I call my mom and dad over so I can talk to them. I tell them in a very confident tone â€Å"um, so I’ve been thinking why don’t we steel the bank down the block by olive garden, you the place we used to eat in very special days? I was scared to what they would say but they say what I wanted them to say â€Å"well that’s our only choice to do son since that’s the fastest thing to do. † That reply satisfied my life. The next day we go very early because we didn’t want anybody to hurt in any way. My dad knows a guy who can give us some bulletproof vests and a rifle and a handgun. â€Å"I’m very nervous† said my mom in a scared tone. â€Å"C’mon mom we can do this just don’t bother with vault cause they have a chemical where it throws blue ink at your face so just stick with the tellers. â€Å"Ok son lets do this, are you ready? What about you Hun? † â€Å"Yes mom I’m ready†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I’m also ready, lets get this over with†¦Ã¢â‚¬  we go in side and there are no people but the manager and a co-worker, so that was the best moment to get in. my dad and I scream out â€Å"put your hands up and get on the floor† we tell the police inside to drop the gun and give it to me. He failed to do so, so I shoot him in the leg and drops down to the floor he quickly tries to shoot me but I stopped him and shot him in the head and all you see is the brain on the wall dropping down slowly.My mom told me to go and take the money, and I put on my gloves on and I go to the tellers, they only had 400,000 dollars which didn’t fill us up so we decide to go to the vault and we take 3. 5 million dollars, I didn’t know why they had so much money but then 5 min. later we left the place and then the bus guy who would collect the money comes and see’s the dead guy on the floor, he decides to call the police but before he did that my dad gets his rifle and shoots him right in the heart.My mom and my dad said something at the same time â€Å" lets hide the bodies and leave but before we did that we hear a loud bang and it was the co-worker who we forgot all about so we take her also and putted them into a dumpster. It’s been 3 years since that happened and we’re all gone from LA and we went to good old Washington, which my mom had a dream living there. My dad on the other he has changed a lot, now he has a job and finally got the hang of taking care of the money and how to use it and how to buy the right things we needed. Hi son do you remember what happened 3 years ago? † â€Å"How can I not remember that, that was the best day of my life, I had so much fun except those people we killed. † â€Å"Yes I guess it was fun. † Now it’s been 10 years since that happened and now we’re wealthier than the richest man in Washington. Why, would you ask? Its simple, my dad created the anti theft alarm for cars and stores and even a bank.He got the idea of this 2 years ago when he said â€Å"Ià ¢â‚¬â„¢m going to create this so no other dumbass would do the same shit we did† â€Å"I agree dad you should create this† â€Å"yes Hun we would make a very good investment. † Well it was a great success and he made 1. 2 trillion dollars. I told my dad that I wanted to help the poor and people who don’t have enough money to even survive one day and he gave me a positive answer â€Å"yes son go ahead here’s 2 million dollars, go do a good thing with that money. â€Å"Thank you dad I love you† â€Å"I love too son. † The very next day I went out to the streets and gave every homeless person 100 dollars and made an organization of helping the poor a gave the rest that I have and gave everyone in Africa food and supplies to survive. That lasted 5 years and the closing of my organization I made a speech and it went like this â€Å"hi kids, family and parents, I here to say that I’m very happy to what happen a few years ago when I started all of this.All of you here are maybe asking your, why did he do this? Well I did this because I went through this when I was younger and me and my family were starving and we had to survive, umm I prefer you to read my book I made called â€Å"my survival story† thank you for time and good bye. So my life has changed and my dad and my mom are busy going around the world helping people while I stay here and try to survive another day like anybody would do.

How to Improve Your ACT English Score 9 Tips From a Perfect Scorer

How to Improve Your ACT English Score 9 Tips From a Perfect Scorer SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Are you struggling with ACT Englishscores between 14-24? You're not alone - hundreds of thousands of other students are scoring in this range. But many don't know the best ways to break out of this score range and get 26+on the ACT. Here we'll discuss how to improve ACT Englishscore effectively, and why it's so important to do so. Put these principles to work and I'm confident you'll be able to improve your score. Brief note: This article is tailored for lower-scoring students, currently scoring below a 26 on ACT English. If you're already above this range, my perfect 36 ACT Englishscore articlewill be better for you as it contains advanced strategies. In this article, I'm going to discuss why scoring high is a good idea, what it takes to score a 26, and then go into ACT English tips. Stick with me - this is like building a house. First you need to lay a good foundation before putting up the walls of the house and pretty windows. Similarly, we need to first understand why you're doing what you're doing, before diving into tips and strategies. In this guide, I talk mainly about getting to a 26. But if your goal is to get to a 24 or lower, these tips still equally apply. Understand the Stakes At this ACT score range, improving your low ACT Englishscore to a 24 range will dramatically boost your chances of getting into better colleges. The reason? A 26 puts you at right about the 83rd percentile, well above the national average of all ACT test takers. This is roughly equivalent to a 1200 out of 1600 on the SAT. Let's take a popular school, University of Central Florida (UCF), as an example. Its average ACT score is a 27. Its 25th percentile score is a 23, and 75th percentile is a 28. Furthermore, its acceptance rate is 49%. In other words, a little less than half of all applicants are admitted. Good odds, but the lower your scores, the worse your chances. In our analysis, if you apply with an ACT score of 23, your chance of admission drops to 23%, or around 1/4 chance. But if you raise your score to a 28, your chance of admission goes up to 55% - a very good chance of admission. For the Englishsection, this is especially true if you want to apply to humanities or language programs. They expect your Englishscore to be better than your math score, and if you score low, they'll doubt your ability to do college-level humanities work. It's really worth your time to improve your ACT score. Hour for hour,it's the best thing you can do to raise your chance of getting into college. Curious what chances you have with a 26 ACT score? Check out ourexpert college admissions guide for a 26 ACT score. Know that You Can Do It This isn't just some lame inspirational message you see on the back of a milk carton. I mean, literally, you and every other student can do this. In my work with PrepScholar, I've worked with thousands of students scoring in the lower ranges of 15-21. Time after time, I see students who beat themselves up over their low score and think improving it is impossible. "I know I'm not smart." "I've just never been good at writing, and I can't see myself scoring high." "I don't know what to study to improve my score. Is it grammar rules? Do I do practice?" It breaks my heart. Because I know that more than anything else, your ACT score is a reflection ofhow hard you work and how smartly you study. Not your IQ and not your school grades. Not how Ms. Anderson in 10th grade gave you a C on your essay. Here's why: the ACT is a weird test. When you take it, don't you get the sense that the questions are nothing like what you've seen in school? You've learned grammar before in school. You know some basic grammar rules. But the ACT questions just seem so much weirder. It's purposely designed this way. The ACT can't test difficult concepts, because this would be unfair for students who never took AP English. It can't ask you to decompose Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. The ACT is a national test, which means it needs a level playing field for all students around the country. So it HAS to test concepts that all high school students will cover. How to transition between paragraphs, grammar rules like subject verb agreement, etc. You've learned all of this throughout school. But the ACT still has to make the test difficult, so it needs to test these concepts in strange ways. This trips up students who don't prepare, but it rewards students who understand the test well. Example Question Here's an example: find the grammar error in this sentence: The senator, along with his dozen campaign staff, are running a competitive race against the newcomer. This is a classic ACT English question. The error is in subject/verb agreement. The subject of the sentence is commissioner, which is singular. The verb is "run," but because the subject is singular, it should really be "runs." If you didn't see an error, you fell for a classic ACT English trap. It purposely confused you with the interrupting phrase, "along with his 20 staff members." You're now picturing 20 people in a campaign - which suggests a plural verb! The ACT English section is full of examples like this. Nearly every grammar rule is tested in specific ways, and if you don't prepare for these, you're going to do a lot worse than you should. Here's the good news: this might have been confusing the first time, but the next time you see a question like this, you'll know exactly what to do: find the subject and the verb, and get rid of the interrupting phrase. So to improve your ACT English score, you just need to: learn the grammar rules that the ACT tests study how the ACT tests these grammar rules and learn how to detect which grammar rule you need in a question practice on a lot of questions so you learn from your mistakes I'll go into more detail about exactly how to do this. First, let's see how many questions you need to get right to get a certain score. What It Takes to Get a 26in ACT English If we have a target ACT score out of 36 in mind, it helps to understand how many questions you need to get right on the actual test. The ACT English section has 75 questions on it. Depending on how many questions you get right, you'll get a Scaled score out of 36. Here's the raw score to ACT English Score conversion table. (If you could use a refresher on how the ACT is scored and how raw scores are calculated, read this.) Scaled Raw Scaled Raw Scaled Raw Scaled Raw 36 75 27 62 18 41-42 9 18-19 35 72-74 26 60-61 17 39-40 8 15-17 34 71 25 58-59 16 36-38 7 12-14 33 70 24 56-57 15 32-35 6 10- 32 68-69 23 53-55 14 29-31 5 8-9 31 67 22 51-52 13 27-28 4 6-7 30 66 21 48-50 12 25-26 3 4-5 29 65 20 45-47 23-24 2 2-3 28 63-64 19 43-44 10 20-22 1 0-1 So if you're aiming for a 26, on this test you need to get just 60 questions correct. This is just an 80% on the test! Also, keep in mind that you'll be able to GUESS on a lot of questions. Because there are 4 answer choices, you get a lot of questions right with a 25% chance! So here's an example. Let's say you know how to solve just 55 questions for sure. You guess on the remaining 20, and get 5 of them right by chance. This gives you a raw score of 60, or a scaled score of 26! This has serious implications for your testing strategy. In essence, you only need to answer 4/5 of all questions right. We'll go into more detail below about what this means for your testing strategy below. Whatever you're scoring now, take note of the difference you need to get to a 26. For example, if you're scoring a 21, you need to answer 10-13 more questions right to get to a 26. Once again, if your goal is a score below 26, like a 23, the same analysis applies. Just look up what your Raw Score demands above. OK - so we've covered why scoring a higher ACT Englishscore is important, why you specifically are capable of improving your score, and the raw score you need to get to your target. Now we'll actually get into actionable ACT English tipsthat you should use in your own studying to maximize your score improvement. Tipsto Improve Your Low ACT English Score Strategy 1: Know What's On the Test. It's Not Just About Grammar! The first tip to doing well on the ACT is understanding what you're actually going to be tested on. You need to predict every type of question that comes up so you have a game plan to get the right answer. If you've studied ACT English before, you've probably worried about memorizing grammar rules like subject/verb agreement or pronoun antecedent. The truth is, grammar is only half of the test. The other half is made up of what are called "Rhetorical Skills" s of concepts you need to know are Wordiness (how to phrase things concisely) and Transitional Logic (how to connect sentences and paragraphs together). For these skills, you don't just memorize grammar rules - you need to understand how to write effectively in the context of the ACT. At PrepScholar, we believe in dividing ACT English into individual skills you can attack separately. This is the best way to divide and conquer - understand what the ACT tests, and focus on mastering individual skills. Here's a complete breakdown of the skills in ACT English: Grammar (53% of ACT English) Punctuation - Commas Punctuation - General Number Agreement Pronouns Verb Forms Comparison/Description Word Choice Idioms Run-On Sentences Sentence Fragments Parallelism Modifiers Rhetorical Skills (47% of ACT English) Relevance Author Intent Transitional Logic Macro Logic Wordiness Formality and Tone That's it! All of ACT English is wrapped up in these 18 skills. What seemed like a scary, giant 75-question section can actually be wrapped up entirely in these 18 skills. Now, don't get overwhelmed. This may LOOK like a lot of stuff to study,but when you're aiming for a 26, you only have to master a fraction of these skills. I'll explain more in the next strategy. For a more detailed look, check out our guide breaking down theACT Englishsection. Strategy 2: Learn the Most Important Grammar Rules. Ignore the Others If you've tried studying for ACT English before, you might have been daunted by the large number of grammar rules you seem to have to know. The reality is, there is a huge difference in how important different grammar rules are on the test. Just as an example, Transition questions appear roughly 9 times per test, but Logical Comparison questions show up only once per test. So some skills show up nearly 10x more often than other skills!This has a huge implication on what you should be spending your precious time on studying - not all study hours are treated equal. If you study the most important grammar rules first, you will get the biggest bang for your buck. Here's the complete list of skills and how often they appear on a typical ACT English section: Skill Category # per Test % per Test Transitional Logic Rhetoric 9 12.41% Relevance Rhetoric 7 9.49% Wordiness Rhetoric 7 9.49% Punctuation - Commas Grammar 5 6.93% Punctuation - General Grammar 5 6.93% Macro Logic Rhetoric 5 6.57% Author Intent Rhetoric 4 5.84% Run-On Sentences Grammar 4 5.84% Idioms Grammar 4 5.47% Verb Forms Grammar 4 5.% Sentence Fragments Grammar 3 4.01% Word Choice Grammar 3 4.01% Formality and Tone Rhetoric 3 3.65% Pronouns Grammar 3 3.65% Number Agreement Grammar 2 3.28% Parallelism Grammar 2 2.92% Modifiers Grammar 2 2.92% Comparison/Description Grammar 1 1.46% Look at the difference in commonality between the skills. Transitional logic shows up a whopping 9 times per test, while modifiers shows up just 2 times. If it takes the same amount of time to study both skills, clearly your time is better spent on studying Transitional logic. Remember what we said about how you only need to get 80% of questions correct to get a 26? If you master the top 10 skills above and get all those questions right, you can totally ignore the other 8 skills!This is what I mean by bang for your buck. Unfortunately, most books and test prep resources ignore this distinction - they just treat every skill equally. They'll give you the same number of practice questions and give you no guidance on how to spend your time. This means you can waste a lot of time studying things that truly don't matter on the ACT. (Why do they do this? I believe this is usually because these companies hire people who are good at English to write their materials, NOT people who are good at taking tests. These are different skills). At PrepScholar, we strongly believe in getting our students the biggest score improvement for every hour they spend on ACT prep. This is why our program focuses your attention on the most important skills that will lead to the most ACT score improvement. You only have limited time to study, and we don't want to waste it.We designed our program this way because they were the same methods we used to get perfect scores on the ACT. If you plan to study by yourself - make sure you organize your time well.Instead of reading a book cover to cover, you should be focusing on the most critical grammar rules to improve your score most. Strategy 3: Find Your Grammar Weaknesses and Drill Them If you're like most students, you're better at some areas in ACT English than others. You might know transitions really well, but you'll be weak in sentence fragments. Or maybe you really like parallel construction, but have no idea what faulty modifiers are. If you're like most students, you also don't have an unlimited amount of time to study. You have a lot of homework,you might have intense extracurriculars, and you want to spend time with your friends. This means for every hour you study for the ACT, it needs to be the most effective hour possible to raise your ACT score. In concrete terms,you need to find your greatest areas of improvement and work on those. Too many students study the 'dumb' way. They just buy a book and read it cover to cover. When they don't improve, they're SHOCKED. I'm not. Studying effectively for the ACT isn't like painting a house. You're not trying to apply thin coats of understanding evenly across a lot of subjects. What these students did wrong was they wasted time on subjects they already knew well, and they didn't spend enough time improving their weak spots. Instead, studying effectively for the ACT is like plugging up the holes of a leaking boat. You need to find the biggest hole, and fill it. Then you find the next biggest hole, and you fix that. Soon you'll find that your boat isn't sinking at all. How does this relate to ACT English? You need to find the most important grammar rules that you're having the most trouble in, and then practice hard until it's no longer a weakness. Fixing up the biggest holes. Doesn't this make sense? For every question that you miss, you need to identify the type of question it is, and why you missed it. When you notice patterns to the questions you miss, you then need to find extra practice for this grammar rule. Say you miss a lot of comma punctuation questions (the mostcommon ACT English grammar rule). You need to find a way to get lesson material to teach yourself the main concepts that you're forgetting. Then you need to find more practice questions for this skill so you can drill your mistakes. This is by far the best way for you to improve your Englishscore. Bonus: If all of this is making sense to you, you'd love our ACT prep program, PrepScholar. We designed our program around the concepts in this article, because they actually work.When you start with PrepScholar, you’ll take a diagnostic that will determine your weaknesses in over forty ACT skills, including individual grammar rules. PrepScholar then creates a study program specifically customized for youto maximize your score. To improve each skill, you’ll take focused lessons dedicated to each skill, with over 20 practice questions per skill. This will train you for your specific area weaknesses, so your time is always spent most effectively to raise your score. For example, if you're weak in Subject/Verb Agreement, we'll give you a dedicated quiz focused on that skill so that you master your weakness. There’s no other prep system out there that does it this way, which is why we get better score results than any other program on the market. Check it out today with a 5-day free trial: Strategy 4:Attack Passages Sanely - By Paragraph ACT English has a passage-based format. You get a passage with 4-6 paragraphs, and you get 15 questions per passage. When you go into the test, you MUST have a plan on how to attack the passage and answer the questions. Students make two common mistakes on ACT English: They panic about how many questions there are (75!) and they rush through the passage, making careless mistakes along the way. They think that only sentences that are underlined are important, and they ignore the sentences in between. This makes you ignore context, which is critical for Rhetoric questions like Transitions and Organization. Have you ever felt this way before? The good news is, there's a sane way to attack the passage. We call it the "paragraph method." Here's how it works: Read a paragraph in the passage. Answer the questions in that paragraph. Here's an example passage: In this case, you read the passage until you hit the purple line. Then you answer all the questions marked in purple boxes. Next, you read the passage until you hit the green line. Then you answer the question marked in a green box. That's it. Pretty simple, but here's why it works: by reading each paragraph one at time, you force yourself to understand the context around the sentences. This is critical for Rhetoric questions like, "Should this sentence be deleted?" or "Sentence 3 should be placed before..." For example, notice how Question 26 comes at the beginning of the paragraph, but it requires you to understand the rest of the paragraph first: "which one most effectively introduces the information that follows in this paragraph?" In our experience, this is the most effective and sanest way to attack the ACT English passage. If you want to read more about this strategy, and possible alternatives to this method, read more: "The Best Way to Approach ACT English Passages." Because strategy lessons like this can be very effective in improving your score quickly, we include many of them in our PrepScholar ACT program. Learn how to eliminate answer choices systematically. Strategy 5: Don't Pick Answer Choices Based on "Sounding Weird." Know the Specific Rule Being Tested The ACT tests proper English grammar very strictly. Imagine that it's a 60-year-old English professor with perfect diction and grammar. It's not going to be the same language you use when you talk to your friends or text. For example: "Jake and me went to the ball game." This might be something you say informally in conversation, but it's 100% wrong on ACT English. A lot of students figure out grammar mistakes by what "sounds wrong" to their ear. The problem is,if you usually don't spot grammar errors easily, you can't fully rely on your ear to figure out what "sounds wrong."The ACT knows this, and it purposely puts in traps that will trick you if you can't precisely identify what's wrong and what's correct. Here's what you should do instead. For every wrong answer choice that you eliminate, you should justify to yourself clearly why you are eliminating that answer choice. Here's an example of a real ACT English question: Here's my thinking as I go through the question: When I see this sentence, there's a comma splice error. "The shop opens at six in the morning" and "I arrive thirty minutes early to set up" are both independent clauses. Two independent clauses can only be joined with a semicolon, or a comma and a conjunction (like ", and") F: NO CHANGE is incorrect because it keeps the comma splice error we just found. G: This gets us closer - there's a comma here, followed by "however," The problem is that "however" isn't a conjunction - it's a conjunctive adverb. That means it doesn't behave like "and" - it needs to follow a semicolon or a period. Strike this out. H: This is what we were looking for - a comma and a conjunction. This is grammatically correct. J: This is just removing the comma, which doesn't solve the error - it then becomes a "run on sentence" where the two independent clauses are still improperlyjoined. I've eliminated every answer choice but H, which must be the correct answer. Note that I'm not literally thinking all these words in my head, but this gives the gist of my thinking. I've identified the specific grammar error, so I know what I'm looking for. It's like if I told you, "The bee fly to the hive." You know this is wrong instantly if you say it aloud because it feels wrong. After a few more seconds, you'd be able to point out that "bee" is singular and "fly" is plural, so we have a subject/verb agreement error. By learning more grammar rules and practicing them, you'll be able to do this elimination very quickly and naturally. You'll pinpoint exact reasons that a phrase has a grammar error and use that to eliminate answer choices. This is a lot better than guessing based on things "sounding weird" and you'll get many more questions right. It really does take repetition to train grammar skills to this level, though. You need both lesson material to teach you the core content, then lots of practice questions to hammer the concepts home. That's whyinPrepScholar ACT, every ACT English skill gets a detailed strategy lesson, followed by dozens of practice questions to test what you just learned. We've found this to be the most effective method to learn the most important ACT English concepts. If you're studying by yourself without a program, make sure you can find the best study material to teach you grammar and give you enough practice. Strategy 6: Understand ALLYour ACT English Mistakes Every mistake you make on a test happens for a reason.If you don't understand exactly why you missed that question, you will make that mistake over and over again. Too many students scoring at the 12-20score range spend too little time studyingtheir mistakes. It's harsh. I get it. It sucks to stare your mistakes in the face. It's draining to learn difficult concepts you don't already understand. So the average student will breeze past their mistakes and instead focus on areas they're already comfortable with. It's like a warm blanket. Their thinking goes like this: "So I'm good at subject/verb agreement? I should do more subject/verb agreement problems! They make me feel good about myself." The result? NO SCORE IMPROVEMENT. Think about this: let's say you were learning how to cook, and you cut your finger accidentally while chopping carrots. Would you just ignore this, brush it aside, and keep chopping? No! You'd figure out where you went wrong - are you holding the knife incorrectly? Are you holding the carrot incorrectly? Is the knife sharp enough? You would do everything you can to avoid cutting yourself, because it's painful. ACT English is the very same way. You HAVE to understand WHYyou're making mistakes, and how you're going to AVOID making this mistake in the future. So here'swhat you need to do: on every practice test or question set that you take, mark every question that you're even 20% unsure about when you grade your test or quiz, review every single question that you marked, and every incorrect question. This way even if you guessed a question correctly, you'll make sure to review it. in a notebook, keep a separate section by grammar rule. Write down: the gist of the question why you missed it what you'll do to avoid that mistake in the future It's not enough to just think about it and move on. It's not enough to just read the answer explanation. You have to think hard about why you specifically failed on this question. By taking this structured approach to your mistakes,you'll now have a running log of every question you missed, and your reflection on why. In our ACT prep philosophy, reviewing your mistakes is the #1 way to improve your ACT score.We've designed our program accordingly - after you take a quiz inour PrepScholar ACT program, we give you immediate quiz results to review. We basically force you to review your mistakes before you do anything else. It's that important. No excuses when it comes to your mistakes. Strategy 7: Go Deeper - WHY Did You Miss a English Question? Now, what are some common reasons that you missed a question? Don't just say, "I didn't know this material." That's a cop out and you won't learn anything from this. Always take it one step further - what specifically did you miss, and what do you have to improve in the future? Here are some examples of common reasons you miss a question, and how you take the analysis one step further: Content:I didn't learn the knowledge or grammar rule needed to answer this question. One step further:What specific knowledge do I need to learn, and how will I learn this skill? Incorrect Approach:I knew the content or grammar rule, but I didn't know how to approach this question. One step further:How do I solve this question? How will I solve questions like this in the future? Careless Error:I misread what the question was asking for or I missed a grammar rule I already knew. One step further:Why did I misread the question? Why did I miss this grammar error? What trick did the ACT play on me? What should I do in the future to avoid this? Get the idea? You're really digging into understanding why you're missing questions. Yes, this is hard, and it's tiring, and it takes effort.That's why most students who study the easy way - just reading a book cover to cover - don't improve. But you're different. Just by reading this guide, you're already proving that you care more than other students. And if you apply these principles and analyze your mistakes, you'll improve more than other students too. If you find it hard to understand why you're making mistakes, then you might find a program like PrepScholar helpful. Every one of our questions has a detailed answer explanation explaining how to solve the question, how to eliminate each wrong answer choice, and common ACT English traps. We purposefully write these explanations to guide you when you've missed an answer choice. Strategy 8: Don't Spend More than 30 Seconds per Question Of all sections, ACT English has the least amount of time per question. In one section, you get 60minutes to answer 75 questions, which means only 48 seconds per question! Remember what we said above about getting a 26? You only need a raw score of 60 out of 75. This is 80%. Therefore, DON'T feel bad about skipping a question. Chances are, it's actually a pretty hard question designed to waste your time. You're better off skipping it so you can get more questions right elsewhere in the section. Furthermore, you can't predict which questions are easy or hard. Unlike ACT Math, where the questions increase in difficulty from start to finish, ACT English is more or less random. So if you find yourself spending more than 30 seconds on a single question, skip it for now. You might have enough time to come back to it. You definitely want to avoid sucking up 2 minutes on a single question. This is taking up way more time than a single question deserves, and you're better off spending that time on other questions to get extra points. This requires discipline during the test, and many students ignore the clock until it's too late. Don't run out of time. And now, my final ACT English prep tip: Strategy 9: Don't Study General Grammar. Target ACT English When many low-scoring students think about studying ACT English, they think it's mainly a matter of learning grammar. So to prep for ACT English, they'll use general grammar books from school or English class. This points you in the wrong direction. Remember, ACT English tests grammar in very SPECIFIC ways. You're not learning how to write a good essay and using good grammar generally. You're learning how to defeat ACT English. The ways that grammar rules like punctuation or run-on sentences appear on ACT English are very formulaic - they show up in similar ways each time, with similar wrong answer choices. A run-on sentence question will have the same types of wrong answer choices, time and time again. Your job is to learn these patterns, screen out wrong answer choices, and get the right answer. So to do well on ACT English, you have to train with the best materials focused on ACT English. This means realistic practice questions that test Grammar and Rhetoric skills in the same way. Understanding the ACT at a deep level isn't easy. That's why at PrepScholar, we hire only the country's leading experts on the ACT to craft our test content. All of our test content writers scored perfect ACT scores or in the 99th-percentile, and they've often tutored for hundreds of hours before joining us. We turn down dozens of applicants who score a 34 or below on the ACT. Our standards for content are extremely high, because we want our students to have the most realistic practice possible. If you don't use PrepScholar, make sure you're confident of the quality of the materials you're using.If you train on low quality practice questions, you're going to develop bad habits and learn to attack questions the wrong way. In Overview These are the main ACT English tips I have for you to improve your score. If you're scoring a 15, you can improve it to a 20. If you're scoring a 21, you can boost it to a 26. I guarantee it, if you put in the right amount of work, and study like I'm suggesting above. Notice that I didn't actually teach you that many grammar rules. I didn't point to any tips and tricks that you need to know, or specific grammar rules that will instantly raise your score. That's because these one-size-fits-all, guaranteed strategies don't really exist. (And anyone who tells you this is deceiving you). Every student is different. Instead, you need to understand where you're falling short, and drill those weaknesses continuously. You also need to be thoughtful about your mistakes and leave no mistake ignored. This is really important to your future. Make sure you give ACT prep the attention it deserves, before it's too late, and you get a rejection letter you didn't want. What's Next? We have a lot more useful guides to raise your ACT score. Read my corresponding guides for other ACT sections: Get a 26 in ACTMath, ACT Reading, and ACT Science. What's a good ACT score for you? Read our detailed guide on figuring out your ACT target score. Want a bunch of free ACT practice tests to practice with? Here's our comprehensive list of every free ACT practice test. Want to improve your ACT score by 4+ points?We have the industry's leading ACT prep program. Built by Harvard grads and ACT full scorers, the program learns your strengths and weaknesses through advanced statistics, then customizes your prep program to you so you get the most effective prep possible. Check out our 5-day free trial today: Have friends who also need help with test prep? Share this article! Tweet Allen Cheng About the Author As co-founder and head of product design at PrepScholar, Allen has guided thousands of students to success in SAT/ACT prep and college admissions. He's committed to providing the highest quality resources to help you succeed. Allen graduated from Harvard University summa cum laude and earned two perfect scores on the SAT (1600 in 2004, and 2400 in 2014) and a perfect score on the ACT. You can also find Allen on his personal website, Shortform, or the Shortform blog. Get Free Guides to Boost Your SAT/ACT Get FREE EXCLUSIVE insider tips on how to ACE THE SAT/ACT. 100% Privacy. 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Imagery Essays - Anglican Saints, United States, Free Essays

Imagery Essays - Anglican Saints, United States, Free Essays Samantha Jacobs Cara Coppola English 101 08 December 2015 Imagery Love is like the wind, you cant see it but you can feel it. Nicholas Sparks wrote that in his book A Walk to Remember, an amazing novel about two young teenagers who fall in love. Authors are able to capture their readers attention by using imagery. Imagery is visually descriptive or figurative language, especially in a literary work. Nicholas Sparks does an amazing job in that one sentence of grabbing the readers attention and having them picture in their head the feel of wind and it reminding them of love. Any writer who is able to have their readers close their eyes and visualize what they want them to see is just incredible. Although writing can have imagery in it, it is not the only form. Music, art and television can all have imagery to grasp their readers attention. Martin Luther King Jr, Sojourner Truth and Malcom X are just three well-known writers who were all able to symbolically grab their audiences attention with imagery. Martin Luther King Jr. was born in 1929, as we know our world was different and black people were treated with no respect. Mr. King was a Baptist Minister and led the civil rights movement in the late 50s until his death in 1968.While leading the civil rights movement Mr. King gave over 300 speeches in each of his speeches he used a great amount of imagery. His most famous speech was I Have a Dream, this was given on August 28, 1963, on the steps of the Washington D.C., Lincoln Memorial. This was one of the last speeches he gave and it was the most memorable. This speech was how he described his dreams of freedom and equality arising from a land of slavery and hatred. In this speech he says Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice; now is the time to life our nation from the quicksands of injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood (King 103). In order to capture everyones attention when using you need to use images that no matter who is listening they are able to understand and picture what is being said. Mr. King does an incredible job of that in his speech. Even though what he is saying in this sentence is not straight forward if you are able to picture everything in the same way he is saying it, his message starts to become clear. This is an effective way to use imagery but it is not the only way. Martin Luther King Jr. was put in jail on multiple occasions, in 1963 he led the peaceful march on Good Friday and again was taken to jail. While in jail he wrote letters speaking of the injustice one of them was titled The Letter from Birmingham Jail. In this letter he uses imagery that is nothing less than astonishing. you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she cannot go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Fun town is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people. (King 91) This is a completely different type of imagery that still anyone can vision. As I read this I can see a little girl standing in front of me and her heart breaking because I am having to tell her that she is not able to do what she wishes because of her skin color. In my opinion this is the greatest kind of imagery. When an audience can become attached to something emotionally they are more likely to listen and truly take in what you are saying. While Martin Luther King Jr. was a phenomenal speaker there was another person who came before him who was also able to speak on behalf of others. In 1797, Sojourner Truth was born into slavery. She was a feminist and spoke for every other women

What You Ought to Know About Crafting Great Scenes - Freewrite Store

What You Ought to Know About Crafting Great Scenes - Freewrite Store Today’s guest post is by Marsh Cassady. Marsh has Ph.D in theatre and is a former actor, director, and university professor. He is the author of fifty-seven published books and hundreds of shorter pieces. His plays have been performed in Canada, Mexico and the U.S., including Off-Broadway. Two men are collecting their papers and preparing to go home after a writing workshop. One approaches the other, obviously wanting to say something.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"Get the hell away from me.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"I just want to help, damn it.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"Help? How can you possibly help me? For God’s sake, man, you know even less about constructing a good scene than I do.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"Oh, yeah? If that’s what you think, why don’t you let me prove you wrong?†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"Yeah, sure, you’re going to prove me wrong. I can’t believe this.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"Just listen, for heaven’s sake.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"I guess that’s the only way to end this stupid argument.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"So it’s agreed?†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"You wear me down, man. So just go ahead and say what you want.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"All right then.† He begins to explain†¦ We often think of scenes as plot segments, or to use a theatrical term, motivational units. Yet consider two things. First, a scene can rarely stand alone and make sense by itself. But some jokes and some short stories, particularly flash fiction, are exceptions. For instance:    The Forecast Is Rain   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"For crying out loud! We gotta run...or are you gonna lie in bed all day? I’ll get the car, while you phone and tell them we may be a little late.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Sally knew how important it was to get the new apartment. The rent was cheap, but all we could afford.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"When you're ready- and it better be quick- come out to the car.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   It was a sad situation. I’d lost my job. No prospects. Sally never would work; too lazy, I suppose. Can’t see any other reason. And if we didn’t get the new apartment, the manager here would kick us out on the street.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Dammit, where was she? The forecast was for rain, and the old car leaked around both doors and the windshield. I wanted to get to the new place before we got soaked. Make a good impression.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"Sally, where the hell are you?† I screamed.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The front door opened; Sally stood there in pajamas and a robe.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"What’s wrong with you?† I asked.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"Mom sent me money,† she said. â€Å"You can go; I’m staying here.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   What! After all this time, nearly four years, together. And to think I’d always treated her so well. Second, not all scenes directly contribute to the plot. What was that? Okay, I said â€Å"directly contribute.† Yet each scene has to contribute in some way to the overall story. Sometimes scenes are largely narrative or descriptive and involve little conflict. At the same time, they have to be interesting; they have to, in some way, contribute to the advancement of the plot- even though indirectly- and they have to hold a reader’s attention. This all means that a scene needs to have a purpose, and everything within it has to relate that purpose. It’s up to you to figure out the purpose of each of your scenes and not deviate from it. There can be many reasons for including a scene. Maybe it’s to establish the world or universe in which the action exists. Maybe it’s to reveal character. There are many types of scenes, a few of which we’ll get to later. But let’s take the type that directly advances the plot. Plot and The Scene First, maybe we need to define plot? What exactly is it? The answer is that it’s the portrayal of conflict between a protagonist- the guy with the white hat- and the antagonist- the guy with the black hat.   Both have a particular goal they want to reach within the context of the story. When plotted fiction is at its highest point, one of the two beings or forces is victorious in defeating the other, thus reaching its goal. â€Å"Beings or forces† instead of men or women? Yes, since first of all there are different sorts antagonists. In other words, the protagonist may struggle against: 1) another person; 2) against self; 3) against society; 4) against nature. To further confuse things, a protagonist or antagonist may be a group of people, rather than an individual. The second sort of conflict may be as simple as a person fighting against an addiction, the third fighting against corruption, the fourth against a severe storm. An example of a group antagonist would be a n evil government. And characters in fiction certainly don’t have to be human beings; they can be animals, extraterrestrials, or even imaginary creatures like Hobbits. A plot generally has four (or sometimes five) parts. It begins when things are at an even keel and something destroys this balance. This may occur near the beginning of the novel but often occurs before the action begins. This â€Å"upset† is the inciting incident, which initiates the struggle between the protagonist and antagonist. The parts are the: 1. Inciting incident- Which leads to the conflict. 2. Rising action- Where the tension and conflict build. 3. Turning point- Where the end of the conflict is determined. 4. Climax- Where the protagonist or antagonist is defeated. 5. Falling action or denouement- Where everything is tied up. The following illustrates a very simple plot, and serves as a diagram for a scene, as well. But if it is one scene of many, of course, there is no turning point. Rather the action falls off a little before it continues to build. In other words, there are minor climaxes.       Look back at the opening of this post, which, in effect, has all the necessary ingredients of a scene- two people arguing over whether one of them actually knows how to construct a scene. The beginning of the argument is the inciting incident, the argument itself the rising action, the one person’s decision to give up is the climax, and the rest of the blog is the denouement- though most denouements are short. (An exception is some mystery novels in which a lot of loose ends need to be tied up.) Each scene in which there is conflict has to contain these elements. Most stories and certainly virtually all novels have more than one scene, each building to a climax and then falling off a little before the next scene begins, like this:       Sometimes, the turning point and the climax are the same, sometimes not. The turning point is where the action can go no further without something irrevocable happening. The climax is where the irrevocable actually occurs. Think of a close basketball game. The teams struggle to score baskets. One scores first and temporarily gains the upper hand. Then the other goes ahead. The struggle continues till the final seconds of the game. The score is tied. One team gets the ball and scores just as time runs out. This is both the turning point and the climax. But suppose two people are enemies, and each wants to defeat the other. They have a sword fight. One knocks the sword out of the opponent’s hand. This is the turning point. The climax comes a few seconds later when the one still holding the sword stabs the other†¦or decides to spare his life. The turning point is when the one with the sword in hand carries out the decision, which brings about the defeat of the other. Fiction often contains scenes in which there appears to be no direct conflict. Yet if the piece is well‑written, the conflict is inherent; it relates to what already has been shown. For example, one character may be describing what is bothering her, what has caused the central problem and conflict. In so doing, she may begin to glimpse a possible solution, foreshadowing more direct conflict while building tension and anticipation about whether she will succeed. But remember that everything that occurs in fiction with a plot has to be relevant to the advancement of the plot. Everything must be relevant to the protagonist’s attempt to reach his or her goal. Dialogue and The Scene Most scenes contain conversations. Writing dialogue involves many considerations. First, does it sound natural? I say â€Å"sound natural† because dialogue is rarely an exact replication of everyday speech. It’s more direct, more honed. It doesn’t change direction as often as regular conversation. Each line has to contribute in some way to the advancement of the scene. It cannot be extraneous, except if going off on tangents is an important part of the character’s personality. Other things to consider are if the dialogue fits the â€Å"universe† or the â€Å"given circumstances† of the story. Dialogue from Elizabethan times would be vastly different from that of today. And a Bostonian would speak much differently than a Canadian. You need to consider if the dialogue in any scene fits the characters. Are they highly educated or do they have little formal education? What are their economic backgrounds? You need to figure out any part of a character’s background, experience, and personality to have them speak â€Å"naturally.† What is natural for one character could be vastly different from what is natural for another. Further, the mood of the scene helps determine the type of dialogue. A scene in which a mother is trying to save a child from an attack by a rabid dog would certainly be different from that mother talking to her neighbor about an upcoming vacation. Character, Dialogue and The Scene More than all this, you need to keep in mind everything you already known about the   character and build on that. You also need to be sure that during any scene, particularly one of intense conflict, you need to reveal more and more about what the characters are like. This is true for the protagonist and the antagonist, but usually not so important for other characters, many of whom are there simply as â€Å"devices† to further the action. The less important the characters, the less the reader needs to know about them. If you spend too much time with these minor characters, you take away from the plot and lead the reader astray. The central characters have to be well-developed enough so that what they are willing to do to reach their goal is a logical outgrowth of the type of people they are. There also has to be a reason for other characters to be present in any scene. You need to ask yourself why they are necessary to the advancement of the plot. Each character in a plotted story, like the protagonist and the antagonist, has a goal. Maybe a husband’s goal is just to support to his wife in her struggles. Maybe it’s as simple as a mailman delivering a letter- his goal- that is important to the plot. Exposition, Dialogue and The Scene There’s also the matter of exposition. You need to determine everything the reader or audience member needs to know in order to understand the scene. Exposition establishes the time period, the location, the situation, and anything else the reader needs to know. At the same time it shouldn’t call undue attention to itself. The first of the two following examples is ludicrous; it’s intrusive and unnatural:      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   John: Well, here we are, the first day of our vacation in Paris, and we forgot to ask the Thompsons to water our plants while we're gone.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Marsha: Yes, and, like we discussed, we should have canceled the newspaper.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   John: Oh, well, since this is the first vacation we've taken in the last eight years, we should just try to forget such things and enjoy our two weeks together.    Such a scene can come across as humorous or boring. Besides that, the characters are telling each other things they already know. Some of the information may be necessary for a reader to know, but presenting it this way doesn’t work. You could rewrite the same material to give it tension and conflict:      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"For heaven’s sake, Marsha, how could you forget to ask the Thompson’s to water the plants?†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"I suppose, John, the same damn way you forgot to cancel the paper. I mean we did agree on who was responsible for what!†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"I take you to Paris- for a nice vacation, one I thought you’d appreciate- and you act like this.†    Or take the following scene from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. The scene is pure exposition, yet Wilde makes it humorous, reveals lot of information about the two characters, and sets up what is to follow:    ALGERNON: How are you, my dear Earnest? What brings you up to town? JACK: Oh, pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring one anywhere? Eating as usual, I see Algy. ALGERNON: (Stiffly) I believe it is customary in good society to take some slight refreshment at five o’clock. Where have you been since last Thursday? JACK: (Sitting down on the sofa) In the country. ALGERNON: What on earth do you do there? JACK: (pulling off his gloves) When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring. ALGERNON: And who are the people you amuse? JACK: (airily) Oh, neighbours, neighbours. ALGERNON: Got nice neighbours in your part of Shropshire? JACK: Perfectly horrid! Never speak to them. ALGERNON: How immensely you must amuse them! (Goes over and takes a sandwich) By the way, Shropshire is your county, is it not? JACK: Eh? Shropshire? Yes, of course. Hallo! Why all these cups? Why cucumber sandwiches? Why such reckless extravagance in one so young? Who is coming to tea? ALGERNON: Oh! merely Aunt Augusta and Gwendolen. JACK: How perfectly delightful! ALGERNON: Yes, that is all very well; but I am afraid Aunt Augusta won't quite approve of your being here. JACK: May I ask why? ALGERNON: My dear fellow, the way you flirt with Gwendolen is perfectly disgraceful. It is almost as bad as the way Gwendolen flirts with you. JACK: I am in love with Gwendolen. I have come up to town expressly to propose to her. ALGERNON: I thought you had come up for pleasure?...I call that business. JACK: How utterly unromantic you are! ALGERNON: I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I’ll certainly try to forget the fact.    Some of the things we learn in this scene are that Jack and Algernon are good friends since Jack has felt comfortable enough to drop in unexpectedly. We learn that Jack will be serving tea to Gwendolen, whom he obviously intends to marry. We find that Jack and Gwendolen obviously love each other. Wilde also begins to reveal what the two men are like and hints at what is to follow. Furthermore, Wilde sets up a series of small conflicts. Many of the lines are humorous because we don’t expect them. In the following, the two characters had been hovering over their bodies in an emergency room. Suddenly, they swooped down†¦into the same body:      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Frank opened his eyes.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   "Well, Brad, I see we're awake," a female voice said.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Brad! What the hell was going on!   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   "What...what happened?" His voice sounded funny; he felt strange.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Brad woke up, his head filled with random images, alien thoughts. What's going on?He screamed inside his brain.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Stop the damned screaming!   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   What! Who are you?he asked.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Frank Willard. Who are you?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Bradley Booth.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   What are you doing in my head?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   You're in my body,Brad said. Get the hell out!   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Your body? What happened to my...oh, my God!   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   What?Brad asked.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   I was in this smash-up. A guy wasn't looking. An asshole in a semi. He pulled in front of me; I couldn’t even swerve.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   You!Brad said. You were hovering. I thought how awful your body looked. A pile of rubbish!   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Hey!   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Yeah?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   My body isn't... Oh, Jesus, I was up there, and floating beside me- You! Nothing seemed to be wrong with you.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Nothing wrong, you stupid shit! I'd been stung by a bee!   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   A bee? You were stung by a bee. What kind of person-   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   I'm allergic to bee stings, all right! I could die.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   What kind of sissy are you, man?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Look, creep, you're the one who's dead.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Dead! Oh, Jesus.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   You ...Brad sensed that part of his brain had gone to sleep. Oh, fuck. How could this be? He really was crazy.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Then he remembered. Somebody saying he was going to make it. At the instant he merged with his body, he felt another-   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   "Mr. Booth!"   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   "Yes," he said. "It's just me."    The second scene, presented humorously, is filled with conflict, though with elements of personality and some exposition involving the situation. But the scene sets up what is going to be a series of conflicts in which the two men have to solve the major problem of sharing the same body. Obviously, this is going to affect everything they try to do in that each is stubborn and refuses to give in to what the other wants. Some scenes are strictly narration, as in the following excerpt from a longer scene in which a man with serious mental problems has been trying repeatedly to kill a young actress. Though the scene consists only of his thoughts, we certainly get a glimpse into the sort of person he is and how he feels.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   I said I loved Mary. I was going to kill her†¦ I love Mary. I love Ruthie. She'll have to have me. We're going to be married. If she doesn't marry me, I'll ki...   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   No, I love her. Damn it, I love her. I love Mary too; no, I don't, the little bitch.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Some scenes are strictly narrative. They may show a character jogging or traveling in a train or any one of dozens of other scenarios. Or they may be entirely descriptive. But they set up what is to follow; they anticipate and so build interest and suspense. __________   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   It is important to remember that each scene in a story is different and therefore has its own purpose and its own requirements. What you need to do is to determine that purpose and how you can do your best to achieve it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Examine each element of your scene and figure out if it accomplishes what you want it to, and that it is consistent with the other scenes in the story or novel.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Does the dialogue fit the character, the situation, the mood, the time period? What is jarring about the conversation? What doesn’t fit?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Do the same with the important characters. Are they believable and consistent within the framework of the story? Is there anything out of place? If so, what, and how can it be fixed?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Is the scene interesting? Will it hold a reader’s attention? Is there tension and suspense? Have you written the scene so that it holds the reader’s attention and make him or her look forward to the next scene? Are the characters themselves interesting? Will the reader care about the protagonist and those close to him or her? If not, you need to make the character more appealing in whatever way you can. What can you do to make the reader care?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Writing a good scene is a matter of figuring out its purpose and following through in an interesting manner. If you do that, you should have no problems.       Marsh Cassady has Ph.D in theatre and is a former actor, director, and university professor. He is the author of fifty-seven published books and hundreds of shorter pieces. His plays have been performed in Canada, Mexico and the U.S., including Off-Broadway. For about eight years he was co-publisher of a small press and a literary journal. He has also taught creative writing at the University of California, San Diego, and for thirty-five years led all-genre writing workshops.

Failure of the League of Nations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Failure of the League of Nations - Essay Example The research illustrates that Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and later Germany and Russia – all great powers in their own right - joined the League of Nations and the United States, on the other hand, was the only major power not to join the League in spite of having been instrumental in creating it in the first place. This dichotomy i.e. the failure of the United States to join the League of Nations, in spite of being its staunchest advocate, could thus be ascribed to its inability to reconcile domestic political compulsions with its international obligations. Was this domestic compulsion a clash between the ‘realists’ and the ‘idealists’? This is the main theme that the research paper will seek to examine. The idealist view of international relations envisaged the creation of, â€Å"international institutions to replace the anarchical and war-prone balance-of-power system. The realist view,  on the other hand, viewed the state as the most i mportant player, subservient to no other (external) authority. The idealist view was endorsed by president Wilson who in his, â€Å"celebrated Fourteen Points speech, delivered before Congress in 1918, proposed the creation of the League of Nations†¦Ã¢â‚¬ . Although the League of Nations came into being in 1919, Congress refused to ratify the United States’ entry into the league. This challenge to President Wilson’s worldview was spearheaded by a group of Senators led by Senators Henry Cabot Lodge, William E. Borah, and Hiram Johnson. Part of the realist view was that the US should revert to its policy of ‘isolation’ that had been in vogue pre-World War I in keeping with the Monroe Doctrine. This was at odds with the League’s charter, which enjoined that, â€Å"the international community had not only the right but a duty to intervene in international conflicts†¦Ã¢â‚¬ .

An analysis of an ad (SAMSUNG Galaxy S4) Assignment

An analysis of an ad (SAMSUNG Galaxy S4) - Assignment Example Being in agreement that the advertisement was successful, this paper will analyze ways in which the advertisement for the Samsung Galaxy S4 smart phone is memorable and how it has managed to achieve outstanding impacts. It will describe the buying process as the main theme and determine who the target market is as well as highlight the advertisement’s strong and weak points. Further, it will give recommendations on how the advertisement could have been improved to achieve even better results. To drive the buying process, advertisers need to look at factors that affect consumer behavior or, in other words, answer the question why consumers buy the things they buy. In that sense, the buying process suggests that consumers pass through distinctive phases before finally buying a product. First, they realize that they want or need the product, then seek information and evaluate other products within the similar range. After satisfactorily being convinced about the best available fr om the options, they may then make a purchase. Traditionally, advertisements for high technology smart phones have not always clearly communicated their benefits in a manner easily comprehensible by non-technical users. They are characterized by an assumption regarding the instinctive aspects and often overestimating the understanding levels of the market (Kotler & Kevin 2006, 69). However, the Samsung Galaxy S4 advertisement has managed to tie it to the original positioning of the company which has always been for humans. In the advertisement that runs for one minute, the marketers have managed to communicate how an ordinary user can take full advantage of the simple yet innovative technology. Their choice of a background song that is popularly known, from the four seasons, attracts and holds the attention of the audience as the key features of the gadget are screened in the form of short sentences. As has been shown by research, consumers purchase brands that they can easily devel op an emotional attachment to (Tirmizi, Rehman & Saif 2009, 529). Music is one of the best known ways to create emotion, and a key effect of the chosen song is that it promotes the ability of the advertisement to remain memorable. Even without human voice-over, this strategy communicates the phone’s basics that users need to know about the new phone. The advertisement is set in a background that can attract both emotional and environmental responses that shape buying behavior. Target Market From its attributes, the audience can quickly establish that the phone targets a wide range of market but emphasis can be placed on tech-savvy youth. The opening pop-up says the phone is slimmer but stronger, which immediately gives it both feminine and masculine characteristics. It is not discriminative in terms of gender. It claims to have unimaginable clarity, which when coupled with its extended memory of 64 gigabytes makes it appealing to a young generation that loves downloading and storing movies. Looking at the aspect of targeting a large range of a market, this aspect also sits well with regular travelers because they can also carry along their own entertainment regardless of age. This gives the advertisement its first strong point because it is apparent that the marketers did sufficient research and anticipated the needs of potential customers. They manage to create honest marketing

Research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 5

Research - Essay Example The questionnaire was too long and the length might often influence participants to withdraw from the survey as time is important for everyone. Another flaw associated with the questionnaire was that in answering options, the ‘do not know’ option was not included. This is inappropriate as there might be participants who are unaware of a particular product or service. On the other hand, two good aspect of the questionnaire is that questions were worded very simply; this firstly made it very easy for participants to understand and secondly, the questionnaire encompassed all aspects of the research topic, thereby enabling the researcher to obtain an insight of people’s perceptions about products and services offered by the food chain. Generating idea: The initial step is very crucial as it involves generation of ideologies that are based on SWOT and current market trend analysis. The ideologies take into account various factors such as, return on investment, ROI and widespread distribution cost. (Takeuchi and Nonaka 137-146). During this particular phase, the manager has to ensure that overall new product development process is kept nimble and flexible discretion should be applied over which the activities are to be executed. Screening the idea: In this particular step, the idea is validated. The phase mainly involves elimination of ineffective concepts prior to allocation of resources to them. The individuals responsible for framing the idea should screen the same on the basis of factors such as, benefits associated with the idea that can be provided to the target market, market coverage of the product, expected intensity of competition, sales forecast, feasibility of the product and so on and so forth (Brands, â€Å"8 Step Process Perfects New Product Development†). Concept testing: Concept testing is very different from test marketing. This step involves patent research, designing due diligence

Same as the last time Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Same as the last time - Research Paper Example The city of Seoul in southern Korea is therefore no exception and experiences one of the most radical extents of polarization evident in its pattern of habitation and the people’s way of life in the city. The disparity between the two regions: Gangnam and Gangbuk dates back as early as the 17 BC when the region around Pungnap became the administrative capital of the Joseon dynasty. Pungnap is located in a region believed to be in the Gangnam side of the city. It is not clear the exact location of the region but the royal dynasty that ruled the early Korea resides in this region owing to its favorable climatic condition and the forested neighborhood it therefore provided. This implies that the region has for a long time had the ambient of wealth, which thereby influenced its distinctive architecture and settlement pattern. The subsequent occupants of the city followed the settlement pattern, which secluded the Pungnap region alienating it for the royalties while the rest of the subjects settled in other parts of the city notable on the eastern side of the river Han currently the Gangbuk region. The special city of Seoul is the capital city of South Korea and arguably the largest modern day metropolis in the entire Korea. It is home to approximately fifty million people most of whom are South Korean nationals but also provides residence to more than ten million international business people (O'Loughlin 33). The city has an elaborate design, one that considers and showcases the economic growth of the country and its interesting history. The architecture of most skyscrapers in the city embodies the modernism in design and comfort but also imbed the rich cultural history of the South Korean people. The wide clean highways, the artistically tall building structures, and the every glaring subway stations among other interesting features such as Seoul’s nightlife all act as a unifying feature to the diverse people of the city. However, behind the glamor a nd the beauty, the truth of the city lies in a more analytical scrutiny of the residences’ way of life. It is conspicuous that the city has two extreme ends that find their way in virtually every aspect of life of the people in the city including the city design and its initial planning. River Han divides the city into two and the kind of life on each side of the river is distinct of Seoul economic stratification. Liberal markets have effective yet relatively concealed mechanisms of discrimination. While everywhere is accessible and every product available in the market, the price tag on the commodities and services in the market always ensure that the rich rarely interacted with the poor. Additionally, it provides for an effective mechanism of keeping the rich to their own society and possibly denying the poor access to such societies. Seoul is one such city. Being an industrial country, the South Korean economy grows very fast with international businesses giving rise to ex tremely wealthy businesspersons and business empires. The wealth disparity and economic imbalance influence the design since the city has to include all its residences despite their financial positioning. This has resulted in the birth of two residential regions namely the Gangnam and the Gangbuk. Gangnam resides the rich who therefore live more flamboyant lifestyles, a feature that influences the landscape of the Gangnam region on one side of River Hang.

Golden Palace Hotel Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Golden Palace Hotel - Case Study Example 2. Human resources management. Golden Palace Hotel is understaffed during high seasons and some departments / areas (reception in particular) require full-time as well as well-trained and experienced staff. In present circumstances, Mr. Jones and Mr. De Souza are particularly interested in external business factors (more likely to impact Golden Hotel Palace directly) assessment of which authors' findings and recommendations are based. Given clients' particular request of an assessment of external business environment's implications for Golden Palace Hotel, current report mainly scans Golden Palace's market positioning considering political, social and cultural givens. Given Golden Palace Hotel's location on Fulham Road - a 3-minute walk from South Kensington underground station, a major asset in terms of accessibility (Department for transport 2009) - Golden Palace Hotel enjoys a strategic market location, one well situated close to London's most promising business and shopping hubs. This is particularly convenient for hotel's customers, typically business men and women, whose busy schedules limit mobility options. Additionally, Fulham Road's serene culture (Streetsensation n.d.) makes Golden Palace Hotel especially well suited for a businessperson's hectic schedule during evenings and particularly for attractions and entertainments in surrounding area (e.g. Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Kensington museums, Harrods and Harvey Nichols). Golden Palace Hotel's plan of facility expansion and additional amnesties for current and potential customers is both a sound and forward-looking business strategy. Given unprecedented falling property prices (Stevenson 2009) as a result of current economic and financial global crisis, Golden Palace Hotel has a major opportunity in investing in asset values. Further, planned gyms and swimming pools cater particularly to a growing influx of young Chinese and American visitors. The antique and collectible allure of Fulham Road is, moreover, a viable future opportunity for market segment expansion into one, basically young American and Chinese visitors, who both seek 'safe areas' for stay and 'valuable gifts' to take back home. Considering investment in hotel's IT infrastructure and online business strategy, Golden Palace Hotel lags a long way behind given current practices in hospitality business world over (AllBuisness 2001), let

Your values or expectations in life- how do you measure sucess Essay

Your values or expectations in life- how do you measure sucess Happiness fulfillment - Essay Example He was not sure what they did with their money, but he was reasonably sure it at least consisted of all night video gaming, unlimited ice cream and pizza, and a carnival in your backyard. As he progressed through life and my expectations changed he began to define success as social acceptance and respect. As a student one’s concerns are not always directly focused on subsistence, so success became tied to popularity. The most successful people were clearly those who had all the parties, had attractive boyfriends and girlfriends, and sat at the right lunch tables. Today he looks back at this adolescent phase and consider that while his understanding of success was widely shared, he cannot help but feel it was rooted in an illusionary understanding of reality and what is important in life. Today he defines success much differently. Rather than viewing success in terms of other people, he understands success as a matter of personal meaning and social contribution. He think that i t iss important that human beings live their lives with purpose. Too often people are caught seeking acceptance from others and personal wealth as they believe these things constitute success and personal happiness, when in actuality they are a mirage. True success is living life to one’s full potential in ways that contribute to the world in positive ways. For him, this means seeking out and sharing new and interesting ideas, living with a social conscience, and a sense of morality. He iss not a stoic, and he believes life is full of enjoyment, but he believes if we are to achieve a lasting sense of accomplishment it must come from a personally defined sense of meaning and purpose. This is the true definition of success. For him happiness was a complicated issue that he came to understand throughout his life experience. He believes that happiness begins with achieving success. Having defined success, it follows that one must