Danielle Steels novel Fine Things Essay Example for Free

Danielle Steels novel Fine Things Essay Novel Title: Fine ThingsAuthor: Danielle SteelSummaryBernard Fine is a successful bachelor managing of the biggest stores in California. Bernie (nickname) runs into a little girl who is very lost and decides to help her out while. Her mother Liz comes to pick up her seven year old daughter Jane Calloway. The two newly met became friends (Bernie and Liz) and eventually fell in love and got married (much to the liking of Jane). Everything goes well and shortly after their marriage Liz gives birth to a son but the doctors decided that Liz has to stay in the hospital for a while and when Bernie asks why, they said that she must be tested for something but they never mentioned anything else to the overly concerned husband. A week later Liz is out of the hospital and with Bernie she finds out that shes a victim of the deadly disease cancer. Liz soon grows so weak that she looses her life and the long and painful journey for the young step-father Bernie has finally hit the saddest dead end. He tried to put up with his lost of his wife with the help of his parents. Bernie has no trouble at all raising Alexander and Jane all by himself then one day he met Janes biological father, Carter, and Bernie believes that custody should be his because Carter abandoned his wife and daughter long before. Carter defends himself while Bernie doesnt believe him but somehow the man gains custody of his daughter then all of a sudden Bernie hears from his agent that Jane is the middle of a drug smuggling havoc in Mexico. He begs to the police that he should go with them to rescue Jane. Bernie drives down to the motel waited for a while until the agent finally has Jane out of the motel and back in her fathers arms. Bernie begins to move on emotionally, and becomes involved with a beautiful doctor, but Jane is still loyal to her mother and cant accept this new woman but later on realized that his step father deserves to be happy and knew that her late mother would let him to be happy with someone new. Reaction:The story of the novel is not far from happening in real life. To keep a happy and complete family is always a challenge. In this novel, Bernie Fine struggles with the lost of his wife from the early stage of their marriage, leaving him the responsibility of raising their children and the longing of having someone special again. It showed the vulnerability of a man when it comes to losing a very important person forever. Reference: Fine Things by Danielle Steel

Other Word Formation Processes English Language Essay

Other Word Formation Processes English Language Essay The language learners referred to in this essay are software engineers, in the age group of 23-26, tasked with developing software products for the travel industry. They were selected on the basis of their performance in a language assessment and identified as intermediate users of the language. All of them had studied English for 10 years in school and later at the university English was the medium of instruction. A few of them were risk takers, ready to take on tasks regardless of any mistakes they may make. There were those who were spurred on by the possibility of their deficient language skills impacting their career graph; they were also ready for self-learning and willing to take responsibility for their learning. Some were hesitant, unsure of their knowledge and afraid to make mistakes. All of them were, however, comfortable with technical language, but were very diffident to face situations that called for regular communication. They needed help with everyday vocabulary to communicate effectively with colleagues and clients. Word parts If we consider words as independent/freestanding units with meaning, a notion proposed by McCarthy (1990), then we can see that these units of meaning can further be broken down and re-combined to form other words. Though the word cancelled is an independently meaningful item, under closer observation it becomes clear that this word consists of two units cancel and the past tense marker -ed. The linguistic item cancel is a freestanding word in English, but there is no such word as -ed in English, even though -ed is a meaning-bearing unit. Such linguistic items that are not freestanding are said to be bound and these forms can occur only in combination with other forms. The two meaningful parts, cancel and -ed are called morphemes. Morphemes Katamba (2003) defines morphemes as the atoms with which words are built. Morphemes are the smallest unit of lexical and grammatical meaning and they are realized by morphs, as morphemes do not have a physical representation. A single morpheme can be manifested as multiple complementary morphs in distinct phonological or morphological contexts. Let us look at the past tense marker -ed to understand the distribution of these complementary morphs known as allomorphs. Free morphemes can stand alone as words; whereas bound morphemes such as -ed are only used in combination with other morphemes. There are word forms which have but a single unbound morpheme and others which consists of more than one morpheme. Words like talk, eat and mend are examples of freestanding morphemes and words such as predictable and reflection are formed by combining many morphemes. Affixation Affixes are bound morphemes attached to a stems either to create a new word or a word form. Affixation of morphemes can be either inflectional or derivational. Inflectional affixes Katamba (2003) posits that the English language has minimal inflections because of its tendency to be an isolating language. The few inflections it has are all suffixes. These suffixes are bound morphemes and are attached to the stem to inflect or change words to express grammatical features, such as the changes in tense, number, possession, and degrees of adjectives. There are 8 inflectional suffixes in English and they are: Derivational Affixes In English derivational affixes include both prefixes and suffixes. Katamba (2003) says that the purpose of derivation is to create lexical items and not to produce grammatical units that will fit in a given syntactic position. The three important derivational processes in English are: affixation, conversion and compounding. Affixation is one of the commonest methods of forming words in English. Derivational affixes can be either prefixes, those that are added before the base, or suffixes, that are attached after the base. Word forming processes like creating nouns from verbs, adjectives from verbs and verbs from adjectives are examples of a few derivational practices in English. Derivational affixes are different from inflexional affixes in many ways: They change the word class as well as the meaning of a word to which it is linked energy (n) +- ise -Æ’Â   energise (v) Even though they combine to create a new word they are not affected by syntactic relations outside of the word, they can be separated and recombined with other morphemes to form other combinations. Stem Suffix Derived word Govern (v) -able Governable (adj) Enjoy (v) -ment Enjoyment Derivational morphemes can be attached only to certain stems. Stem Suffix Derived word Violin -ist Violinist Drum -ist *drumist Drum -er Drummer *drumist is not an acceptable word. Other word formation processes Conversion or zero derivation is the predominant method of generating lexical items in English. In this process a lexical item is assigned to a new syntactic category. The word permit can be used either as a noun or as a verb; the phonological representation and the grammatical context in which it is placed are the two aspects that can alert the change in the word-class. (Permit (v) and perMit (n). Crystal (2012) quotes from Shakespeare, Petruchio is Kated as an example of conversion the name of a person becoming a verb to further his argument that conversion was a customary word-formation process even during Shakespeares time. Compounding is the process of joining two bases to create a new word; of the two words, one which is syntactically dominant is considered the head and the other as the modifier. Generally the modifier is placed in front of the head and any suffix that might later be added to the compound word is attached to the head. Compound words are different from phrases; the meaning of a compound word, unlike a phrase, is not the sum of the meaning of the base units that form the word. Iin a compound word the primary stress is on the first word and in a phrase the primary stress is on the last word. Phrase Compound word Meaning of the compound . Blue print Blueprint an early plan or design for a project green house Greenhouse a building used for growing plants that need warmth Should word parts be learned? A cost/benefit analysis of the learning of word parts should be reason enough for a learner of English language to study word parts. Nation quotes from Roberts (1964), Grinstead (1925) and Bird (1987,1990) to point out that around 60% of the English vocabulary is derived from German, French, Latin and Greek and that a large proportion of these words make use of affixes. The analysis of the LOB Corpus carried out by Bird revealed that 97% of the words in the LOB corpus were derived from around 2,000 roots. Nation maintains that the origins of the English vocabulary and the frequency of word parts validate the study of word parts. The two arguments levelled against the teaching/learning of word parts are based on the contention that, the effort involved in learning word parts is not commensurate with language output. A word is not a sum of its parts The first argument against the teaching of word parts is that the meaning of a word is not the sum of its parts (Deighton, 1970); This argument has been countered by White, Power and White (1989) drawing on their own as well as Nagy and Andersons (1984) empirical evidence that most of the affixed words probably at least 80% convey the meaning their parts suggest. Katamba (2003) argues that compositionality is the key to understanding a word. He says that if we know the meaning of the smaller units which make up the larger units we can decipher the meaning of the whole. For example, if we know the meaning of the suffix -ful (filled with x), and the meaning of the base to which these suffixes are attached, then the meaning of words like useful, careful, fearful and cheerful become self-explanatory. Most of the morphemes that form a word have regular/stable meaning; for example, the prefix re- means again in almost all the words in which it occurs. In the light of the empirical evidence and the example we saw we can conclude that the meaning of most of the English words is what its parts suggest and therefore knowledge of the meaning of the parts can help a learner understand a word across contexts and usage. If we were to extend this argument further we could say that this knowledge along with the contextual clues would be useful in decoding even the metaphorical meaning of a word; a head hunter would thus lose the sinister overtones of the past and acquire the current meaning of someone who recruits people into key business positions. Word families in the lexicon The next argument against teaching/learning of word parts is that the knowing the parts of a word may not familiarise a learner with all the members of that word family (Schmitt 1998, 1999, Schmitt Meara 1997). Nation argues that the notion of word family is psychologically real and a word is to be seen as a member of a word family. Knowledge of the word parts can help the learners understand a word in its relation to the other members of the family. For instance, knowledge of the various inflections of English and the meaning of the base of the word predict can familiarise a learner with all the possible combinations (family members) of predict; predict- predicted- predicting- predictable and prediction are just some of the members of that family. Nagy, Anderson, Schommer, Scott, and Stallman (1989) points out that the speed of recognition of a word is based on the frequency of occurrence of the members of that word family. They quote the findings of Stanners, Neiser, Hernon, Hall (1979) to advance their argument that related words are linked in the mental lexicon. So there are linked entries for create, creates created and creation and accessing any word from this family can partly activate other family members. Word parts are not just linked in the mental lexicon, but morphologically ordered to represent the relation. Interpreting the meaning Another argument against learning word parts is that L2 learners using this for guessing the meaning of a word might cause the learner to misinterpret the word. Schmitt quotes Haynes (1993) to validate this argument; Haynes found that learners continued with the wrong meaning even though it didnt contribute to the context. For example Inflammable is often misinterpreted to mean non-flammable. Clarke and Nation (1980) caution that word parts strategy should be used to verify the guesses drawn from the context. Furthermore, knowledge of the word parts empowers the learner by teaching him to apply his understanding at the receptive and productive level. At the receptive level it teaches him a) to identify the different components of a complex word, b) to be aware that these word parts can be used to make other words, c) how the meaning of the different parts combine to make a new meaning, and d) how the sum of the parts relates to the dictionary meaning. At the productive level it makes him aware of how the formal changes can affect the spelling, pronunciation and the word class of the base when a complex word is formed. (Nation) The challenges Learning word parts presents a set of challenges to language learners. The greatest challenge is that of time and exposure. Studies conducted by Nagy, Diakody, Anderson (1993) point out that L1 learners do not acquire proficiency in morphology until their high school; if this takes so long to develop in L1 learners despite their advantage of maximum exposure, then L2 learners are likely to take more time to learn this aspect (Schmitt). Even though the learners in my group had studied English for ten years, they have learned inflectional suffixes only as part of grammar exercises and have never been explicitly taught derivational affixes. Their exposure to morphological forms was not commensurate with the duration of their study. They have used these forms productively without much knowledge about the rules that guide most of these formations; Though I have putted remainders for this tasks, accidently the remainder was unanswered; the meeting is preponed to three in the afternoon, he is very confidential during presentations are examples of the common errors. Schmitt points out that lack of consistency in affixation can cause problems even if the meaning of the parts is clear. He gives the example of the suffix -ist. Stem Suffix derived word Cycle -ist Cyclist Act -ist *actist Act -or Actor Another challenge for the L2 learner is the lack of awareness that not all words can be broken into parts. Learners sometimes try to decompose words like refuse, repel, repeat, revamp and attempt to use the perceived stem, resulting in a meaningless word. Learners often have difficulty with the formal changes that occur with affixation in spelling and pronunciation. Some derivational affixes lack consistent spelling and has to be learned individually. base suffix word suggest -able suggestible afford -able affordable Gairns Redman notes that affixation sometimes produces changes in stress and sounds in a word. democrat /demÉâ„ ¢kraet/ democratic /demÉâ„ ¢kraetÄÂ ±k/ democracy /dÄÂ ±mÉ’krÉâ„ ¢sÄÂ ±/ Derivational suffixes need to be do not follow rules strategies- guidelines how A good starting point for any teacher wishing to remedy this situation would be to train the learners to break, the complex words that are already known to the learner, into its components and to help them understand the functional meaning of these components. encourage the learners to become more aware of these morphological instill in the mond of the learner that all aspects of language learning is incremental an beA teachers task has probably never been well defines as in this situation Language learning is incremental A good game plan to remedy t Nation suggests that learners should be taught complex words as unanalyzed wholes before they begin to analyze word parts. teacher I would explicit teaching of select morphological units appropriate to the learner level, training the learners the .A teacher needs to introduce the learners to complex words before they are trained to analyse the different parts of that word. Because morphological acquisition is incremental in nature explicit teaching of level suitable affixes ,encouraging them to notice the correct forms encountered in newspapers regular exposure through exercises and receptive material. This rules out the possibility of a completely graded approach; instead I would collect words for analysis from their Collocation Time consuming Not all words can be broken into parts Affixes are not transparent Some affixes are used mor frequently than others so need to be selective Guessing a wrong meaning and sticking on with that explanation even though it made no sense. (Haynes 1993) -Clarke and Nation (1980)- word parts best used to confirm/verify the meaning. Difficulty in guessing the word class deciding on an appropriate stress, formal changes in spelling, phonetics and word forms Derivational suffixes need to be learned individually do not follow rules strategies- guidelines how Furthermore, it empowers the learner by teaching him to apply his understanding at the receptive and productive level. At the receptive level it teaches him a) to identify the different components of a complex word, b) to be aware that these word parts can be used to make other words, c) how the meaning of the different parts combine to make a new meaning, and d) how the sum of the parts relates to the dictionary meaning. At the productive level it makes him aware of how the formal changes can affect the spelling, pronunciation and the word class of the base when a complex word is formed. (Nation)

Passive Optical Networks (PON)

Passive Optical Networks (PON) With the popularity of broadband services of the terminal users the demands for bandwidth in the access network is rapidly increasing. Rapid increase of global data traffic and massive deployment of new networks are becoming a key environmental, social and economic issue. The access network consumes about 70% of overall network energy. Passive Optical Networks (PON) has been considered to be one of the most promising solutions for access networks due to its immense bandwidth and low cost infrastructure. Wavelength Division Multiplexing Passive Optical Networks (WDM-PON) provides a solution for having longer and larger capacity networks comparing with existing PON systems which can meet the ever increasing bandwidth demand of next generation ac-cess networks. Moreover, the combination of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multi-plexing (OFDM) and WDM-PON technique is a subject of great interest to increase the system capacity and dispersion tolerance. Coherent detection OFDM method has mor e prominent performance than direct detection method. For the practical implementation of WDM-OFDM-PONs, low-cost Optical Network Units (ONUs) and Optical Line Termi-nals (OLTs) are of most critical importance, in particular, avoiding a wavelength-specific laser source at each ONU. To address this issue, wavelength reuse concepts such as Trav-eling Wave Semiconductor Optical Amplifier, Wideband Traveling wave SOA and Re-flective SOA have been implemented in WDM-OFDM-PON. Among these, RSOA per-forms better than the others. To further reduce the system cost a WDM-OFDM-PON architecture with simplified structure by using Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL) as transmitter at OLT and ONU. All these simulations are done using OptiSys-tem 12.0 software. The combination of an exponential increase in bandwidth-intensive applications and customer base, has resulted in the rapid increase of fiber networks in the access network segment in recent years. In terms of fiber access technology, the point-to-multipoint passive topology in the form of the Passive Optical Network (PON) has been proven to be beneficial to both customers and operators. Due to rapid increase of global data traffic and bandwidth demands, massive deployment of new network, is becoming a key environmental, social and economic issue. To address this issue, great effort has been ex-pended on researching the high-speed, cost-effective, flexible bandwidth allocation and future-proof Next Generation Passive Optical Network (NG-PON) system. Among these techniques, WDM based PON systems have attracted a great deal of research and devel-opment interest, due to their capability of providing cost-effective way for increasing the overall bit rate and transmission reach of network s. The access network, also known as the first-mile network, connects the service provider Central Offices (COs) to businesses and residential subscribers. An access net-work is a part of a telecommunications network which connects subscribers to their im-mediate service providers. This network is also referred to as the subscriber access net-work, or the local loop. The bandwidth demand in the access network has been increasing rapidly over the past several years. Active Optical Network (AON), the first based access network has been characterized by a single fiber which carries all traffic to a Remote Node (RN) mainly electrically powered switching equipment such as a switch or a router that is placed close to the end users from the central office. In this AON architecture, later the active node is replaced with a passive optical power splitter/combiner leading to the development of Passive Optical Network (PON). Optical Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technique has re-cently been a promising technique in access networks due to its high spectral efficiency and robust dispersion tolerance. OFDM, is a form of signal modulation that divides a high data rate modulating stream placing them onto many slowly modulated narrow band close-spaced sub-carriers, and in this way is less sensitive to frequency selective fading. Furthermore, the OFDM is widely considered as one of the strongest candi-date for WDM-based PON system, owing to its unique advantages of superior toler-ance to chromatic dispersion impairments, dynamic provision of multi-granularity band-width allocation both in time and frequency domains. WDM-OFDM-PON, combining the advantages of WDM and OFDM techniques, can provide higher data rate and more flexible bandwidth allocation for end users. Nonetheless, OFDM modulation modules, consisting of high-speed Digital Signal Processing (DSP) chips, Digital-to-Analog Con-verter s (DAC), and E/O modulators, are needed for the generation of optical OFDM sig-nals in WDM-OFDM-PON. These components consume much more energy. Moreover, each OFDM modulation module is fixed for one Optical Network Unit (ONU) group in conventional WDM-OFDM-PON, which causes a rough granularity and wastes a large amount of bandwidth resource since the users do not fully utilize the network capacity all the time. Therefore, it is of great significance to design an energy-efficient and cost effective WDM-OFDM-PON system with high data rates compatible with large num-ber of users. This can be accomplished by using wavelength remodulation methods for bandwidth utilization and VCSELs for cost effectiveness. Objectives of the Project The main objectives of this project are: Simulation and performance analysis of Wavelength Division Multiplexing- Or-thogonal Frequency division Multiplexing- Passive Optical Network (WDM-OFDM-PON) systems for different data rates Simulation and performance analysis of Wavelength Division Multiplexing- Or-thogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing -Passive Optical Network (WDM-OFDM-PON) systems using wavelength reuse by Traveling wave SOA (TWSOA) Wideband TWSOA (WBTSOA) Reflective SOA (RSOA) Simulation and performance analysis of bidirectional WDM-OFDM-PON with dif-ferent transmission length and users using VCSELs Report Outline This report contains six chapters. Chapter 1 gives an introduction about the rel-evance of the project and also convey the main objectives of the project. The second chapter describes about the theories and literature survey of the project. This chapter begins with the basic access networks and describes the various terms relevant to the project. The terms like PON, WDM, OFDM etc are included. Chapter 3 describes the system model for the design. Here explains the basic block diagram representation of the major network technologies used. Chapter 4 explains the simulation procedures, platform used for simulations and details of each section and subsystem in the simulation process. Chapter 5 deals about the results obtained after the simulations and the major inferences got from these results. Sixth chapter concludes the project with findings followed by references section.

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George Essay -- My Side Moun

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George This book is told from the diary of the main character, Sam Gribley. Sam is a boy full of determination. He didn’t give up and go home like everyone thought he would. He is strong of mind. After the first night in the freezing rain, with no fire and no food, he still went on. He is a born survivor. He lasted the winter, through storms, hunger, and loneliness, and came out on top even when everyone expected him to fail. â€Å"The land is no place for a Gribley† p. 9 The story starts out with Sam remembering how he first got to be in his tree in the Catskills. A run-away, Sam Gribley, a young boy who lived in New York City with his family of eleven in a small apartment. None of them liked living there. His father used to talk of the family farm in the Catskill Mountains and the time he ran away to them. Sam decided this would be a way out of the dismal life he had in the city. He prepared himself well by listening very carefully to his father’s stories on survival and read books to be prepared for his planned new life. When it was time to go, he took only a penknife, a ball of cord, some flint and steel, forty dollars, and an ax. The flint and steel were for starting fires. He hitched a ride from a trucker to the town; Delhi, nearest the old family farm. He set out in May, set up a camp in a terrible storm, couldn’t get his fire going was tired, and hungry and realized in order to survive he would have to keep his wits about him. When the storm was over he set out to find his great-grandfathers farm. He found some of the old foundation and the carved name on a tree and knew he was on the family compound of his dreams not terribly far from his soon to be home in the Hemlock tree. Some major problems that presented themselves were the elements, hunger, and loneliness. After surviving the terrible storm he knew he needed to build a safe warm haven for himself. He also wanted a spot that would be not noticeable. He finally decided on an old Hemlock tree where the roots formed a hole and the inner part of the tree was rotting. It took him six months to carve and burn out the Hemlock that would accommodate a bed he made with ash slats and boughs from the Hemlock and a chair for sitting and viewing the weather when it was terrible. As his survival techniques improved he was able to use his intellige... ...ide of the Mountain, 30 years later, and a decade after that penned the final book in the trilogy, Frightful's Mountain, told from the falcon's point of view. George has no doubt shaped generations of young readers with her outdoor adventures of the mind and spirit. (Ages 9 to 12) --Emilie Coulter Ingram In this enthralling story, a boy builds a treehouse in the mountains and learns to live entirely by his wits. "(Emphasizes) the rewards of courage and determination."--The Horn Book. I agree with it being an enthralling story. It has influenced many lives, and in many different ways. One way is that it has encouraged people to take up falconry. One good example would be Robert Kennedy Junior. He and a group of falconry friends all have said that her book has contributed to them being falconers today. I myself am considering the sport now. I also agree with the statement â€Å"No reader will be immune to the compulsion to go right out and start whittling fishhooks and befriending raccoons.† I can’t vouch for the entire population of people who have read this book but I will say that that was my personal feelings. I even tried making some hooks once. It didn’t go so well.

The Purpose of Vegetarianism :: Healthy Lifestyle Essay

Being a strict vegetarian means making the choice to eat absolutely no meat, poultry, or fish. The health risks of being a vegetarian was a major concern, but it has been proven that non-meat foods can provide all the nutrients necessary for a healthy, complete diet. Jeanne Peters, R.D., the former nutrition specialist to Pritikin Systems, argues that Ascience has proved that a plant-based diet is the healthiest@ (Finn 1). Many scientific studies have also proven that meat dramatically raises blood pressure and increases health risks such as heart attacks and cancers. Also, growing concerns over environmental protection, personal health, and moral and ethical beliefs often lead to vegetarianism. According to national polls, in the U.S. alone Athere are 12.5 million vegetariansB 7 percent of the population@ (Finn 1). Concerns are rising about the relationship between meat production and our environment. Beef production is a very inefficient way to produce protein. The amount of grain which is needed to Aprovide four people with one serving of hamburgers could feed one person for over a week@ (R.F.B.V. 1). In Alberta Amore than 50% of the grain grown is fed to livestock@ (R.F.B.V. 3). This 50% of grain could definitely be put to much better uses in a world where people starve to death every day. In fact, Aproduction of the least energy-efficient plant foods are nearly ten times more efficient as the production of the most energy-efficient animal foods@ (Finn 2). For example, one acre of land planted with legumes yields ten times more available protein than if that same acre was used for meat production. Furthermore, the production of meat wastes massive amounts of water: AIt takes an average of 10 tons of waterBthe amount a small town uses for all purposes in a month. An average chicken processing plant uses 100 million gallons of water in just one day; enough to provide a community of 25,000 people for one day@ (R.F.B.V. 3). Not only is meat production wasting valuable production means, but it is also polluting our air. Cattle are a main source of methane gas, which is rapidly destroying our ozone layer. Vegetarians often replace meat and dairy foods with soy products. These foods are highly nutritional and contain disease-fighting properties. The National Cancer Institute has Aidentified specific substances in soy products called phytochemical that have anticancer properties@ (Finn 7). In 1994, the British Medical Journal announced that:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   researchers have examined 12-year mortality rates of non-meat eaters and meat-eating control groups and found that cancer deaths were 40 percent less common among vegetarians then meat eaters.

Broadway Brokers Essay -- Economy, Layoffs

The current economic downfall has forced many organizations to strategically restructure and downsize. Broadway Brokers is not immune to these economic challenges and has been faced with competition from discount brokers and Internet brokerage services. Broadway Brokers position of holding the largest market share has been jeopardized by their slow reaction to the shifting changes within the industry. Broadway Brokers staff possessed strong selling and interpersonal skills however lacked in their knowledge of the high tech skills that had been inundating the market. The organizations lack of adapting to new technology and their absorbent overhead was threatening their profitability. The organization was faced with the need to restructure, consolidate, and implement employee layoffs in order to remain competitive with the current financial climate. Rumors of impending office consolidations and staff layoffs had existed for some time. However, the CEO commentary in a Financi al Times article confirmed such gossip. In fact, decisions had already been made by top management to enact a structural plan that would severely curtail offices, close offices, and reduce the level of employees across the organization. Top management was firmly fixed upon downsizing and consolidation and was now relying on its management staff to come up with a plan to implement a transition. A dozen of the company’s most respected managers – everyone from assistant vice presidents to managing directors were join together to devise a plan for change (Jick & Peiperl 2003). In developing a transitional plan many concerns were presented to the management staff for consideration. First, Broadway Brokers has successfully grown and had not been ... ...ees – and a potentially more flexible organization. Broadway Broker’s management team is faced with the challenging task of downsizing and consolidating the organization. A thorough investigation as to how to execute proposed changes will need to occur before the organization can forge ahead. Change processes must be executed in a fashion that portrays compassion and consideration for all involved. For change to be successful the management team must have understanding and empathy for the psychological impact of imposed change and how employees will react. Most humans are fearful of change and do not embrace change in a positive manner. The road ahead will be difficult for the management team at Broadway Broker’s, however; with proper planning and understanding positive change can sustain the future of the organization.

Analysis on “How State Budgets Are Breaking Us Schools”

Semester 2 2011/2012 SBLE 2083 Public Speaking (Group E) Prominent Speech Analysis on â€Å"How state budgets are breaking US schools† Lecturer: Nurul Nazifah binti Mat Noh Group Members: Koo Chi Haw205634 Thong Hsien Jin205770 Mohammad Azlan bin Annual206955 Muhammad Noorhafizi bin Noor Azay 207278 Title: How State budgets are breaking US schools In the beginning of the speech, the speaker did gained the attention and interest of the audience by relating the topic to the audience and stating the importance of the topic and relating the topic to the audience.He mentioned that â€Å"And these budgets  are the key for our future;  they're the key for our kids†. This example shows that he was trying to relate the audience about their future and their children. He also mentioned that â€Å"the great universities or community colleges —  most of the money for those things  is coming out of these state budgets†. This means that state budgets are crucial for education spending in the United States. The speaker did not introduce the topic clearly in the beginning of the speech. He begun his speech only by saying â€Å"Well, this is about state budgets. and â€Å"And these budgets  are the key for our future;  they're the key for our kids†. These might only gave hints or questions to audience about the topic that was going to present by the speaker. The speaker did establish credibility by showing the numbers about the state budgets. He mentioned â€Å"State budgets  are big, big money —  I'll show you the numbers†. This means that he has the information that is relevant and is qualified to speak on this topic. The speaker did not really preview the body of the speech.It would not be clear either. He said that the state budgets are important for their future and their kids which only gave hints about how state budgets problems are going to relate to education spending. The speaker should have preview the body of the speech by saying the main points to the audience in the beginning of the speech. The speech indeed related to audience. The speaker already pointed out that the topic is very important for the people to take considerations in the beginning, even though it is boring.The speaker was consistently informing the audience that if the state budget is not enough to cover all the expenses due to deficit of 10%, the young will more likely to be the victims as the majority of spending from the education will be swift to health-care medical for the old ones. It would affect many people of the U. S. in the future. The speaker also used the word â€Å"you† frequently. This indicates that he is trying to relate the audience during the speech. After reviewing the video, the main points are the implications of the imbalanced state budget to the education expenses in current and future.The speaker aided his main points by using an effective visual aids and further explain the main point by detailed elaborations and examples. Such methods are effectives to the audience to understand the topic clearly and relevant. First, the speaker introduced the state budgets and the deficits that occurred. Then, He moved on to the implication on the education spending which is the system will have a big squeeze if the expenses are mostly swift to health-care program by minimizing the expenses for the education in the deficit state budget.If such trend happened, the future education level will be weakened such as no bold experiment, no teacher effectiveness measurement and no incentives for the excellence teachers. The speaker used many type of methods in supporting main points. Firstly, the speaker gave extended example about the cause of the state budgets deficit. He mentioned that â€Å"When Jerry Brown was elected,  this was the challenge that was put to him. That is, through various gimmicks and things,  a so-called balanced budget  had led him to have 25 billion missing  out of the 76 billion in proposed spending.Now he's put together some thoughts:  About half of that he'll cut,  another half,  perhaps in a very complex set of steps,  taxes will be approved. But even so,  as you go out into those future years,  various pension costs, health costs go up enough,  and the revenue does not go up enough. So you get a big squeeze. † Secondly, the speaker also used hypothetical example such as â€Å"But we're spending 36 percent. Well what are we taking in? Simple business question. Answer is 26 percent. Now this leaves 10 percent deficit,  sort of a mind-blowing number. † The speaker also used statistic method to support the main points.For the example, â€Å"But we have a problem. Here's the overall picture. U. S. economy is big —  14. 7 trillion. Now out of that pie,  the government spends 36 percent. † The speaker used a causal order where he first identified the state budgets deficit and what cause these deficits. Finally, he pointed out on how this affects the education spending by the government. The language used by the speaker is overall clear and concise. The speaker did used some familiar words that are easily understand by the audience. The speaker also used many abstract words which refer to ideas or concepts in his speech.For examples, â€Å"medical innovation†, â€Å"gimmicks† and â€Å"big squeeze†. However, the speaker used terms like â€Å"Medicaid† and â€Å"Enron† in his speech that would be not familiar with the audiences who are not living in United States. In the middle of the speech, the speaker also used a repetition as the rhythm of the speech. For example, â€Å"Now how did we get here? How could you have a problem like this? †. The speaker only used signpost as the connective in the speech. The connectives are used as he had begun next main points with questions. For examples, â€Å"Now how did we get her e?How could you have a problem like this? †, â€Å"Well what's going to give? † and â€Å"So what do we need to do? †. This shows that the speaker invited himself to answer and get the audience more involving with the speech. However, the signposts used are not really effective because they did not show the next or previous main points in the speech. In the end of the speech, the speaker signaled the end of the speech by saying, â€Å"And so the bottom line is†, to let the audience know that the speech was going to stop soon. The speaker also used a crescendo ending for his speech.He made a conclusion in which his speech was built to a zenith of power and intensity that influence the audience to care about the state budgets. The speaker said that the state budgets are critical for their kids and their future. â€Å"Now I think this is a solvable problem. It's a great country with lots of people. But we have to draw those people in,  because this is abou t education. † The speaker did reinforce the central idea of the speech by making a dramatic statement. He said, â€Å"And just look at what happened with the tuitions  with the University of California  and project that out for another three, four, five years —  it's unaffordable. †