A Problem in the American Education System Essay

This problem will have dire effects on those dropouts as well as other aspects such as financial and health problems. Many factors ultimately push the students off their path to a bachelor’s degree and end their dreams of ever becoming a doctor or maybe even a businessman. Along with those causes, there are serious consequences for those college dropouts. One effect that happens when a college student drops out of school would be that a huge debt must be paid back and since they dropped out it turn to be a wasted investment. Students looking to go to college, hen dropout have no answer to pay the money back which they were hoping to find a career with a college degree they wanted. Students often put a lot of money into college, thus putting them into debt. When the payments are finally too high for them they cannot afford to stay in school and all the money they put in is for naught. The students are under so much debt after dropping out and have nothing to show for it. That college degree they were hoping to receive at their graduation in non-existent which they were hoping to use as a tool in order to become successful. Who knows hat career a degree could have got them into, maybe a well-paying Job that would keep them from going broke from paying all the loans they used to go to school. All the money that could have been used in order to gain knowledge will be down the drain and the student now would have a harder time paying back those loans and supporting themselves. This also affects the schools and the taxpayers. All the money they are putting into paying and helping students with their schooling has nothing to showing for it. The millions of dollars that are being put into paving the way for the tudents financially do not pay off and instead money is lost. This slows down the whole country as there are less available new young workers to fill the positions of new work. Without a college degree, students earning potential are much lower than those of graduates. In order to pay off debts from loans to go to school and bills, students have to find a source of income and without a degree, finding a Job is much harder. Dropouts have a harder time finding a Job than those already with a degree. With a bachelor’s degree, it is easier to find Jobs as many opportunities are now open. A cause of college students dropping out is the amount they have to pay for just one semester. As many students do not even have a Job it is difficult for them to support themselves after paying for tuition and also pay for supplies they would later need for classes such as textbooks. A report from the Public Agenda for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation shows the students from the ages of 22 to 30 years old shows state that their main reason for leaving school is their problems with financial stability. From my experience as of today even now I have a problem having to pay for school at CSULB. Luckily I have financial aid because without it I would it I don’t think that I could have survived the first semester of college. Family problems such as having kids during school, or taking care of a sick family member could cause someone to leave college. Having to spend a large amount of time away from thing such as studying for an upcoming test really hurts the students in the long run. This hurts them because it keeps them preoccupied with things that they need to accomplish which is their dream of finding a career in their major and pursue it. Stress develops which may be from the numerous personal problems. Rising uition make students actually have to think about what they buy next. Most students already have to Juggle work and school at the same time Oohnson). I know for a fact that going to college is a hard task even now as a freshman, there is more homework and students have to pay for everything themselves. I understand why most students drop out because they cannot handle the pressure. Another cause for college dropouts is their scores on exams. Of course doing bad on a test will make students fail your class as this is already obvious. Lots of factors also cause students to do poorly on their exams such as stress and financial roblems One final cause for students leaving college early is their lack of motivation and preparation. As most students say their high schools did a poor Job in preparing them for their next step in life stated from a survey by Public Agenda (Crosseley). In college students have to manage their time socially and their time for school. Prioritizing this time is now critical of the all the times spent in school. Being bored really will not help you succeed in receiving a bachelor’s degree in your hand. For the many college students that attend today that go to college it may be a hard task. Still, college dropouts remain a problem in the American education system.

F. Scott Fitzgerald Essay

On September 24, 1896, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born to Edward Fitzgerald and Mollie McQuillan Fitzgerald, the product of two vastly different Celtic strains. Edward, who came from tired, old Maryland stock and claimed distant kinship with the composer of â€Å"The Star Spangled Banner,† (Spencer, 367-81) instilled in his son the old-fashioned virtues of honor and courage and taught by example the beauty of genteel manners. Fitzgerald was smitten by the sophisticated sixteen-year-old at a St. Paul Christmas dance in 1914 during his sophomore year at Princeton. For the next two years, he conducted a one-sided romance both in person and through ardent correspondence with a girl who embodied his ideal of wealth and social position. Ginevra, however, was more interested in adding to her collection of suitors than in restricting herself to one. Legend has it, moreover, that Fitzgerald overheard someone, perhaps Ginevra’s father, remark that poor boys should never think of marrying rich girls. (Moreland, 25-38) By 1916, the romance had ended, but its effect lingered long in Fitzgerald’s psyche. Fitzgerald’s greatness lies as much in the conception as in the achievement. In this way Fitzgerald and his fiction capture some essential quality of the American myth and dream that were the focus his lifetime of personal and literary effort. Without doubt, Fitzgerald’s art was a response to his life. He immersed himself in his age and became its chief chronicler, bringing to his fiction a realism that gives it the quality of a photograph or, perhaps more appropriately, a documentary film. With the clothing, the music, the slang, the automobiles, the dances, the fads — in the specificity of its social milieu-Fitzgerald’s fiction documents a moment in time in all its historical reality. Yet Fitzgerald captures more than just the physical evidence of that time. He conveys with equal clarity the psychology (the dreams and hopes, the anxieties and fears) reflected in that world because he lived the life he recorded. Autobiography thus forms the basis of the social realism that is a hallmark of Fitzgerald’s fiction, but it is autobiography transmuted through the critical lens of both a personal and a cultural romantic sensibility, a second defining characteristic of his art. These two strands help to place Fitzgerald within American literary history. (Hindus, 45-50) Fitzgerald came to prominence as a writer in the 1920s, a period dominated by the postwar novel, and thus his fiction reflects all the contradictions of his age. World War I was a defining event for Fitzgerald and the writers of his generation whether or not they saw action in the field. Postwar developments on the home front contributed as well to the sense of purposelessness, decay, political failure, and cultural emptiness that pervades the literature of the 1920s. A new conservatism dominated America. Fitzgerald’s fiction of the 1920s reveals the tensions inherent in this mixture of anxious longing for the old certainties and heady excitement at the prospect of the new, just as his fiction of the 1930s captures the human cost — the wasted potential and psychic dislocation — of the gay, gaudy spree and its subsequent crash. His critics argue that he is no more than a stylish chronicler of his age, a mere recorder of the fashions and amusements, the manners and mores of his postwar generation, and he is certainly that. Yet verisimilitude, the truthful rendering of experience, is a distinguishing feature of realistic fiction, and particularly of the novel of manners, a literary form that examines a people and their culture in a specific time and place and a category into which much of Fitzgerald’s fiction fits. Thus, Fitzgerald’s ability to convey accurately his own generation is not necessarily a weakness. Fitzgerald’s lyricism and symbolist mode of writing reveal an essentially romantic sensibility that not only gives shape to his worldview, linking it to some traditional attitudes about the individual and human existence, but also supports his thematic preoccupations. Critics who complain of Fitzgerald’s inability to evaluate the world that he so brilliantly records (and the life that he so intensely lived) need look no further than his third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), for proof of his double consciousness. Increasingly aware of the complex social, psychic, and economic forces that were driving his generation to excess and emptiness, Fitzgerald found the literary forms to give them expression in a novel that is now considered a modern masterpiece. Through his indirect, often ironic first-person narrative, Fitzgerald was able to give the story of Jay Gatsby, a man who reinvents himself to capture a dream, sad nobility, and the novel’s complex symbolic landscape reinforces this view. Gatsby may initially be just another corrupt product of his material world, but through the eyes of Nick Carraway, readers gradually come to see him as a romantic idealist who has somehow managed, despite his shadowy past and equally shady present, to remain uncorrupted. Fitzgerald’s complex symbolic landscape also elevates Gatsby’s quest to the realm of myth, the myth of the American Dream, and thus the novel offers a critical perspective on a nation and a people as well as on a generation. When E Scott Fitzgerald died in December 1940, his reputation was that of a failed writer who had squandered his talent in drink and excess. He may have written the novel that defined a decade, This Side of Paradise ( 1920), and another that exposed the dreams and illusions of a nation, The Great Gatsby ( 1925), but his achievement had been overshadowed and largely blighted by his life. (Frohock, 220-28) Works Cited Frohock W. M. â€Å"Morals, Manners, and Scott Fitzgerald†. Southwest Review 40( 1955): 220-228. Hindus Milton. F. Scott Fitzgerald: An Introduction and Interpretation. New York: Holt, 1968. 45-50 Moreland Kim. â€Å"The Education of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Lessons in the Theory of History†. Southern Humanities Review 19(1985): 25-38. Spencer Benjamin T. â€Å"Fitzgerald and the American Ambivalence†. South Atlantic Quarterly 66( 1967): 367-381. Appendix LITERARY WORKS BY F. SCOTT FITZGERALD This Side of Paradise. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1920; Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Flappers and Philosophers. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1920. The Beautiful and Damned. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922; Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Tales of the Jazz Age. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922. The Vegetable; Or, from President to Postman. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1923. The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925; Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. All the Sad Young Men. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926. Tender is the Night. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1934; Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Taps at Reveille. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1935. POSTHUMOUS PUBLICATIONS The Last Tycoon. Ed. Edmund Wilson. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1941; The Love of the Last Tycoon. Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1994. The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ed. Malcolm Cowley. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951. Afternoon of an Author. Ed. Arthur Mizener. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1957. Babylon Revisited and Other Stories. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1960. Six Tales of the Jazz Age and Other Stories. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1960. Pat Hobby Stories. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1962. The Apprentice Fiction of F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1909-1917. Ed. John Kuehl. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1965. The Basil and Josephine Stories. Ed. Jackson R. Bryer and John Kuehl. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973. Bits of Paradise: 21 Uncollected Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s St. Paul Plays, 1911-1914. Ed. Alan Margolies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Library, 1978. The Price Was High: The Last Uncollected Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli . New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979. The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. A New Collection. Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1989.

Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

Many literary critics were both awed and puzzled with Franz Kafka’s brilliantly written yet absurd, and often, grossly surreal form of writing. Die Verwandlung or The Metamorphosis is Kafka’s longest work, almost resembling a novel, and is also one of the most acclaimed. From the story of Gregor, who woke up one morning to find himself transformed into an insect (beetle), the readers can slowly see the exploration of an individual’s existence and the pain he experiences due to physical isolation and other people’s indifference.Using a purely psychological outlook, it is easy to view The Metamorphosis as a mirror of Kafka’s own demons–for every artist is said to impart a portion of his self into his works. Thus, The Metamorphosis may be Kafka’s own struggle with his past and present, a personal process that gradually made its way to the writer’s conscious writings and developed into a nightmarish plot about the life of Gregor Sam za who curiously transmuted into a physically hideous creature. This is why Kafka stands to gain the empathy and compassion of viewers when the story is told from the standpoint of Gregor.First, Kafka is a struggling writer early on in his life. He lived his life in emotional dependence on his parents. There were mixed feelings of love and hate   and though he longed to marry, he considered   sex as dirty. By choosing Gregor as the main character who experiences the transformation, he elicits the empathy of readers even as he performs a lackluster life.(Franz Kafka. 1883-1924). In the story, Gregor Samza is the pillar that supports his family. He is a fairly successful salesman and earns enough to pay off his father’s debt and bring food on the table. He is the one who strives hard for the family’s upkeep.When the tragedy happens to him and not to any member of the family, then, the repercussions are greater. The pillar of their family is suddenly gone and they hav e to strive to go about their daily lives without his help. In fact, they have to bear the burden of seeing a horrible creature in their house and then to think that the creature is Gregor, back to pretending that their lives are normal, nevertheless.Second, Kafka had no intention of publishing any of his works.   He actually wanted it destroyed. It was his friend Max Brod who pursued its publication. Thus, Kafka, actually had all the liberty to create Gregor as the target of all his frustrations and dependency feelings. He gained all the outlet to release these emotions and then destroy it in the end. It gave a vicarious feeling of relief to him. (Franz Kafka. 1883-1924).Lastly, Kafka felt a certain kind of weakness despite the rebellion he showed. Creating Gregor as the brunt of all his impotence gave an apt target for the same kind of impotence that Gregor had to be imbued with. .(Franz Kafka. 1883-1924).We find reasons for Kafka’s way of telling the story because Kafka never worked as a traveling salesman nor even experienced acting as a primary financier for his family. Yet a parallelism can be seen between the two men, both before and after Gregor’s transformation. Gregor knows his father’s ruthless temper, and with respect for the old man intermingles fear. There are scenes in the story where the older Samsa demonstrates this merciless attitude towards his son because of the latter’s repugnant appearance.Mr. Samsa cruelly shoves Gregor into his room using a walking cane, and during a stressful encounter, pelts him with apples wherein an apple lodges into his insect back and begins to rot (Kafka 37-38). Nevertheless, it was through Gregor that Kafka was able to show how goodness permeates in everyone, but only when instances are happy and perfect. When things turn to worst, individuals resort to a coping strategy that alienates the ugly and the useless.Putting Gregor as the member of the family that is transformed into an in sect gives us a glimpse of how Kafka may have felt at times in his life. Apart from the refined and healthy appearance, Kafka was depressed most of the time. It was known that he suffered from migraine, constipation, and boils, which are all products of pent-up stress and unhealthy emotions common to those with troubled pasts   (â€Å"Franz Kafka†).No wonder that the bizarre dominated his form of expression, probably as a form of a release from the rigid normality that imprisons individuals into normalness. In fact, there is no other way of invoking from the readers such strong feelings akin to the emotions of the writer than by using frightful and graphic images resembling man’s outlandish nightmares.   Then again, Kafka never wanted some of his works published for the entire world to read. Writing is sacred for Kafka, and a refuge from a seemingly menacing and indifferent world (Franz Kafka. Books and Writers).Gregor’s transformation into a beetle is paral lel to Kafka’s acquiring of tuberculosis. The physical degradation means the collapse of a person’s once important status and the revulsion of others. At first, loved ones react with grief whilst trying to be considerate to the afflicted one. In the long run, however, those with debilitating weaknesses are soon scorned. This long-time fear of being weak and being segregated translated into writing, while Kafka tried his best to look normal even when recuperating.Kafka’s tuberculosis purportedly affected his writings in such a way that his stories show â€Å"fear of physical and mental collapse,† which was of course also seen in The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka). Further, the nightmarish plots pertain to â€Å"dehumanization† as exemplified with Samsa’s metamorphosis into an insect. Even more frightening is the effect of this dehumanization, wherein everything beautiful, even Grete’s kind-heartedness, comes to its fearful end.For some re aders, The Metamorphosis is allegorical. Reading the story makes one constantly hope for a totally different conclusion, or if not, for some figurative message hidden behind the lines. Yet what happened in the story is totally literal and blunt: Gregor died as a beetle, his death comes silently in the night. It is devoid of any melodrama or of any dramatic revelations, so that the whole meaning or essence of the story is left for the readers to figure out. Kafka’s literature, The Metamorphosis included, have since served as windows into the late writer’s own life and soul: his experiences, fears and tribulations. His works are full of the complexities that are deemed as representative of the human existence, and most importantly, complexities that endlessly haunted the author until his end.Kafka stands to be redeemed of his supposedly ordinary existence, even if temporary, in the way he depicted Gregor. All the angst that Kafka experienced in his life poured out on Gre gor who had to bear the brunt of his disappointments. He made Gregor useless by transforming him into a hideous insect in order to assuage his own uselessness.   It had to be Gregor because he was the breadwinner. When Gregor dies in the end, the impact is great because as Kafka writes it, that there is a heavy weight lifted from the spirit of the family and their mourning is short.The story ends with the whole family driving into the countryside and their parents’ thoughts wondering about how to find a husband for Grete. There is a great sadness in the way Kafka decides to end his story because Gregor is not missed at all, but instead, his parents just try to find ways of looking for a possible husband for Grete—a replacement for Gregor who was their breadwinner. In the final analysis, Kafka succeeds in getting the sympathy of readers as he wove his story until Gregor’s death.Works CitedKafka, Franz. Appelbaum, Stanley (trans.). The Metamorphosis and Other St ories. New York: Dover. 1996.â€Å"Franz Kafka.† In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 7 Dec 2006. Retrieved Feb. 1, 2007 at:https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Franz_Kafka&oldid=92749510â€Å"Franz Kafka.† Books and Writers. 2002. Retrieved Feb. 1, 2007 at:â€Å"Franz Kafka. (1883-1924).† Retrieved Feb. 1, 2007 at:http://www.levity.com/corduroy/kafka.htm

How to Make Canoeing a Fascinating and Exciting Hobby Essay

How to Make Canoeing a Fascinating and Exciting Hobby - Essay Example It is the hope of the author that such a close level of discussion and analysis will be useful not only in helping the reader to come to a greater level of appreciation with regards to the complexities and nuances of canoeing but also a greater interest in the hobby and a desire to go outdoors and attempt to master some of these techniques on one’s own.Firstly, prior to going anywhere, it is necessary to consider the structural soundness of the craft in question.   On more than one occasion I have had the misfortune of starting a trip without ensuring that everything was fine with the craft.   Such a level of inspection can and should include an analysis of whether or not all the gunnels are in place, whether or not any leaks are present, and whether or not the craft is rigid enough to allow for the movements that are part of the process of canoeing.   Once this has been ascertained, it is then possible to consider proper flotation devices and ensure that each and every individual that will be going on the trip has a life vest that is suited to their needs, size, and weight.  Once each of these considerations has been made, it is necessary to review whether or not the individuals that will be accompanying the helmsman (an individual who is responsible for the safety and direction of the voyage) to question whether or not any of the participants are experiencing their first time in a canoe.   Such a question is not merely for the sake of conversation; rather, it has to do with warning them of the fact that a canoe is by very definition much less stable than other forms of watercraft and they should be mindful of this fact when seated.   Moreover, a warning not to move around once the craft has set out is also necessary.   Finally, the number of people going must be compared with the safety allowances of the craft and the overall weight limitations provided.   Once all of this has been completed, it is then allowable to pass out the paddles and proceed with the trip.

Money and success Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Money and success - Essay Example As money can buy things which significantly contribute to a person’s happiness, and enables opportunities and experiences which would not be possible otherwise, money and success are inextricably linked; money is a predictor of an individual’s success. Money can buy any material thing that a person could possibly desire. Material objects, while in no way guaranteeing happiness or success, do contribute quite a lot to happiness and success in several ways. It is a commonly understood fact that people judge others very quickly and form impressions of others immediately upon meeting them. It is also understood that people often judge others based on what they see; an individual’s looks, clothing, car, house and jewellery all can combine to create an impression of someone. If such things are seen as high quality, impressive or pleasing, this person will have generally made a good first impression. This in turn can lead to friendships, social invitations, success at interviews and all manner of factors which result from creating a positive and impressive first impression. In addition to this, having material things such as a nice house, expensive clothing and fine jewellery automatically create a pleasant living environment. Hav ing such possessions and money also negates the worry and stress that people suffer who do not have money to pay bills or enjoy the finer things in life. In this way, having money to buy material things contributes to an individual’s success by helping to create positive impressions, thereby supporting areas such as friendship and working relationships and enables more opportunities to become available to the individual in several contexts. Other than the relatively obvious material gains that money brings to the success of an individual, money also helps an individual to receive respect from

Individuals with disabilities education act Assignment

Individuals with disabilities education act - Assignment Example Inclusion does not merely mean to make children with disabilities participate in the general education setting; instead, it means that all students are being treated as active members of the learning environment where they can make decisions about the utilization of appropriate institutional setting with fair access and self-respect. Natalie must also be included in the fair and respectful inclusive educational practices so that she may feel that she is not being disadvantaged by any means. Providing her with a sense of self-respect will boost her individual competencies, and she will better be able to meet her individual needs as mentioned in her IEP. This can only be achieved if she will be provided with all sorts of environmental modifications in her neighboring school where her sisters are also studying. She will feel secure in this setting, and will better be able to respond to the learning process. It is a main suggestion in IDEA that children with disabilities should be provid ed with appropriate environmental modifications in their neighboring schools. These modifications include considering general physical education class as first placement option, relevant modification of equipment, and involvement of the support personnel in implementing the equipment in the most beneficial way possible. Natalie’s IEP document must be reviewed regularly so as to ensure her inclusion in the general physical education program. Natalie’s individual needs must also be assessed so that she may be able to achieve the aims and objectives mentioned in her IEP.

Is Parole Effective Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Is Parole Effective - Essay Example It is with this ideological framework in mind that this paper sets out to present an informative look at the New York State's system of parole and probation. The word 'parole' has its origins in the Latin term "probare," meaning "to prove" or "to test," and the term was coined by John Augustus ("A Brief History of Probation," 2006). The meaning of the term suggests, therefore, that parole is a chance given to a person to prove that they are deserving of the right to live in society among free people without being a threat to others or to themselves. The idea of probation is an opportunity given to a former criminal to absolve themselves of the charges against them, and to prove to the authorities, to society, and most importantly, to themselves, that they are capable of conducting themselves in a manner in which they can follow the norms of the society that they live in. (Jeffrey et al., 2003) In terms of the history of probation, two names are definitive: John Augustus and Matthew Davenport Hill. Hill was a judge who "had witnessed the sentencing of youthful offenders to one-day terms on the condition that they be returned to a parent or guardian who would closely supervise them" ("A Brief History," 2006). Hill applied the same idea of 'guardianship' of criminal offenders to the legal system: When he eventually became the Recorder of Birmingham, a judicial post, he used a similar practice for individuals who did not seem hopelessly corrupt. If offenders demonstrated a promise for rehabilitation, they were placed in the hands of generous guardians who willingly took charge of them. Hill had police officers pay periodic visits to these guardians in an effort to tack the offender's progress and to keep a running account. ("A Brief History," 2006) The above citation illustrates a very important aspect of probation: that not everyone is worthy of it. It is only when people in prison demonstrate, either through good conduct or because of the nature of their crimes, or for any other valid reason, that they deserve the chance to be free again, that they may be offered release on probation. Augustus, like Hill, also came up with the idea of probation based on an analogy with another practice; in his case, he was inspired by the way in which victims of alcohol abuse can be reformed through rehabilitation. (Robert et al., 2002) Widely regarded as the world's first parole officer, Augustus was the owner of a successful boot-making business in early nineteenth-century Boston before he made his entry into the judicial system. He believed that those who had committed crimes "could be rehabilitated through understanding, kindness and sustained moral suasion, rather then through conviction and jail sentences" ("A Brief History," 2006). The first person ever to be paroled was a "common drunkard" in 1841, who "was ordered to appear in court three weeks [after his] sentencing. He returned to court a sober man [] To the astonishment of all in attendance, his appearance and demeanor had dramatically changed," ("A Brief History," 2006) and thus began the system of probation in Americ a. The State of New York State had the official beginning of the system of probation in 1901. by 1917, a State Division of Probation had been implemented in the State's Department of Corrections. The Division of Prob

Music History Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Music History Report - Essay Example The Romantic era was a period of vast change and emancipation. While the Classical era was restricted by laws of balance and restraint, the Romantic era moved away from that by allowing artistic freedom, creativity, and experimentation in their compositions. The music of this time was very expressive, and melody became the dominant feature. Composers even used this means of expression to display nationalism. This became the driving force in the late Romantic period, as composers used elements of folk music to express their cultural identity (â€Å"The Romantic Era†). As in any time of change, new musical techniques came about to fit in with the current trends. It was in this era when the nocturnes were developed. Nocturnes, defined as music inspired by the evening or night, is one of the most renowned style of music in present times. The nocturnes were first developed by Field in the 1800’s, and were popularized by Chopin in the later years. Chopin, being a child prodig y pianist, composed and played music leaving behind Field. These serene, calm, and tranquil by nature night pieces stir emotions in individuals making it one of the most remarkable developments in music. As one listens to the nocturnes, the listener stirs a feeling of reflection, realization, as well as nostalgia – creating drama into the life of the night.

Financial and managerial accounting Research Paper

Financial and managerial accounting - Research Paper Example The budget would help Groovy Music to estimate their regular demand which in turn, would be helpful in deciding the product mix. Also, by preparing Activity Based budget, Groovy Music may be able to allocate their costs better and hence, get a clear picture about which order costs more. Essay 2 - The Woods and Waters Company Service Division: Particular Amount ($) Revenue (8000 x $50) 400,000 Less: Total Operating Costs (given) 280,000 (a) Net Profit 120,000 (b) Total Operating Assets (given) 400,000 Return on Investment (a/b x 100) 30 % Irrigation Division: Particular Amount ($) Revenue (250 x $5000) 1,250,000 Less: Total Operating Costs (given) 1,000,000 (a) Net Profit 250,000 (b) Total Operating Assets (given) 1,000,000 Return on Investment (a/b x 100) 25 % Company as a whole: Particular Amount ($) Revenue (400,000 + 1,250,000) 1,650,000 Less: Total Operating Costs (given) 1,280,000 (a) Net Profit 370,000 (b) Total Operating Assets (given) 1,400,000 Return on Investment (a/b x 100) 26 % Considering just the ROI, it can be concluded that the Service Division has performed

AN310 Cultural Anthropology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

AN310 Cultural Anthropology - Essay Example f English-Luek, and something more of a forward looking paper on what will eventually happen with technology, rather than a reflective look on how it has and currently is affecting lives. Perhaps, as a result of this, his view seems highly optimistic: he presents many upsides to technology for the family, and a very few downsides. He rightly assumes that technology will continue to get cheaper and more accessible, and thus be more widely used as time goes on (Molitor 2003). Furthermore, he recognized that mobile technology would be of growing importance, and argues that this presents many opportunities for families to stay in closer contact with each other and so forth, noting that mobile acumen is now being developed in children â€Å"from birth† and that staying in contact â€Å"on the fly† will lead to greater integration among members of the family (Molitor 2003, p 9). English-Lueck’s analysis is based on observations of the way technology has affected the family, rather than how it could. It is a bit more double sided. Like Molitor, English Lueck noted that families felt that technology allowed them to stay in contact in ways that would not otherwise be possible – and thus gain more independence (English-Lueck 1998, p 5). However, technology also has a high degree of downsides. The largest is the intervention of work into family time – almost everyone in English-Lucke’s work complained of having work at home or sometimes even having a great deal of work at home without noticing it (English-Lueck 1998). Finally, English-Lueck noted that, while technology altered family life, it also conformed to expectations that had been built over generations before the technology existed, such as gender roles. Men would be expected to be better experts on technology than women, and more interested in â€Å"discussing it† (Enli gsh-Lueck 1998, p. 8), whereas women wanted to use it. One common thread that I found between the two readings and my own life is lack of

Hitler Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Hitler - Research Paper Example During his time in jail for the failed coup, he wrote a memoir, titled â€Å"my struggle† and after release in 1924 gained a lot of popular support for his attacks on The treaty of Versailles and the promotion of anti-Semitism, Pan-Germany agenda and anti communism (Giblin, p 12). It is this initial support that was a beginning to his consolidation of power and elevation as the supreme leader of Nazi Germany. His career as a decorated war veteran and an intelligence officer gave him an opportunity to acquire crucial information on soldiers and the German worker Party (DAP) and served as a platform to prepare him for the huge task of uniting Germans around a cause, however evil. While at the DAP, Hitler got the chance to meet several influential people who later had a significant input on his ideologies and opinion among them Dietrich Eckart, a member of Thule Society, an occult organization that shared Nazi ideologies that were later implemented by Hitler in his quest for world dominance (Gonen, p 88). Hitler’s ideologies The ideologies of Adolf Hitler were threefold, social, political and social. On the social front, he believed in Germany for Germans and no other. To this effect, only bona fide members of the country were to be the states’ citizens and ‘foreigners’, which included Jews, Gypsies and others, were to be eradicated. Jews were to be eradicated by turning people against them (anti-Semitism). All Germans were to be mentally and physically healthy and therefore people with mental and physical disabilities were to be completely eradicated. Those who destroyed the Nazi’s common interests were also to be fought (Haynes, p53).

Battered Women as Court Defense Essay Example for Free

Battered Women as Court Defense Essay One of the theoretical frameworks present, which is explains the rationale for battered women killings as a supplement to a self-defense court appeal is the condition of battered woman syndrome (Ogle and Jacobs, 2002 p. 51). Battered women who kill are often limited to pleading incapacity or provocation because the circumstances of the homicide do not fit into the narrow confines of self-defense law. Even when permitted to go forward with a self-defense claim, many women do not succeed. However, using the battered woman syndrome as a defense has troublesome implications. In practice, the battered woman syndrome defense echoes the old incapacity defense – she was acting out of learned helplessness rather than necessity – and fails to adequately consider the terrible experiences and choices these women face (Forrell and Matthews, 2001 p. 203). The cycle of battering theory posits that battering involves an identifiable pattern, which possess three phases as according to Walker (1979) (Ogle and Jacobs, 2002 p.51-52): (1). Tension building, in which the batterer seeks to create tension through intimidation, degradation, and threats in order to build a case for his next episode of violence and during this time, the victim is attempting to forestall the next battering incident; (2) acute battering incident, in which the batterer becomes violently abusive toward the victim in order to make his point, regain complete control of both the relationship and the victim, and prevent the victim from tying to leave; lastly, (3) contrition, in which the batterer, early in the relationship, makes gestures of apology, promises desistance, asks for forgiveness, and seeks reconciliation in order to keep the victim from fleeing (Ogle and Jacobs, 2002 p. 52). The proportionality, imminence requirements and the mare standards by which they are measured virtually preclude traditional self-defense for most battered women who kill their violent partners. For example, a 1995 U. S Department of Justice study, Spouse Murder Defendants, determined that 44% of women accused of murdering their husbands had been threatened with a weapon or physically assaulted at or around the time of the murder; of these, 56% were convicted. Not surprisingly, in states that relax the imminence and equal-force requirements when battered women kill and admit evidence on domestic violence and its consequences, more women are found to have killed n self-defense (Forrell and Matthews, 2001 p. 203). Battered Woman Syndrome does not explain how a woman suffering from learned helplessness (resigned to dying, hopeless, sure that nothing she does will have any influence on the outcome) suddenly becomes proactive and defends herself lethally. Learned helplessness creates a psychological and behavioral stereotype of the battering victim that can then be turned around and used against her in court if she does not exactly fit the typology of a battered woman suffering from this psychological problem. When such condition occurred, the battered woman is often not permitted to present certain testimony on the battering since she is believed not to be battered woman. In other words, if psychologists, through interviews and testing, cannot make a diagnosis of learned helplessness, then the woman does not fit the typology of a battered woman and cannot use that as a supplement to self-defense (Ogle and Jacobs, 2002 p. 52-53). Battered woman syndrome has been used for purposes beyond supporting the claim of self-defense. Such syndrome testimony has been admitted as relevant evidence into a broad range of criminal cases, such as fraud, drug running, child homicide and homicide of an adult other than the batterer. As part of the defense in these criminal cases, battered woman syndrome testimony has been offered to accomplish one of these three things: (a) to bolster the woman’s claim that she engaged in a criminal act under the duress/coercion of her abusive partner; (b) to support the notion of mitigation for the woman at the time she pleads guilty; or (c) to bolster a claim of diminished capacity in the sentencing phase of case (Freedheim et. al. , 2003 p. 485). Today, despite the concerns of a number of legal scholars, most jurisdictions permit testimony in criminal court about battered woman syndrome and a number actually guarantee its legitimacy through legislation. Twelve states provide for battered woman syndrome testimony by statutory law. In 1992, President George Bush signed the Battered Women’s Testimony Act, which specifically authorized a study of this type of testimony and required training materials to be developed to assist the courts. Moreover, this act also strongly encouraged state officials to accept battered woman syndrome testimony based on recognition that many women are victims of physical violence (Freedheim et. al. , 2003 p. 485). The conditions of battered women are still at risk knowing the fact that self-defense is still not considered as ground consideration of homicide; instead, the individual needs to be diagnosed with psychological defect before granting any possible excuse from the crime committed. The Case of Court Defenses. Probably, the most famous case of postpartum psychosis is that of Andrea Yates, a Texas woman who, in 2001, downed her five children – including a six-month old – in a bathtub (Cassidy, 2006 p. 242). Ms. Yates chased the last victim, her 7-year-old boy, as he tried to run away; however, she caught him and submerged him in the tub as she had done with the others. After wrapping the five bodies in sheets and placing them on the bed, she called the Houston Police and, upon their arrival, confessed (Dorne, 2002 p. 122). Prosecutors called for the death penalty, arguing that as long as she could distinguish between right and wrong, having postpartum psychosis is no excuse for murder. Since Yates testified that she knew it was a crime to kill her children, a jury convicted her of capital murder in 2002, triggering debate about whether the standard for mental illness was too rigid and whether the courts understood the nature of postpartum mental illness. However, an appeals court overturned that conviction die to erroneous testimony, and after a new trial in 2006, a jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity. Rather than sending her to prison for life, the judge committed her to be locked mental hospital until she deemed no longer a threat (Cassidy, 2006 p. 242). In response to the second verdict, legal experts said that, in the four years since the Yates case had been in court, the American public had become more understanding – even forgiving – of postpartum depression (Cassidy, 2006 p. 242-243). In Indiana, the case of Judy Kirby attracted national attention to the post-partum defense. Ms. Kirby, a 31-year-old mother of 10 had recently given birth. With four of her children in her car, she drove down a one-way highway the wrong way. Driving against traffic, she passed 16 â€Å"Do Not Enter† signs. Her vehicle eventually hit a minivan head on, killing the driver and his two teenage children. The four Kirby children, ages 5 to 12, were also killed; however, Ms. Kirby survived the crash. A distress note written by Ms. Kirby was found in her vehicle indicating that she was having problems coping and was experiencing relationship problems with her ex-boyfriend, who was also the father of two of her children. She was charged with seven counts of homicide, aggravated battery, and child neglect causing bodily injury, and was sentenced in 2001 to 215 years in prison (Dorne, 2002 p. 122). Another case that depicts the situation of battered women in the sense of self-defense includes the confrontation case of Commonwealth v. Stonehouse (Pa. 1989). Carol Stonehouse killed William Welsh after a series of events that the appellate court characterized as bizarre but believable because they were corroborated by disinterested witnesses. Stonehouse reported many instances of abuse, battery, assaults and threats to the authorities, but with no response issued. With all the efforts provided by Stonehouse; however, she was still charged with criminal homicide, convicted of third degree homicide, and sentenced to seven to fourteen years imprisonment (Ogle and Jacobs, 2002 p. 97). Conclusion The law provides absolute rule in terms of homicide and criminal offenses, although, certain conditions are granted with exemptions. Postpartum depression is one of the psychological defects that can be used ion order to excuse one’s self from committed murder granted the fact of evidence and reliable basis, such as with Yates. On the other hand, the case of Stonehouse’s battered experience was not excused despite of cruel and brutal experience that led her in killing for sake of self-defense. References Cassidy, T. (2006). Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born. Open City Books. Dorne, C. K. (2002). An Introduction to Child Maltreatment in the United States: History, Public Policy and Research. Criminal Justice Press. Forrell, C. A. , Matthews, D. M. (2001). A Law of Her Own: The Reasonable Woman as a Measure of Man. NYU Press. Freedheim etal, C. K. (2003). Handbook of Psychology. John Wiley and Sons. Ogle, R. S. , Jacobs, S. (2002). Self-Defense and Battered Women Who Kill: A New Framework. Greenwood Publishing Group. Schwartz, L. , Isser, N. (2007). Child Homicide: Parents Who Kill. CRC Press. Spinelli, M. G. (2003). Infanticide: Psychosocial and Legal Perspectives on Mothers Who Kill. American Psychiatric Pub, Inc.

Investigation of Unknown Carbohydrate

Investigation of Unknown Carbohydrate INTRODUCTION From the name itself, Carbohydrates are hydrates of carbons that are polar in nature. The building blocks of carbohydrates are monosaccharides which are simple sugars due to their low molecular weight. Carbohydrates are the product of photosynthesis from the condensation of carbon dioxide that requires light and chlorophyll. Carbohydrates have a vital role in the nutrition of organisms since it is the major source of energy. ATP is energy released by plants and it is the needed by the body to function accordingly. Carbohydrates have different structures thus it gives distinct reactions to various reagents depending on its chemical composition. It can be grouped into monosaccharides, disaccharides and polysaccharides. Monosaccharides could be classified as polyhrdoxy aldoses or ketoses. These are the simplest carbohydrates that cannot be broken down into smaller aggregates. These are aldehydes that contain two or more hydroxyl groups. Disaccharides are two simple sugars that are linked together by a glycosidic bond- an ether bond formed from the merging of two hydroxyl groups between monosaccharides. Polysaccharides, on the other hand, are made up of multiple sugar units attached to a group of disaccharides. They are formed by a glycosidic linkage. MATERIALS AND METHODS For the identification of the unknown carbohydrates samples, 1.00 ml of two unknown samples were transferred in a test tube and 1.00 ml of Molisch reagents was added as well as 1.00 ml of concentrated . For each of the tests- Iodine test, Benedicts test, Barfoeds test, Seliwanoffs test and 2,4-DNP test, fresh samples were needed for each. Table 1 shows the needed amount of reagent for each test for a qualitative analysis. The identity of the two unknown samples was then distinguished based on the reaction of the given set of carbohydrates. For the hydrolysis of starch, 50.00 ml of 5% starch solution was placed in a 100 ml beaker. About 5.00 ml of concentrated sulfuric acid was added. Covering the beaker with aluminum foil, it was then heated until boiled in a water bath. About 1.00 ml of the sample was placed in two separate test tubes with the addition of 1.00 ml of iodine reagent to one and 1.00 ml of Benedicts reagent to the other. The sample was heated continuously. With an interval of 5 minutes, 1.00 ml of the sample was transferred into two separate tees tubes once again and with the addition of the iodine and Benedicts reagent until a blue-black precipitate is formed with the iodine reagent and a brick red color with the Benedicts reagent. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Table 2 shows the desired color change of the carbohydrates upon the addition of certain reagents. Molischs test is a general test for carbohydrates that determines the presence of carbonyl groups, which gives off a deep purple colored substance. The Iodine test gives off a blue-black colored complex as a positive reaction towards iodine. Benedicts test determines the identity of the reducing sugars which results to an orange-rust color. Barfoeds test has the same purpose as Benedicts test for determining the reducing sugars, but this Barfoeds test gives off a positive test for reducing monossaccharides only. Seliwanoffs test determines the presence of aldoses and ketoses, only the ketoses give off a positive reaction resulting to a brick red color. The 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine or the 2.4-DNP test determines the reaction of monosaccharides that gives off yellow- black crystals of osazones that intensifies the color of the substance. Molischs test is a general test for carbohydrates. Concentrated sulfuric acid was added producing a deep purple colored substance. The carbohydrate undergoes dehydration wherein water was released upon the addition of sulfuric acid. Pentoses and hexoses react with the sulfuric acid resulting to the positive color change. For the Iodine test, the only sugar that reacted was starch. Starch is a polysaccharide- a mixture of amylose and amylopectin. An amylose forms a helical structure in water. Iodine could easily penetrate through the helical structure, since monosaccharides and disaccharides arent too small they do not react with iodine. Upon the penetration of the iodine to the core of the helix, it produces a blue-black colored substance. When heated, the blue color disappears because the helical ring of the amylose is disrupted. Iodine is does not have the capacity to bind itself back to helix. The blue color returns when the starch is cooled. The iodine can now bind back to the helix. Benedicts test identifies the reducing sugars, the monosaccharides and the disaccharides. This reagent is a weak oxidizing reagent. Cuprous oxide was converted from cuprous hydroxide. The former determines the presence of the reducing sugar. Seliwanoffs test differentiates ketoses from aldoses. The ketose yields a brick red color upon the addition of heat. Ketose undergoes dehydration when diluted in HCl and heated. Barfoeds test identifies the reducing sugars as well, but this test is specific only for monosaccharides. Carbohydrates exposed to the Barfoed reagent, a mixture of copper acetate and glacial acetic acid, undergoes reduction. The reducing monosaccharide reduces the cupric ions to cuprous ions in acidic medium (4). The cuprous ions formed in turn, reduce the colorless phosphomolybdic acid to blue phosphomolybdous acid (4). The positive color change for monosaccharides was exhibited by a deep blue color, while the disaccharide exhibited a light blue color. The 2,4- DNP test is a general test for carbohydrates. This determines the presence of aldehydes and ketones. The aldoses and ketoses are quite similar. The reducing sugars produce a positive test. The identity of starch could be easily distinguished through the iodine test. When the starch is hydrolyzed it can have a positive result in the Benedicts test. The acetal linkages in starch are hydrolyzed in hot aqueous acid (6). Benedicts test is a useful test in detecting the sugar concentration in the urine of a patient diagnosed with diabetes mellitus. The color of the precipitate gives an approximate percentage of sugar excreted in the urine (4). The color determines the percentage of sugar present in the urine. If the precipitate is blue, sugar is absent, green if there are 0-0.5% sugar, yellow if 1% sugar, orange if 1.5% sugar, and red if 2% sugar or more.

Feminism And Feminist Epistemology And Science Sociology Essay

Feminism And Feminist Epistemology And Science Sociology Essay The word feminism is very challenging and difficult to describe specifically but it has a greater value in todays society mostly in the developing areas like Nepal, Srilanka, Bangladesh etc. The women of developing countries are facing so many problems like inequality from political issues to even in their house. To eradicate such inequality problem from the existing society the word feminism developed. Feminism refers to the beliefs that are injustices against women and they have been devalued and denied full equality (1). Feminism helps to exaggerate the women roles, power and their contribution to the society. It gives the full freedom to the women about their choices of lives. This feminism refers to the equality between men and women. They have equal rights and responsibility towards the society. In the mid-1800s the term feminism was used to refer to the qualities of females (2). The term Feminism was derived from the French word feministe in the 1892 after the first international womens conference in Paris. The term feministe means belief in and advocacy of equal rights for women based on the idea of the equality of the sexes. Although the term feminism in English is rooted in the mobilization or women suffrage in Europe and the US during the late 19th and early 20th century (3). The feminist movement is divided in to three waves; First wave begin during the 19th century and it refers on a newer feminist movement that focused as much on fighting social and cultural inequalities as further political inequalities (4). The second wave in the early of 1960s, feminism saw cultural and political inequalities as inextricably linked and this movement encouraged women to understand aspects of their own lives as deeply politicized and reflective of a sexiest structure of power (5). The third wave movement arise ideology of A post structuralist interpretation of gender and sexuality in the early 1990s (6). These three movements encourage the women for their rights and their equality. The ideology of feminism starts influencing throughout the society after this movement. It brings a revolution in the way men and women are equal to each other and effects fundamental change in society. It entails that the women have equal rights and duty as a man in all aspect. What is feminist epistemology and science? Epistemologist focus on the nature, origins and the limits of human knowledge (7). It is the nature of knowledge itself and its study focuses for acquiring knowledge and differentiate between truth and falsehood. Epistemology concerns every scientific discipline which helps to the collective efforts of human beings. In the modern days the epistemology is the debate between the empiricism (i.e., knowledge is obtained through experience) and rationalism (knowledge can be acquired through reason). There are many aspects of knowledge like social, economical and many more but many of the epistemologist focus on the social aspect of knowledge where the production creation and discovery concerns. Social epistemology is the study of the relevance of social relations, interests, and institutions to knowledge (8). Feminism has also roles in social investigation of knowledge and its epistemology is concerned to the whose knowledge is being considered. Feminist epistemologist does not confess about the empirical evidence but instead of that it suggests knowing the social contexts and social beliefs because of its factuality. Feminist epistemologists of science typically argue that the way science is done includes cultural and social standards in the description of nature. Gender is both part of the cultural idea that shapes how nature is described and is also described by the process of science. The feminist critiques of science: The feminist critique of sciences is a crucial subject where the science may be negatively impacted by postmodern or feminist critiques in a similar way to humanities and social sciences. There is also a debate between the realism and relativism. Realism is that there is an objective world which people learn about. Relativism is the idea that truth is relative in one way or another. It is easy to fall into the trap that a feminist social epistemology-and any field which it makes a statement about, even science-is relativist, and many thinkers have addressed this, either making cases that relativism is correct or making claims for a realist feminist science. Background for the feminist studies of objectivity in sciences: Objectivity is commonly taken to be the extent to which we allow our scientific beliefs to be driven by some impartial and non arbitrary criteria rather than by our wishes as to how things ought to be (9).1 Science is more objective than other areas such as art and literary criticism. To be a science the research programs must follow some criteria, certain norms and rules (i.e., scientific method) rather than the prejudices, guesses and emotions. According to the great philosophers, Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend suggested the views that emphasize the degree to which what we call science is constituted by factors that seem to fall outside the realm justification. They are not trying to focus on the extent to which science is independent of who does it but instead of that it raise the questions about the real level of objectivity in science and how the scientist outline or modeled which hypothesis or theories pass for scientific knowledge. It is the crucial things to distinct between the real sciences and the rest things (non sciences). Another philosopher, Quine also raised a question about how autonomous science is from the other subjects such as prejudices, guesses and emotions i.e., metaphysical commitments. He suggested that science is not separable from other social, political beliefs that we have. The ideas given by Kuhn and Quine raise a question about the objectivity of science and these doubts arose well within what is sometime considered traditional philosophy of science.9 When the issue of gender was raised mostly many feminists were interested in determining what the possible factors of gender counts are as a scientific knowledge. A feminist tries to find out how the gender plays a role in recreation of scientific knowledge. Moreover, Gender is related with the sexism here the word sexism refers to the male, female and assumption about the superiority of one gender to the other gender however there is no conclusive evidence for that assumption. The way of women are ignoring and demoralizing in almost every field so the feminists began to criticize on those things in which science excluded women, ignored scientific issues pertaining to women and even the scientific theories influencing by the womens societal views reveal a question about the real objectivity of science. Science as Social (Helen Longino Harding): The problem seen by Harding regarding the objectivity in science is that she assumed the traditional conceptions of objectivity. To revealing and assessing the role of cultural and personal interests and values in sciences is very difficult to measure and assess. If the role is being played by cultural and personal interests and values then it is judged to be bad for science, or if the role played is considered inappropriately large then it is argued that it need have a way to eliminate or mitigate this role, thus increasing the extent to which science is objective(10). Harding was the person who finds the way to reveal and assess interests and values in science is to examine them from an alternate point of view, and she claims that current conceptions of objectivity are inadequate for these tasks. Helen longino also face the same problem as seen by Harding and longino tries to solve this problem by focusing on how the scientific community is comprised and behaves instead of not givi ng attention to what individual scientists are doing. Longino claims that science is social, in the sense that doing science requires the interaction of individuals. Feminism and post-feminism: Feminism refers to the belief that women are equal to men. Some feminist argue that women need is not equality rather they need to be recognized and valued in their differences from men but some feminists believe that women need liberation from oppression instead of equal treatment and respect for their differences to men. Feminism seeks to improve the lot of those people who have been made into women, but it cannot rightly be said that feminism seeks to improve the condition of women that would be an impossible, self-contradictory mission (11). According to Rosalind Delmar, it makes more sense to speak of a plurality of feminism than a single one (1986:9). It means that there must be some underlying commitment that all feminist share and make them feminist. Valerie Bryson says that all feminists share the belief that women are disadvantaged in comparison with men, and that this disadvantage is not a natural and inevitable result of biological difference but something that can and should be challenged and changed (Bryson 1993: 192). But some feminists would reject even this, perhaps on the grounds that womens biology does disadvantage them but that recent technologies such as the contraceptive pill allow women to overcome their biological limitations (Firestone 1970). Post-feminists believe that women have achieved second wave goals while being critical of third wave feminist goals. The term was first used in the 1980s to describe a backlash against second-wave feminism. It is now a label for a wide range of theories that take critical approaches to previous feminist discourses and includes challenges to the second waves ideas.(39) Other post-feminists say that feminism is no longer relevant to todays society.(40) Amelia Jones wrote that the post-feminist texts which emerged in the 1980s and 1990s portrayed second-wave feminism as a monolithic entity and criticized it using generalizations.(41) One of the earliest uses of the term was in Susan Bolotins 1982 article Voices of the Post-Feminist Generation, published in New York Times Magazine. This article was based on a number of interviews with women who largely agreed with the goals of feminism, but did not identify as feminists.(42) Some contemporary feminists, such as Katha Pollitt or Nadine Strossen, consider feminism to hold simply that women are people. Views that separate the sexes rather than unite them are considered by these writers to be sexist rather than feminist.'(43)(44) Conclusion: 39.Wright, Elizabeth (2000). Lacan and Postfeminism (Postmodern Encounters). Totem Books. ISBN  978-1-84046-182-9. 40.^ Modleski, Tania (1991). Feminism without women: culture and criticism in a postfeminist age. New York: Routledge. pp.  188. ISBN  0-415-90416-1. 41.^ Jones, Amelia. Postfeminism, Feminist Pleasures, and Embodied Theories of Art, in New Feminist Criticism: Art, Identity, Action, ed. by Joana Frueh, Cassandra L. Langer and Arlene Raven. New York: HarperCollins, 1994. 16-41, 20. 42^Rosen, Ruth (2001). The world split open: how the modern womens movement changed America. New York, N.Y.: Penguin. pp.  444. ISBN  0-14-009719-8. 43.^Pollitt, Katha (1995). Reasonable creatures: essays on women and feminism. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN  978-0-679-76278-2. 44 Strossen, Nadine (1995). Defending pornography: free speech, sex, and the fight for womens rights. New York, N.Y.: Scribner. ISBN  978-0-684-19749-4.

Hybrid Cars Essay -- essays research papers fc

Hybrid Automobiles The technology of the electric vehicle has been around for a long time but faded as the gasoline powered engine became more popular. Now, the future of electric vehicles is very bright. Their impacts are very significant that ranges from the economic point of view and also from the environmental. Imagine driving a quieter, cleaner car with the windows down letting the clean pollution-free air flow throughout the car. Production of the advancing technological electric vehicle can trigger this idea to come into effect. The problem of this technology was to research the development and impacts of the electric vehicle. At the turn of the 19th Century, when automobiles were new, electric vehicles outnumbered gasoline-powered vehicles. The problem for the electric car was that electric battery technology did not improve nearly as fast as gasoline technology and by 1910 the interest in the development of the electric vehicle had all but ceased (Sedgwick 15). Today, the current surge of interest in electric vehicles replacing the internal combustion engine, or ICE, is due to mostly one concern, air quality. The world’s population of cars is polluting the world’s cities, producing large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The electronic vehicle is driven by a battery that runs exclusively on electric. The batteries that exist today have a limited range between fifty and seventy-five miles per full charge. Newer prototype batte...

Male Dominance in Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper

Male Dominance in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper "I want to astonish him," (34) says the narrator, referring to her husband, in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, as she writhes behind the patterns of her yellow wallpaper, locked in her room of barred windows, sunken in the lunacy that she cannot evade. This short, ambitious phrase placed squarely on the page beneath stacks of similarly short-winded phrases that string together this diary-style narrative conveys most clearly the narrator's prime audience for her actions: John. He is her husband, her care-taker, the only man in her life, and in spite of the near-reverence that the narrator has for him, it is only in the final pages, when this stunning sentence is uttered, that John's wife endeavors to earn more than John's respect for her. She wants to provoke awe, the sort of "astonishment" that might make him feel as though he were mad, and would, thus, free his wife from beneath his condescending gaze. For the act, or the being-caught-in-the-act, of tearing off the wallpaper, and not the removal of the paper itself, will liberate the narrator most fully. What binds John's wife, what binds the woman reflected back at her behind the wallpaper's troubling patterns, is not so much the physical trappings of the home, but the less visible patriarchal society of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In The Short Story: the Reality of Artifice, Charles May cites Bonaro Overstreet's description of twentieth century drama, calling it "the drama of what goes on in the mind" (17). Gilman's story inhabits the dynamic mind of a woman willing to disclose to her readers everything she sees and feels. This first-person confessional, littere... .... Gilman's startling ending comes after nearly six pages of intensification, and it is a most dramatic finale, perhaps the heartiest parody of that Gothic romance mentioned early on. When John faints, revealed to the reader by the narrator's question, for isn't that silly of him, the story to clatters to a most rousing close. She has astonished him, into unconsciousness, toppled him like a tower the way she peeled the paper from the wall. And there, upon the ground, John remains, Gilman's weighty, though squeamish, symbol of male dominance around which the narrator, the woman writer, may now creep, though ultimately, one hopes, stand before and walk with. Works Cited May, Charles. The Short Story: the Reality of Artifice. New York: Twayne Publishers, 2002 edition. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. London: VIRAGO Press, 1988 edition.

Mary Shelleys Frankenstein Com Essay -- essays research papers

In Kenneth Branaghs film Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the director, Kenneth Branagh sticks to the major themes of the original book with minute changes. There are many similarities and differences between the book and Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of the book. I believe Mary Shelley wanted readers to catch the themes of child abandonment, presented in Victor abandoning his creature. She also wanted readers to have compassion and sympathy for the abandoned creature that Victor created out of dead body parts. Shelley wanted the creature to be similar to Victor in many ways. Shelley wanted to show the relation between life and death, and the unbreakable laws of nature. Shelley wanted readers to realize that we need to accept life and death, and not try to control it because life is the “Act of God'; and we cannot change that. She was implying that there are consequences for fooling with these laws of life and death. Even if you can create life out of dead body parts, ju st doing that, may ruin your whole perspective of the world, and throw anyone into a state of depression. This movie “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein'; by Kenneth Branagh is a good representation of the original book overall, except for a few changes in plot, setting, characters,, and the relationships between them.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There are many similarities and differences in the plot between the book and the latest Frankenstein film. Kenneth Branagh w...

Customer Contribution to Improving Service Quality in the Hospitality Industry

Quality Management in Services Drago Constantin Vasile The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania E-mail: [email  protected] com Abstract The actors on the today business stage have no more well-defined roles with clear and rigid borders between them. Hospitality industry in particular is a good example how it has been blurred the roles that customers play in dealing with service providers. The study reveals that customers can influence the quality of hospitality service through performing a qualitycontrol function. This involves a series of activities to be achieved by them: (1) on-the-spot quality control, (2) service failure control, (3) quality consultancy, and (4) co-production control. However there are some difficulties and the hospitality organizations need a structured approach to overcome them. Developing a strategy to enhance the effectiveness in performing this function is an important challenge for the hospitality organization management. Our study recommends five courses of actions to be included in such a strategy. They envisage (1) increasing the customer`s knowledge of the firm`s quality standards,(2) encouraging customers to voice their concerns, (3) training customers (and employees) to manage the interpersonal encounter, (4) motivating customers to involve in performing the quality-control function and (5) training customers about their tasks in coproduction. Keywords: quality, hospitality industry, hospitality service, service, customer JEL Classification: L83, M31, M11 Introduction The issue of quality has taken an increased importance in business, being associated with a competitive advantage that can ensure the firm`s profitability and survival (Maddern et al. , 2007). The recognition of the nature and the important role of quality in business is the result of an evolution of quality ideas over time. To this respect, Dale and Cooper (1992) describe four stages (i) quality inspection, (ii) quality control, (iii) quality assurance, and (iv) total quality management. The last involves a shift of paradigm: a changing culture where quality is a basic value of the organization and the goal is a steady improvement in quality, as a strategy to gain competitive advantage. The assumption is that suggestions for improvements may come from any level in the organization (Barnes, 1995). But, in our opinion an important aspect is that valuable suggestions may come from the exterior of the organization, in particular from customers. The aim of this study is to discuss the challenge caused by managing service quality in the hospitality industry. The key questions are how customers may contribute to improving Vol XI †¢ Nr. 26 †¢ June 2009 441 Customer Contribution to improving Service Quality in the Hospitality Industry quality and what approach should adopt the hospitality organizations to enhance their contribution. The specific characteristics of the hospitality services cause an inherent involvement of the customer into their design and/or provision. In this context we claim that customers may perform a quality-control function and the actions firms can take regarding the co-option of customers` competence must be encouraged because of their beneficial effects. Our line of reasoning relies on theories and concepts from the international scientific literature and on the practice in the hospitality organizations. The evaluation of the issue of customers` contribution is made from the original perspective of integrating separate aspects within a function of quality control that can be assigned to customers of the hospitality services. The first section of the study presents the characteristics of hospitality services which provides the main explanation of the customer`s participation. The second section describes the activities that are included in the quality-control function. The last section discusses the difficulties that may be encountered in performing this function and it is presented a model of a strategy for enhancing customer contribution to improving hospitality service quality 1. Quality in the hospitality services Quality is an important topic in management and marketing research but there is no agreed definition of the word among scholars and practicians. Faced with the great number of points of view, Garvin (1988) describes several categories of the way in which the concept can be defined. A first perspective is that high quality is identified by customers with the help of their senses, for example by looking to the furniture design in a hotel room, by testing the food, by perceiving the atmosphere of a restaurant. A more technical point of view is represented by definitions based on superior product/service attributes`, or those underlining `conformance to specification` which involves carrying out operations with zero defects. Finally, other definitions are customer-oriented. So, it is recognized that the customer decides what quality means based on the fitness for use from his/her perspective, or on the basis of the best value received for his/her money. When dealing with the topic of qua lity in the hospitality industry, we have to take into consideration some particularities that result from the nature of the hospitality services. The characteristics like intangibility, heterogeneity, simultaneity, perishability (Ioncica, 2000) have an impact on the ways quality is managed. For example, in their well-known study, Parasuraman et al. (1985) conclude that service quality is founded on a comparison between what the customer feels should be offered (expectations) and what is provided (performance). More than that, as relieved by Gronroos (1984), customers do not evaluate only the outcome of the service (the technical quality) but they also take into consideration the service delivery (functional quality). For instance, in a restaurant setting, the delicious food served to the guest is the technical quality of a service; while how the guest is treated and served by the waiter is the functional quality. Both of them give influence to the customer in perceiving the service quality. In the context of our study, we also mention other significant implications. One is the fact that hospitality services are generally consumed at the point of production, which makes inspection of the service output very difficult. This requires the presence of an inspector at the service delivery (Barnes, 1995). The job can be performed by an employee of the hospitality company, but also the customer may be involved in the process. 442 Amfiteatru Economic Quality Management in Services Another significant aspect of a hospitality sale is that it can be define as a human experience for consumers. A visit at a hotel is finished without a product to be taken home; in exchange, the guest will remember the whole experience. Pine and Gilmore (1998) point out that experience is different from service, as different as the last is from goods. They consider that â€Å"an experience occurs when a company intentionally uses services as the stage, and goods as props, to engage individual customers in a way that creates a memorable event. Commodities are fungible, good tangible, services intangible, and experiences memorable. † (Pine and Gilmore, 1998, p. 98). For example, theme restaurants such as Hard Rock Cafe offer food, but this is a prop for entertainment. Also, luxury hotels like Burj-al Arab do not provide accommodation but memorable moments of life for â€Å"guests†. That`s why, in this paper we`ll use the equivalent terms of customers and guests (i. e. buyers of experiences). Finally, hospitality services usually involve the customers` participation in helping to create the service value (Calycomb et al, 2001). The degree and forms of participation are very different. Sometimes, it is low, when all that is required is customer`s physical presence (e. g. attendance at an evening show in a all inclusive resort); other times, it is higher, when guest is part of the service experience (e. g. ctive involvement of the audience at the evening show). In this paper we are interested of the customer`s participation in the area of managing quality. 2. The service quality control function of the customers A function is a general category of activities that a person must perform. For example a managerial function refers to the activities performed by managers to develop and maintain work environments in which people can accomplish goals effectively and effic iently. Fayol first suggested a set of five functions that were widely accepted and are popular until today. In this field of quality management in the hospitality organizations, we think that an important function is performed by customers, namely service quality control function. Some arguments support this opinion. One argument is that the changing dynamics of business has modified the traditional roles of customers who have become active players in the creation of value. As Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2000) put it customers possess knowledge and skills that are useful to companies and they tend to engage themselves in an active dialogue with manufacturers of products and services. So, from the company`s point of view, they become part of an enhanced network from where competence can extracted in the benefit of all parties involved in the value chain. The customers` competence is an essential issue in the hospitality industry where they play key roles in the production and provision of services. Other arguments are provided by the research dealing with the customer`s roles. Much of the existing literature focuses on their roles as sources of income or proxy marketing agents who disseminate information about venues or brands (Lugosi, 2007). However, there is a literature that offers insights towards a customer-firm partnership perspective. LangnickHall (1996) describes five distinct roles for customers: (1) resource, (2) worker (or coproducer), (3) buyer, (4) beneficiary, and (5) outcome of transformation activities. All of them involve different degrees of participation with various possibility of co-opting customer`s competences. For example, as a resource customers supply inputs that â€Å"can include any of the factors of production: capital, natural resources, ideas, or any tangible or Vol XI †¢ Nr. 6 †¢ June 2009 443 Customer Contribution to improving Service Quality in the Hospitality Industry intangible contribution to production activities† (Langnick-Hall, 1996, p. 798). Bitner et al (1997) suggest that consumers may participate in the construction of service experiences in three ways: (1) as productive agencies (e. g. providing inputs); (2) as contributors to quality, satisfaction and value (e . g. patrons of a bar may see it is as partly their responsibility to entertain themselves in the venue); and (3) as competitors (e. g. ustomers choose to provide services for themselves, for example, by purchasing alcohol and consuming it at home). Ford and Heaton (2001) highlight that customers may take responsibility for entertaining fellow consumers, directing the behavior of staff and guests, and providing critical feedback. In this paper we focus on the active involvement of the customers in assessing quality of hospitality services. The hospitality services involve a person-to-person interaction, i. e. an interactive process between service providers and receivers. In this context perceptions and actions of both partners should be taken into consideration when evaluating and managing quality. In this respect, customers` actions may be regarded as components of a genuine quality-control function. The main activities that are included in the quality-control function are presented in figure 1. CLIENTS †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ QUALITY CONTROL FUNCTION On-the-spot control Service failure control Quality consultancy Co-production control FIRMS Figure 1 – The components of the customer quality control function On-the-spot quality control. The hospitality firm`s commitment to service quality is highly dependent on the employees who have tasks of the delivery of the service and who are part of the service through their attitude and behaviors. They are ultimately responsible for the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of customers with the experience they have (Presbury et al. , 2005). Managers spend time to supervise, train, motivate, and reward the employees so that they should produce excellent guest experiences (Ford and Heaton, 2001). However a manager, say, in a hotel cannot be present all the time near each of his/her subordinates. On the other hand, guests in a hotel are very often in contact with frontline employees, talk to them, and see their job performance. So, they have the opportunity to control the employees` activity and react when the last fail to behave as expected. It is also important that customers should have adequate knowledge and experience in evaluating the employee`s job performance and in assesing the quality of the service delivery. Many hotel guests who are familiar with hotel services meet this requirement. In conclusion, many customers do have the willingness and the necessary competence to signal nonconformance to quality standard in the activity of frontline staff. More than that, they can take corrective actions through negative comments, praise, or tips. The same aspects are valid for customer`s interactions with each other. For example, in an all-inclusive resort the guests dance together, play games and make sport, or attend evening 444 Amfiteatru Economic Quality Management in Services shows with extensive participation. In many such situations, customers help each other in case someone fails in performing adequately his/her part in the common hospitality experience. Service failure control. A type of control activity similar to the former is linked with customers' formal complaints and suggestions in case of service failure. Chung and Hoffman (1998) identify three categories of service failures: (1) Service system failure (e. g. cold food, slow service, insect problems, dirty silverware); (2) Failures in implicit or explicit customer requests (e. . food not cooked to order, lost reservations); (3) Unprompted and unsolicited employee actions (e. g. wrong order delivered, incorrect charges, rude behavior of employees). Hospitality services have a great propensity to fail due to their intangible and experiential nature, or the simultaneous production and consumption. The organizations cannot also guarantee error-free in advance due to o ther several factors. One is the high â€Å"human factor† (Susskind, 2002), namely high level of human interaction between frontline staff and consumers, giving rise to variability in service quality. Other ones are uncontrollable external factors (e. g. customer late arrival) or the possible confusion as to what exactly the firms have been promised. On the other side, the today`s restaurant or hotel guests are more demanded and educated, so it is more difficult to meet their expectations (Lee and Sparks, 2007). Quality consultancy. Customers often provide valuable consultation before and after the service experience (Ford and Heaton, 2001) and a significant area of interest concerns the service quality. Generally, this activity consists in providing information by the customer about what he/she likes or dislikes about the guest experience. The typical methods by which the firm collects such information are surveys, mostly in form of comment cards or detailed questionnaires. A comment card encourages guests to provide observations or suggestions about their service experience. The small size, easy distribution, and simplicity are considered sufficient factors to make customers to fill them out. Questionnaires address, inter ales, the business’s physical and service attributes areas (e. . rating the hotel room on a Likert-type scale) so that when analyzing the data managers could get an idea of the relative importance of these attributes to guests’ overall satisfaction. Co-production control. The most important way in which guests can participate in service experiences is that of active co-producers. In this case, the customer behaves as a partial employee who contribute s effort, time, or other resources to either design the service or perform some of the service delivery activities (Caycomb et al, 2001; Lengnick-Hall, 1996). Consequently, quality of a service is dependent on the quality of customer`s resources (e. g. adequate information about his or her needs), contributions, or behaviours (e. g. the way in which he/she interacts with the service provider). Hence, the necessity that quality control should be parted between organization and customer in function of each party contribution to the service design and provision. For example, a prerequisite for service quality is the firm`s understanding of customer`s needs, but also the firm must ensure the clarity of the customer`s tasks, i. . what is expected and how is expected to perform. On the other hand, the quality of customer`s participation depends on his or her ability and motivation to do the work. In addition to co-producing their own experiences, guests are often part of each other’s hospitality experience (e. g. enjoying the meal with other people at a restaurant). Again, the quality of participation can influence positively or 445 Vol X I †¢ Nr. 26 †¢ June 2009 Customer Contribution to improving Service Quality in the Hospitality Industry negatively the experience for others. Successful hospitality organizations look for opportunities to include their guests as a part of each other’s experience in positive ways. 3. The strategy to enhance customer contribution to improving service quality The quality-control function exists in a certain degree in almost all the hospitality interactions. The first step of a successful organization is to recognize the value of customer`s participation. On the other side, the performance of the quality-control function by customers is not an easy task due to a number of risks and limitations in the process. On-the-spot inspection of the frontline personnel`s job performance may give rise to defensive reactions. Sometimes it is possible that employees should not appreciate or accept guests` comments even when they are responsible for the quality failure caused by their poor performance. This has a potential of conflict resulting in hurt feelings and, finally, unhappy customers. The risk is higher if customers have excessively high expectations about the services the hospitality organization has to deliver. This element of confusion has a negative impact on the effectiveness of the quality-control function operation. Another risk does not come from a guests` intervention but from their lack of reaction, when they do not voice their concern. This is a loss for the hospitality organization because the management receives no more a qualified help of the experienced customers who possess the competence to supplement its effort of improving service quality. Concerning service failure, customers` typical reactions are exiting silently and never to return, continuing to patronize the establishment despite their dissatisfaction (but they will spread a negative word-of-mouth), or voicing their complaints to the operator (Kim et al, 2009; Susskind, 2002). Customer`s complaint is the most valuable reaction because it can give rise to prompt corrective actions of the service provider, such as fixing product and service delivery problems. The difficulty with the customer`s function of quality consultant is represented by the fact that he/she must accomplish two basic condition. First, he or she must possess adequate knowledge and experience. Second, he or she has to possess the willingness to participate in activities that involve spending time. Besides these aspects, a problem resides even in the methods by which the hospitality organization collects information from customers. Most of them are quantitative data – such as rates of customer`s perceptions as a point on a scale – provided by questionnaires or comments cards. But these methods might not help the hospitality organizations to obtain insights on what guests are thinking about the quality of the service experience. For example, as Pullman at al. (2005) point out, if hotel guests rate their perception of employee friendliness as 7 points out of 10 points, instead of 8 points, it is not very clear what this difference in perception means. Finally, co-production implies the division – in various proportions – of the hospitality service provision between staff and guests. This introduces some uncertainty in the system in comparison with the situation when only trained and motivated employees do the entire job. Firstly, customers may have poor abilities to do their work. Secondly, some of them may prefer not to act as co- producers (e. g. they prefer to be served by waiters instead of preparing, say, salad by themselves). 446 Amfiteatru Economic Quality Management in Services These difficulties highlight a number of issues that are important to be taken into consideration. Consequently, we think that a strategy to enhance customer contribution to improving hospitality service quality has to include five courses of action: †¢ Increasing the customer`s knowledge of the firm`s quality standards; †¢ Encouraging customers to voice their concerns; †¢ Training customers (and employees) to manage the interpersonal encounter; †¢ Motivating customers to involve in performing the quality-control function; †¢ Training customers about their tasks in co-production. Increasing the customer`s knowledge of the firm`s quality standards. Customers have to be very familiar with the quality standards of a service in order to perform effectively the quality-control function. However, the hospitality organization has a role to play by helping customers to know better its performance standards and relevant rules, regulations, policies, and procedures. Advertising is a means by which firm can express its value proposition but also other communication methods are adequate. For example, the manager making the table rounds at a restaurant and the hotel manager talking with a guest have the opportunity to clarify such issues. Encouraging customers to voice their concerns. A dissatisfied or upset guest who simply walks quietly away is an inconvenient situation for the hospitality organization not only because it loses one customer or more customers (taking into account the negative word-ofmouth communication). The firm loses valuable information about a service failure. From another point of view failing in expressing a feedback, the guest abandons his/her role of quality-controller. The organization must prevent it, for example trough clearly inviting customers to express their opinion about the quality of the service experience, explaining how a complaint should be lodged, or simply how to give feedback. In case of service failure, adequate service recovery (i. e. actions addressing the customer complaint) can restore customer satisfaction (Kim et al. , 2009). A distinct issue is that of the customer`s involvement as a quality consultant. The firm may increase the effectiveness of the consultancy process through collecting not only quantitative data but encouraging customers to provide a more detailed feedback. For example, a section can be included on the comments cards asking open questions. Thus, the customer is allowed and encouraged to explain good or bad incidents, or to mention employees and their actions that have made pleasant or problematic the service experience. Training customers (and employees) to manage the interpersonal encounter. Making suggestions to the employee who fails in observing the quality standards requires appropriate behaviors of the both parties in the encounter. This is even more significant in case of complaints. In terms of transactional analysis, the customer who indentifies a service failure and makes a critical comment or lodge a complaint is in the psychological ego state of â€Å"Parent†, using evaluative, critical, disapproving behaviors. Usually, this ego state activates another one, the â€Å"Child† ego state, involving confronting responses, anxiety, blaming others, anger. Such a transaction is not productive at all because it gives rise to defensive (i. e. aggressive or passive) attitudes. Generally, the most effective human relationships and performance come from the â€Å"Adult† ego state. Hospitality organizations must encourage and help the customer to adopt an Adult behavior which involves a rational approach of the case, providing and collecting clear and relevant information, or making Vol XI †¢ Nr. 26 †¢ June 2009 447 Customer Contribution to improving Service Quality in the Hospitality Industry claims with calm behaviors. The same is valid for employees who must be trained to always react in a friendly manner to customer`s observations and complaints. Motivating customers to involve in performing the quality-control function. Customers must be motivated to engage in performing the quality-control function. A motivator for undertaking the role of on-the-spot controller can be the fact that the guest feels qualified to do it and that he/she has paid for the service. But, most of them may prefer not to assume additional burdens upon them. This is a critical aspect in performing quality consultancy tasks, or in co-participation. Because hotel guests may not accept to spend time to answer open questions unless there are some incentives to be received, the management may make some promisses like free dessert if the customer will become a â€Å"consultant† in a program of improving quality. Being member in a focus group involves sometimes the remuneration of the participants. Finally, customers` motivation to the quality of co-participation is a complex issue because of the great variety of situations and degree of involvements. An interesting contribution to the topic has been made by Schneider and Bowen (1995), who has identified several possible incentives for co-production: (a) productivity increases that result in lower prices, (b) increased self-esteem because of increased control, (c) more discretion and opportunities to make choices, (d) shorter waiting times, and (e) greater customization (cited in Langnick-Hall, 1996). It is the duty of the organization to define appropriate ways to motivate its own co-producers. Training customers about their tasks in co-production. Co-production involves special care because of the degree of uncertainty it introduces in hospitality service provision. To enhance service quality it is essential that customers should know what and how they are expected to perform their tasks. Hospitality organizations have several responsibilities. First of all, they must identify suitable services for co-participation and the degree of customer`s involvement in designing and providing the service. Then, it is necessary a careful selection of the customers who are able and willing to become co-participant in service provision (Do they have the necessary skills? Is the experience too dangerous? Is this participation in accordance with their expectation? ). Finally, customers must be trained so that they should understand their specific roles and contributions to co-production. In this respect, the organization may receive a valuable aid from other guests who are co-participants and who can help with training the `colleagues` to perform better. But even in this case, the organization has a responsibility to look for opportunities to â€Å"include their guests as a part of each other`s experience in a positive way† (Ford and Heaton, 2001, p. 1). Conclusions The study examines the complex interactions between hospitality firms and their customers and from the perspective of the former`s involvement in the organization`s quality management. The customers` role is quite extended in this area and has multiple facets. Thus, based on relevant international literature, the first research question receives the answer that customers may contribu te to improving hospitality service quality through accomplishing on-the-spot control, service failure control, consultancy, and co-production control. A quality control function is proposed to summarize and describe these activities. The value of the theoretical model resides in providing a unitary view of some actions of customers that seem to be disparate but have the same end of addressing service quality issues. So, the firm`s managers may go further from simply recognizing the value of 448 Amfiteatru Economic Quality Management in Services customer`s commitment to quality assessment and control and this conceptual framework may help with deepening their understanding of these processes. Also, the study put into light the obstacles hindering the performance of the above mentioned function. Following this line of reasoning, several courses of actions are suggested to be adopted by the hospitality organizations to enhance customers` contribution to managing service quality, which addresses the second research question. The findings have significant implications for shaping a strategy to enhance customer contribution to improving hospitality service quality. The core of this strategy is constituted by intensifying the two-way communication between the two parties involved in the hospitality service experience. On one side, transmiting information about the firm`s quality standards may eliminate customer`s possible confusion as to what exactly the firms have been promised. On the other side, the firm has to encourage customers to express their concerns, to give feedback, to lodge complaints when necessary, to communicate observations and suggestions about the quality of service experiences. Finally, an important aspect is also the perspective of the Transactional Analysis, underlining the effectiveness of objective and problem-oriented Adult-Adult relationships between customers and hospitality firm`s employees. Further research can be developed on the basis of the theoretical model and strategy presented in this paper, aiming to testing the customer quality control function and identifying good practice of its performance. References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Barnes, D. , Managing operations, The Open University, Milton Keynes, 1995 Bolwijn, P. 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