ACT What Should You Do

Low GPA but High SAT/ACT What Should You Do SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Say you have done the near-impossible, and gotten an amazing SAT score of 2200 or higher or an ACT score of 32 or higher. Many high school students across the country are probably jealous of you! But what if your GPA is much lower – a 3.0, or even a 2.0? Do you still have a shot at top colleges? What will admissions officers think about you? Read on to find out what to do with a low GPA, high SAT/ACT score application. That high score could be worth a lot more than you think! The Good News Your high SAT/ACT score proves your academic abilities and intellectual aptitude. While it’s possible to have a high GPA without being super smart (since some schools inflate GPAs), it’s almost impossible to get a high SAT/ACT score if you don’t have significant intellectual ability. Colleges know this. Since the SAT and ACT are national, standardized tests, if you do well on them you'll stack up very favorably compared with the entire applicant pool. For example, if you have a 34 ACT, that means you scored higher than 99% of the country. Having a 4.0 GPA, on the other hand, doesn’t allow colleges to easily compare you to other students. This is because grading scales and class difficulty varies among high schools. One other thing to keep in mind is that applying to schools where your SAT/ACT score is above their average admitted student score raises your odds of admission because your score will raise the schools' averages. Remember, colleges are also trying to maximize their score profiles, and getting students with higher SAT/ACT scores to apply can make them look good. The Bad News Your transcript and GPA are very important, especially for competitive schools. Stanford says on their admissions website, â€Å"We expect you to challenge yourself throughout high school and to do very well. The most important credential that enables us to evaluate your academic record is the high school transcript.† Why is the transcript – including your GPA – so important? Because your GPA shows your performance over a long period of time, as well as your ability to succeed in tough classes. This is important to help colleges decide if you will be able to succeed in their classes. If you’re a junior or senior with a low GPA, you don’t have a lot of time to raise it before you turn in your college applications. So what can you do? We will tell you what colleges might think about your low GPA and high ACT/SAT combination, questions they will have, and tips for you based on what your exact circumstances are. How Low Is Low? Of course, just how low your GPA is will affect your odds of admission. There is a huge difference between a 3.5, which would be considered low at selective colleges but well within range at many state schools, and a 2.0, which is considered low at most colleges. Also make sure you're not being hard on yourself... you may think your 3.9 GPA is low, but most colleges won't. Find out what the admitted student GPA range is at your target schools. You can do this by searching â€Å"[Name of College/University] Average GPA Admission† or â€Å"[Name of College/University] Admission Requirements.† If your GPA is just out of range, your high SAT/ACT score will likely make up for your GPA, especially if the rest of your application is strong. But if your GPA is far below their range, it will be especially important to use your application to explain why your GPA is low. So if you’re reaching for a tough college, or have a way out-of-range GPA, read on to find out what to do! What Do Colleges Think of Your High SAT/ACT and Low GPA? If you have a high SAT/ACT score but low GPA, admissions officers will assume your academic potential is high – your SAT/ACT score shows that – but that your motivation is low, hence your low GPA. A â€Å"smart slacker† could be the first thing that comes to mind when an admissions officer reads your file. So what you have to do is prove that assumption wrong. Whether you have personal circumstances leading to a low GPA, a demanding extracurricular, or other academic preparation outside of high school classes, your goal is to show that not only are you smart – but you can also work hard and do well in college. We will go through a series of scenarios, guided by the main questions admissions officers will be asking, about why your GPA is low and what it means. For each scenario, we have some specific advice, but read through all of them as your situation is likely unique and combines multiple scenarios. Why Is Your GPA Low? This is the big question admissions officers will have when they see your application. This is the question your application has to satisfyingly answer, especially if you want a shot at top colleges. We will explore the two circumstances most likely to excuse a low GPA. Don’t worry if these don’t apply to you – we have plenty more advice coming! Scenario 1: Extenuating Circumstances If you have serious extenuating circumstances like a medical condition or family crisis, definitely explain them on your application. This would fit in the â€Å"extra information† box for sure, but it could also be good material for your personal statement. For example, if you have a low GPA because your family had financial troubles, both of your parents started working long hours, and you became the primary caretaker for younger siblings and didn’t have time for homework, that should definitely be on your application as part of your story. Or if your grades suffered due to a medical condition, you should definitely make that known on your application. In short, if you had serious outside circumstances that affected your grades, make sure you explain them thoroughly on your application. You want to make sure colleges know that, in your case, your GPA wasn’t entirely in your control. You should highlight academic interests and classes you did do well in, but the explanation of your circumstances will be the best way to help admissions officers evaluate your file fairly. Scenario 2: You Spent Tons of Time on an Extracurricular If you spend a lot of time on an extracurricular – say you’re a debater who’s been to nationals or an award-winning flute player – at the expense of classes, it won’t excuse a low GPA, but it will improve your chances. In addition to top scores and high GPAs, colleges are also looking for exceptionally talented students in specific fields. If you have an exceptional ability, it could overcome a low GPA, especially with your high ACT/SAT score. Any extracurriculars done at the national level will look especially good. Do neither of these situations apply to you? Keep reading. If you've played Carnegie Hall, colleges will probably be fairly forgiving about that C in Biology... What Kinds of Classes Were You Taking? A low GPA in hard classes will look better than a low GPA in easier ones. You should think about the pattern of grades you received and why you got low grades where you did. College admissions officers will be trying to figure out this pattern too, so make it easier for them and explain whatever pattern you have. For example†¦ Scenario 3: You Took Hard Classes and Got a Low GPA Did you overload yourself with too many hard courses and struggle to keep up? In your essay, you could talk about what you learned from taking on too much at a time and how you will be more careful and focused in college. Since you were in those hard classes, you should also highlight what you learned and any intellectual development you experienced. For example, even if you got a low grade in AP Biology, maybe taking it convinced you that you want to explore pre-med courses in college and so you began volunteering at a local hospital or signed up for a medical anatomy class. That kind of journey would show colleges that you have serious interests, and even if your grades aren’t high, you are capable of doing hard work and improving. Scenario 4: You Took Easy Classes and Got a Low GPA Were you uninterested by easy classes at your school, and ended up slacking off? This will be a harder sell, but if you were in mostly regular classes (not honors or AP or IB) and got a low GPA, you could argue you simply weren’t interested by your classes and had a hard time keeping up with menial assignments, but did have intellectual pursuits in your free time. The above argument will be more compelling if you went to a high school without very many honors, AP, or IB options. Your application would also be strengthened if you have a career goal in mind and do well in certain classes related to it. For example, if you want to be a lawyer and manage to pull decent grades in English and History, it could help convince admissions officers that despite your slacking in other classes, you will be able to pull together and focus on your major in college. Hint: video games don't count as an intellectual pursuit (unless you design them). What’s Your Grade Trend? While a high GPA is important, so is an overall trend of improved grades or harder classes year to year. Whether you have a rising grade trend or a sinking one, read on to learn what it means and how it affects your applications. Scenario 5: You Started With Low Grades but Improved If you’re reading this as a sophomore or junior, work to improve your grades starting now. You won’t be able to totally fix your GPA, but you will be able to show a story of improvement, which can be just as important. A pattern of improved grades shows that you fixed issues you had with time management and have gotten better at handling assignments and tests. This growth is important because it shows admissions officers you can continue to grow and improve in college. This will look especially good if you have been succeeding in honors, AP, or IB classes later in your high school career, as it suggests you are learning the skills needed to succeed in college. If you have this pattern on your transcript, definitely spend some time on your application explaining why you struggled at the beginning of high school, and what caused you to improve your grades. Along with a high ACT/SAT score, an improved GPA can convince colleges you are academically prepared. Scenario 6: You Started With High Grades but They Dropped If you started with great grades and your GPA has fallen, you’ll have to explain why. Took on too many hard classes? You became overly involved in a sport or extracurricular? Illness in the family? It will also be especially important to prove you have other academic or intellectual interests, like we will discuss below. A lowering grade trend is more worrisome to collegesbecause it suggests you had a hard time coping with harder classes later in high school, or even that you’ve burned yourself out before college. You will have to prove that you have strong academic interests and are capable of doing well, despite your trend of sinking grades. One way to do this is to take a few Honors, AP or IB classes senior year and make sure you do well in them. Colleges will see a mid-year grade report, so if they see that you have taken on harder classes and are doing better, that will reassure them that you are capable of doing well in college courses. Another way to reassure colleges is with SAT Subject Tests. Some colleges require them for admission, some don’t, but nearly all will consider them. Getting high SAT subject tests scores will help convince admissions officers that you’re academically capable in certain subjects. If you haven’t taken any SAT Subject Tests yet, consider it – many students take them late in the game (even in Senior fall). If you are confident of your ability on tests, and you have even a bit of time to devote to studying, a high SAT subject score or two could help prove your ability in academic subjectsand help overshadow your GPA. If your GPA trend looks like this, you have some explaining to do... Can You Prove Your Academic Preparation in a Different Way? If your GPA is low and you don’t have a good reason for it, your task will be to prove to colleges you are still academically prepared, despite your low GPA. Your high ACT/SAT score is the first step towards proving yourself, but also consider other ways you can show your smarts†¦ Scenario 7: You Have One Weak Subject Is there a certain subject you struggle in? Is your GPA low because you have Ds in math but As and Bs everywhere else? If so, you should highlight your strengths in other subjects. For example, If you have great grades in English classes, highlight that on your application and talk about what draws you to English and why you enjoy it. Show that you have strong intellectual interests in your best subjects, which you can do through your personal statement or college supplements on the Common App. If you have done outside work or an extracurricular related to these classes, even better. For example, if you’re great at English and history and spend time outside of class in Mock Trial, you can talk about how your interest in law drives you to do well in history and English. This won’t totally excuse low math grades you might have, but it will show colleges you have strong academic interests. Help colleges focus on the positive! Scenario 8: You Took and Passed AP or IB Exams Did you take and pass AP or IB exams? For example, even if you got Cs all year in World History but passed the test with a 4, that at least proves you mastered most of the material. If this is the case for you, highlight exams you did well on and talk about your intellectual interest in those subjects. You could address why you didn’t do well in the classes in the â€Å"extra information† box, but focus on explaining your academic interests and how you want to continue pursuing them in college in the personal statement. Remember, you want to demonstrate your academic abilities to colleges. A passing AP/IB score is an important piece of evidence, so follow it up with an essay further explaining your interests! Scenario 9: You Took Outside Enrichment Classes Whether you attended an academic summer camp or took an extra course or two at a community college, definitely put that information on your application. It won't make up for your low grades, but it will show colleges that you are serious about your intellectual pursuits and made time outside of school for learning. This can be especially helpful if you get an additional letter of recommendation from a professor or instructor you worked with. Scenario 10: You Have Academic Interests Outside of School So your GPA is low, but do you do things like read War and Peace in your spare time? Have you learned a coding language on your own and designed your own app? If you can’t show your academic preparation through any high course grades or AP/IB exam results, find a way to include outside academic interests in your application. If you’ve attended Hackathons or entered writing contests, fit that into your application under extracurriculars. This kind of outside interest could be great material for a personal statement as well. Basically, if you have academic preparation or interests that are not going to show up on your transcript, make sure they show up on your application! It will be reassuring to admissions officers to see you have outside intellectual pursuits. Writing code is a more acceptable excuse for slacking off in Algebra than watching television... How Can You Compensate With the Rest of Your Application? College applications are holistic, meaning they consider the candidate as a whole. GPA is just one factor. While it’s an important factor, if everything else on your application is strong you can improve your chances of admission. Having a high SAT/ACT score is your big advantage because you won’t be weeded out immediately based on your score. Read on to see how to maximize the other categories. Personal Statement Your essay is another opportunity to prove yourself. If you had significant extenuating circumstances, you could talk about them here. If you were bored and slacked off, use the essay as a space to explain an intellectual interest or hobby to offset your low GPA. No matter what you write about, make sure your essay is well-written and presents your unique voice. Remember – you no longer have control over your GPA, but you have complete control over your essay and how it presents you. Use it wisely! Extracurriculars Do you have any other extracurriculars that speak to intellectual aptitude? Math competitions, Model United Nations, writing for the school newspaper – these are the kinds of extracurriculars that support academic interests. If you have them, definitely highlight them. Extracurriculars in the arts – from musical instruments to drawing to theater – are also great because they speak to interests outside of the classroom. You should also talk about your involvement in sports, since that excelling in them requires both discipline and teamwork skills. In short, you should highlight any extracurricular activity you have, even if you don’t think it’s significant. Extracurriculars can help show colleges you have outside interests, discipline, and the ability to work with others. These are all important factors, but can also help make up for a low GPA. Teacher Recommendations For your letters of recommendation, find teachers who can either speak to your personal circumstances or believe in your academic potential. You want to make sure your recommendations are supporting evidence for your application, not contradicting information. For example, if your GPA is low due to an illness, find a teacher who can speak to your perseverance when you were sick, or how hard you worked once your condition improved. If you don’t have extenuating circumstances like that, make sure you find teachers who have great, specific things to say about you and your academic potential. Maybe you have an English teacher who always loved your essays or a math teacher who often called you to the front to explain problems on the board. Find teachers who recognize your abilities and would write you a kind letter. Don't get a teacher to write a letter just because they taught you in a hard subject. If a recommender doesn't have specific things to say about you, the letter won't help your application. If you’re not sure you can get an amazing recommendation from a teacher, many colleges allow an additional letter to be submitted, from someone like a coach or boss. Find a third person who you know will speak very highly of you and use them for that third letter. Where Are You Applying? Your odds of admission will also depend on where you’re applying. For example, say you have a 2360 SAT but a 2.7 GPA. While your SAT would make you competitive for the Ivy League, it will be harder to overcome your low GPA at highly competitive schools. They simply have too many applicants with both high test scoresand high GPAs to admit many people with a serious deficiency in either. That 2360 alone won't get you into Harvard... However, if you apply to less competitive schools where your SAT is far above their 25-75 percentile ranges, you would actually be quite a desirable candidate since your SAT score would raise their averages. (The 25-75 ranges are the score ranges that the middle 50 percent of colleges’ accepted students fall in. For example, a 25-75 range of 24-30 ACT means that 25% of applicants scored lower than a 24, 25% scored higher than 30, and the middle 50% were between 24 and 30.) Furthermore, a less competitive school will be more forgiving of a weak spot on your application, in this case your GPA, as opposed to a very selective school. As a general rule, it’s important to apply to a range of colleges. Don't just apply to all eight Ivy Leagues hoping that one will let you in. Apply to a few schools that are reaches given your GPA and ACT/SAT combo, a few that are safe targets, and a few that you think you will definitely get into, like state or community colleges. You want to make sure you have some choices when it’s time to decide which college you’ll attend. What’s Next? Learn about automatic scholarships for SAT/ACT scores. While colleges usually factor in GPA or Class Rank, see how far your high test score can get you. Want to use SAT Subject Tests to raise your chances of admission? Learn which colleges require SAT Subject Tests for admission. Check out our SAT/ACT Percentile rankings guides to see just how much your high score stands out. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points?We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Punctuation with Conjunctions

Punctuation with Conjunctions Punctuation with Conjunctions Punctuation with Conjunctions By Mark Nichol The rules for punctuating in proximity to simple coordinating conjunctions (and, but, and or) are straightforward, but writers can become confused about when and where to put a comma or other punctuation. Sentences that illustrate the basics, and a discussion of each, follow. When a conjunction links an independent clause (one that could stand on its own as a sentence) with a dependent clause (one that would form an incomplete sentence), omit internal punctuation: â€Å"She went to the pool and took a swim,† or â€Å"She went to the pool but did not swim.† (â€Å"She went to the pool† is an independent clause; â€Å"took a swim† and â€Å"did not swim† are dependent.) When a conjunction links two independent clauses, precede it with a comma: â€Å"She went to the pool, and then she took a swim,† or â€Å"She went to the pool, but she did not swim.† (â€Å"Then she took a swim† and â€Å"she did not swim† are independent clauses.) The comma may be omitted for a very short compound sentence such as â€Å"She swam and then she ate†; longer sentences, such as the examples given earlier in this paragraph, are often written without internal punctuation, but doing so is not recommended, and for consistency, even brief sentences with two independent clauses should include a comma. A comma should not follow a conjunction unless it is the first of two commas framing a parenthetical phrase, as in â€Å"She went to the pool and, soothed by the cool water, took a swim† and â€Å"She went to the pool but, chilled by the cold water, did not swim.† (Said another way, don’t precede a verb with a comma unless the comma closes a parenthetical.) These commas bracket â€Å"soothed by the cool water† and â€Å"chilled by the cold water,† respectively, which, when omitted, leave the sentences â€Å"She went to the pool and took a swim† and â€Å"She went to the pool but did not swim,† which do not require internal punctuation. A pair of em dashes or parentheses can take the place of the two commas: When the parenthesis is abrupt or provocative, use em dashes, as in â€Å"She went to the pool and- undeterred by the piranhas- took a swim.† When the interruption is subtle or offered as an aside, use parentheses, as in â€Å"She went to the pool and (though she felt tired) took a swim.† Although older literature, especially that written in British English, can be found that employs both a semicolon and a conjunction to provide a stronger contrast between two independent clauses (â€Å"She went to the pool; but she did not swim†), this is now considered incorrect, because the semicolon and the conjunction are redundant to each other. If you use a semicolon, the sentence should be rendered as follows: â€Å"She went to the pool; she did not swim.† Use of a comma in place of a semicolon in such a sentence is incorrect; this error is called a comma splice. Sentences in which or connects clauses should follow the same guidelines: â€Å"She went to the pool or the beach,† â€Å"She went to the pool, or she went to the beach,† â€Å"She went to the pool or, depending on the weather, the beach.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Writing Prompts 101Confusing "Passed" with "Past"Running Errands and Doing Chores

Advantages and Limitations of Traditional Research and Action Research Essay - 1

Advantages and Limitations of Traditional Research and Action Research - Essay Example This is very necessary as teachers strive to align the learning experience with technological evolution in the digital era. The use of technology standards (NETS) for teachers would be very appropriate for an action research study. This is on the grounds that one of the center standards of NETS is that instructors ought to have the capacity to outline, create, and evaluate genuine learning and educating encounters. Subsequently, assessments that join contemporary mechanical devices and assets is valuable (Smaldino, Lowther, & Russell, 2012). Thus, the results of an action research study will provide teachers with invaluable insight on planning and adjust the applicable learning encounters that use computerized assets and devices in advancing understudy innovativeness and learning. It will also enable the teachers to develop technology-based learning background (Smaldino, Lowther & Russell, 2012). Students will also be enabled to cope with their education skill and assess their progress. The study will also dwell on how teachers can focus on different learning activities. Finally, a research on the techno logy standards will enlighten teachers on ways of giving their understudies changed and different summative and developmental evaluations. These are the one adjusted to mechanical and substance gauges, and apply the ensuing data to educate the showing and learning methodology. One of the external decisions that greatly affected my classroom practice was the introduction of high stakes tests, as well as a grading policy by the head of the department. The directive stipulated that teachers were expected to conform to standardized rubric assessment criteria in all subjects. I considered this decision as inappropriate and one that would affect teaching practice in a negative way.

Should children or spouses withhold life support to loved ones when it Essay

Should children or spouses withhold life support to loved ones when it is evident that the loved one will never get better or en - Essay Example When family members find themselves in the throes of deciding whether or not to pull their loved one off of life support, instead of fully considering reason and the facts, they prefer to hold on to the hope that their loved one will get better over time. They tend to allow themselves to be controlled by questions of ‘what if’, feeling that it will always be too soon to make the decision with the hopes that maybe all their loved one needs is just a little more time. Nowadays, doctors and neurologists are able to determine the outcome of the patient in regard to quality of life, but family members often throw aside the facts and decide on just to wait and hope. There are others that also believe that it would be considered murder to pull their family members off of life support, a grueling concept that is argued on both sides. The line between ethical and unethical becomes very thin in a situation such as this. Nevertheless, there are some family members that would simply rather not see their loved one barely alive and unable to ever enjoy life. To them, there is no purpose to life when life cannot be properly enjoyed. This, perhaps, is the best way to look a situation of this nature. If a person is on life support without the hope of getting better or being able to enjoy their life, it would be more ethical to not allow them to continue to suffer, because suffering is all that they are doing. Family members are sometimes inclined to keep their loved ones on life support without considering how that person will actually benefit from it, if they can benefit from it at all. â€Å"Once a person reaches a state of vegetation, it takes a miracle for them to come out of it (Freeman, pg. 92)†. Many people require therapy, and even these patients do not go on to lead normal, productive lives. Parts of their brain are still unable to function to let them be aware of their surroundings. When it comes to contemplating whether or not to keep a person on life support, the case of Terri Schiavo is often considered. In 1990, Schiavo collapsed in her home from cardiac arrest, suffering massive brain damage; after a few months in the hospital, she was considered to be in a vegetative state, completely unaware of anything around her, even though she would occasionally respond to certain stimuli. She remained on life support for a few years, undergoing various therapies with the hope that she could be brought back to a state of awareness. Eight years later, when there was no sign or hope of improvement, her husband appealed to have her feeding tube removed, which would ultimately end her life. Schiavo’s estranged parents did not agree with this, and a battle ensued. The argument on the behalf of Schiavo’s parents was that Schiavo was still conscious, while her husband’s argument was that she was unaware of anything going on and she never would come out of this state. It was pointless to keep her alive because she woul d never be able to enjoy life. Indeed, no other option would exist for her except to be bedridden and attached to tubes to keep her alive. This was another

John Stuart Mill And Liberalism Essay Example for Free

John Stuart Mill And Liberalism Essay John Stuart Mill (May 20, 1806, Pentonville, England – May 8, 1873, Avignon, France) was one of the greatest and most influential liberal thinkers of the XIX century and also a famous political economist and a Liberal Member of Parliament from 1865 to 1868 (Plank). As a prominent thinker, Mill introduced a new doctrine of liberty and can be considered as a first-rate liberal and a second-rate utilitarian (Reeves). John Stuart Mill (Source: httpwww. liberalinternational. orgeditorial. aspia_id=685) Conceived for the first time as a short essay in 1854, Mill’s famous and enormously influential book On Liberty that he published in 1859 is considered one of the founding philosophical works of classical liberalism and also one of the most fundamental texts on the concept of liberty. In the book which concerns social and civil liberty, the philosopher explores the nature of the power that society can legitimately exercise over individuals, and advocates their moral and economic freedom from the state (John Stuart Mill; John Stuart Mill: Political Philosopher). The most important point and basis for liberty made by Mill in his book is that â€Å"Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign†. Individuals exercise their sovereignty both through their judgment and actions. The main ideas that Mill explains in his On Liberty could be grouped into the following sections. 1. Mill opens his treatise by pointing out that the government is a â€Å"dangerous weapon† if it is not appropriately controlled and if its authority is not limited by the liberty of the citizens. In this way, Mill suggests, citizens will be ruled by a government whose rule is guaranteed against oppression and tyranny. However, at a given stage society develops into democracy â€Å"Page # 2† which does not fear tyranny any longer but where the majority can easily criminalize or marginalize a minority group of society and encroach on their rights or liberty. Mill calls it the â€Å"tyranny of the majority† and believes it is much worse than the tyranny of government because it is easier for individuals to be protected from a tyrant than â€Å"against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling†. He saw a danger of the old repression of despotic rulers being replaced by â€Å"despotism of custom†. Rules of conduct, thus, would be based on the majority opinion and there would be no protection in law against its tyranny (John Stuart Mill). He emphasizes that social tyranny is the greater danger than political tyranny for modern nations such as Britain (Heydt). As in Mill’s view the prevailing opinions within society are not necessarily the correct opinions on the one hand, and an individual has the right to choose whatever preference for his moral beliefs on the other hand, Mill concludes that this situation is wrong and unjust. In this case, individuals will be harmed, then their sovereignty over themselves will be impaired (John Stuart Mill). 2. Mill argues for a need of rational principle that would govern individuals within society, and thus introduces and explains his so-called harm principle which is supposed to regulate the limits of intervention in an individual’s actions. Individuals can act as they wish as long as their actions do not harm other individuals. Society should not intervene if the action affects only the individuals that undertake it even though these individuals are harming themselves. In Mill’s view, in a civilized community society has the right to legitimately exercise power over any individual against his will only in order to prevent harm to others. However, Mill distinguishes two categories of â€Å"harms†. If an individual fails to pay taxes, rescue another drowning individual, or appear in court to give evidence, then these acts (which he calls acts of omission) should be qualified as harmful and may be regulated. But if individuals give their consent to take risks without fraud or force, for example, by accepting unsafe employment offered by others, this is not considered as harming them (acts of commission). â€Å"Page # 3† In this case, society is not allowed to intervene except when individuals sell themselves into slavery (John Stuart Mill). 3. Children can’t take care of themselves and may instead harm themselves unintentionally. That is why, Mill explains, they do not have sovereignty over themselves, the harm principle can’t be applicable in this case and society is allowed to interfere with them against their will. Barbarians fall into this category, too. Mill states that barbarians can’t be sovereign over themselves and that despotism over them may be justified in cases when the end result is the improvement of their life. But as soon as they become more civilized and have the capability to decide for themselves, they must be given liberty from the government and its tyranny. Good examples of this, Mill illustrates, are Charlemagne and Akbar the Great who compassionately controlled and â€Å"helped† barbarian nations better manage their lives (John Stuart Mill). 4. According to Mill, human liberty includes several components without which individuals can’t be truly free: †¢ Individuals are free to think as they wish, and to feel as they do (the freedom to opinion and of speech). Mills argues that the freedom of speech is necessary for social progress because allowing people to freely express their opinions and ideas, even if they are false, is useful for two reasons. First, in an open exchange of ideas individuals are likely to understand that some of their beliefs may be erroneous and will thus abandon them. Second, in the process of debate individuals reaffirm their beliefs and prevent them from turning into mere dogma. Mill believes that it is important for individuals to understand why their beliefs are true (John Stuart Mill). †¢ Individuals are free to pursue tastes however â€Å"immoral† they may be considered by others so long as they are not harmful to others (John Stuart Mill). â€Å"Page # 4† †¢ Individuals are free to meet with other individuals (the freedom of assembly) (John Stuart Mill). 5. Mill believes that religion should be criticized in the same way as are other systems of thought regardless of the offence that such criticism may cause. One of main purposes which governed Mill’s philosophical endeavours all his life was his commitment to replace Christianity with a Religion of Humanity (Carey). 6. Mill’s liberal ideas made him an advocate of the development of efficient local government and associations and he fiercely opposed central control. He argued for the parents’ obligation to educate their children but disapproved of a central education system run by the state (John Stuart Mill). In what concerns individual freedoms, it is quite important to understand that Mill gives the specific justifications for them because he believes they will promote the progress of civilization and will be good for society. Mill does not regard liberty as a standard of value and does not mention any natural rights of individuals in his discussions. Instead he is mainly concerned with the utility of rights and freedoms of individuals for the social progress (John Stuart Mill; John Stuart Mill: Political Philosopher). Many critics point out that Mill underestimated the important role of social order and custom as a source of security or freedom. His liberalism is also weakened in the eyes of other critics who do not share his extremely optimistic view of human nature. They are particularly pessimistic about his rosy belief that it is humans’ conditioned engagement in a continuous attempt to achieve personal development that results in the existence of diverse personalities and viewpoints (Reeves). Mill is also often criticised for justifying the right of one developed nation to exercise despotism over other underdeveloped nations (or â€Å"barbarians† as he calls them) on the grounds that it brings them the benefits and advantages of higher civilization (John Stuart Mill and Liberal â€Å"Page # 5† Imperialism). Despite criticism, the remarkable greatness of Mill lies in his readiness and willingness to combine both his thoughts and actions. He was a progressive philosopher who was ready to go to jail for his beliefs. It is not surprising then that six years after he published his great book On Liberty, he decided to stand for parliament in order to better implement his beliefs. His most known initiatives include the introduction of an amendment to the Reform bill in a successful attempt to give women equal voting rights; his relentless pursuit of Governor Edward Eyre for having brutally suppressing an uprising in Jamaica; his fierce opposition to the suspension of habeas corpus in Ireland; his successful campaign against an attempt to prohibit demonstrations or meetings in public parks, and many others (Reeves). By and large, Mill’s career as a liberal politician could be regarded as a relative failure. His performance was usually acclaimed, but he often found himself in opposition to the aims and wishes of his electors. He was quite reluctant to compromise with his own principles just to get support of his electorate, and this resulted in his failure to be re-elected in 1868 (John Stuart Mill: Political Philosopher). 200 years after his birth, Mill’s liberalism is still relevant(Source: http://www. prospect-magazine. co. uk/article_details. php? id=7439) Mills was aware that On Liberty as well as many others of his philosophical works raised several important problems, such as the tyranny of â€Å"uniformity in opinion and practice† which would be more faced future generations than were by his own and that some critics believed that these problems were exaggerated because they were looking more at contemporary facts than at existing tendencies (Reeves). It may be argued that the issues that Mill was interested in and consistently dealt with in his time are without a doubt still relevant and important today (Plank). BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. Carey, G. W. The Authoritarian Secularism of John Stuart Mill. Retrieved March 14, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://www. nhinet. org/carey15-1. pdf 2. Heydt, C. John Stuart Mill: Overview. Retrieved March 14, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://www. iep. utm. edu/m/milljs. htm 3. John Stuart Mill. Retrieved March 14, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill 4. John Stuart Mill and Liberal Imperialism. Retrieved March 14, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://www. antiwar. com/stromberg/s051802. html 5. John Stuart Mill: Political Philosopher. Retrieved March 14, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://www. john-mill. com/ 6. Plank, B. John Stuart Mill. Retrieved March 14, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://www. liberal-international. org/editorial. asp? ia_id=685 7. Reeves, R. John Stuart Mill. Retrieved March 14, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://www. prospect-magazine. co. uk/article_details. php? id=7439

The Feminine Mystique and the Organization Man Essay -- essays researc

For many years society has embraced the idea that the difference between men and women were biologically determined. Others see not only the physical but also the social, emotional and intellectual differences between males and females. Though through traditions, media, and press, we act accordingly to how others view us. Each individual has pressure placed upon them based on their genders. Our sex is determined by genetics while our gender is programmed by social customs. Gender roles by definition are the social norms that dictate what is socially appropriate male and female behavior. Some theories interpret that a woman is tender and a loving mother, while on the other hand men are aggressive and are the dominant one of the family. An individual gender role is modeled through socialization. Individuals learn the ways, traditions, norms, and rules of getting along with others. A person’s environment has a big influence on the roles deemed expectable for men and women.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The fact that gender roles exist is indisputable. Gender roles influence men and women in virtually every area of life. Early into childhood girls and boys are treated differently in families, schools, and other institutions. Most children are raised with the belief that girls are pretty in pink and boys are rough in blue. As infants grow older, their parents’ ideas about gender stereotypes continue to influence how their children are treated. Mothers and fathers tend to look at their baby girls as more fragile than their boys. Girls are encouraged to play with dolls, while boys are taught to play with trucks and army toys. This can be seen at just about any playground, schoolroom, or home in America. Commercials on TV show these same characteristics everyday. When a commercial for a Barbie doll comes on, you don’t see a boy playing with it. In fact you don’t see a boy in the commercial at all. Just the opposite is true for boys’ toys. Girls aren’t seen in their commercials either. There is TV shows that work the same way. When I was a kid, I watched cartoons like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and my sister watched ones like Care Bears. Each show was obviously made and watched predominately by one gender. Girls don’t watch Ninja Turtles and boys don’t watch Care Bears. In present time, there is a whole channel devoted just to women. Women’s Entertainment Televi... ...children alone. Because of this, men are seen as the problem in relationships and the reason that there are so men single mothers. Once again if you look at television talk shows, you can see how many single mothers there are. Shows about troubled children, the fathers are never there. But it’s alright for women to raise children independently?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Gender equality has been a social concern since man first stepped foot on the earth. When we think of gender equality discrimination is the first thought that comes to mind. Gender roles by definition are the social norms that dictate what is socially male and female behavior. The argument begins between these two sides when the gender roles in society are looked at more closely; are they fair on both sides, or do they in fact discriminate against he two sexes. Men are taught to be emotionless in times of stress and women are taught to be helpless and needy. This is how our society expects men and women to behave. Maybe in the near future as a culture we will use gender transcendence, in which as a people we will abandon our assigned gender ideas, so that other aspects of life become separated and gender free.

Applying the Background and Methodology of the Research Process Essay

Introduction I have chosen to analyze the research and study on Childhood Obesity: Can electronic medical records (EMRs), customized with clinical practice guidelines improve screening and diagnosis. The project was done to determine if customization would affect the outcome of prevention, screening, and treatment and improve the rate of diagnosis of obesity in children 7-18 years of age. Statement of the Problem The failure to achieve a decrease the child obesity in our nation that was outlined in 2010 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, they have recently released the 2020 projections and objectives that will intensify the focus on primary care physicians and state agencies to attain this goal. Primary care practices are a profound part of identifying, preventing, and managing childhood obesity. Clinicians are being urged to record BMI’s on all patients, in cases of identifying obesity/overweight individuals they would provide educational instructions, counsel patients on nutrition, and weight maintenance. Practitioners rarely record accurate BMI percentages for pediatric patients, instead they rely on physical appearance or regarded as a result of some other specified cause. This is important to health care because of the subsequent medical conditions such as; type II diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, sleep apnea, and orthopedic problems. Providers have stated that the barriers of diagnosing, and managing childhood obesity is lack of practice resources, time, reimbursement, family motivation, and family resources. Purpose of Study Childhood obesity and overweight is a priority health issue, in the United States 32% of children 2-19 being overweight and 18.7% age 6-19 being obese (Ogden, Carroll, Curtin, Lamb, & Flegal, 2010). The development of diseases due to obesity is rising as obesity in our children becomes more profound. Children who had percentiles of BMI in the index between the 95th and 98th became obese adults, a percentile higher than the 98th percentile was related to adult obesity 100% of the time In this study there was a retrospective review done in regards to prevention, screening, and diagnosis of obesity in children. Data was collected and compared for BMI documentation. The purpose of the study was to determine whether EMR customization using evidence based practices introduced by the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners and Expert Panel guidelines for prevention of obesity would improve the rate of the diagnosis of childhood obesity (Savinon, Taylor, Mitchell, & Siegfried, 2012). The Design A quasi-experimental design was used comparing outcomes of a group with written records from September 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009 to those using EMR September1,2010 through December 31, 2010 Hypothesis In this study the hypothesis is based on a conceptual model. The use in the study of growth charts, scoring risk questionnaires, BMI documentation, diagnosis of overweight or obesity in each study individual. This data was able to provide guidelines with the ability to decrease the rate of obesity/overweight in children 2-19 if followed consistently. Evidence-Based Practice Guidelines The Health Eating and Activity Together (HEAT) clinical practice guideline developed by the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP), and the Expert Panel recommendations were designed to provide practitioners with the most recent evidence based information to attack childhood obesity. Training of providers in the practice guidelines showed an improvement in confidence, ease, and frequency of obesity-related counseling, a structured training with tools for successful intervention. The study confirmed that the training with in office tools showed improvement in documentation and adherence to guidelines but not with just  training alone. There was a profound improvement seen after 3 and 6 month intervals in documentation of BMI percentages. Exposure to the guidelines through structured training and in office tools proved that provider practices in assessment and management regarding overweight and obese patients was greatly improved. Data Collection There were several variables abstracted from the written records and EMR using a chart audit form: race, religion, ethnicity, gender, age, provider type, payer source, height, weight, and BMI, Blood pressure, screening tests for lipids, and diabetes, diagnosis for overweight or obese. Demographics Statistically there were no significant variables differences in the demographics for each group. Race, gender, insurance status, and age were similar in both the written and electronic records. A larger amount of children with written records were African-American (53%) and male (58%). Implications for Practices Customizing EMR with clinical practice guidelines improved the use of recommendations for screening and identifying childhood obesity. Increasing people’s awareness and diagnosis will ultimately lead to better intervention and improved outcomes. Conclusion There were clear signs of increase in recording of BMI, completion of grow charts, growth charts, scoring questionnaires. Providers are trained and provided with in-office tools to make sure everyone is complying with the guidelines. The number of children diagnosed overweight or obese increased with electronic medical records. Increasing recognition and diagnosis will lead to a profound reduction in the rate of obesity in the future. It will also lead to improved interventions and improved outcomes for childhood obesity. Reference Authors; Savinon C. , DNP, FNP-BC’(Asst. Professor), Taylor-Smith J. PhD, RN, WHNP-BC, Canty-Mitchell J. PhD, RN (Professor), Blood-Siegfried, DNSc, CPNP (Associate Professor), (2012) 2012 Childhood Obesity: Can Electronic Medical

Biology: Book and Lab Coat Essay

Guidelines for Biology Experiments 1. 0 Attendance 1. 1 Attendance to practical sessions is COMPULSORY. 1. 2 If you cannot come to the class due to ill health or emergency excuses, please inform the lecturer EARLIER, so that another practical session can be arranged for you ON THE SAME WEEK. 2. 0 Lab coat 2. 1 Wearing lab coat is COMPULSORY. 2. 2 Put on the lab coat throughout the class. 3. 0 Jotter 3. 1 Jotters should contain the summary on the PROCEDURES you are going to perform during the experiment. 3. 2 It can be in the form of short notes, flow charts, mind maps, diagrams or any other forms of summary. 3. 3 Jotter should also include observation whenever necessary. 3. 4 Complete jotters must be submitted in groups prior to the experiment. The lecturer will check, mark and return them before the class ends. 4. 0 Recording observations/results 4. 1 All observation should be done on blank A4 paper 4. 2 Drawings (a) Use blank A4 paper (b) Limit to only TWO diagrams on each page. (c) Each diagram should be enclosed by a border. (d) As for scientific drawings, e. g. diagrams of cells, tissues or organelles, there shouldn’t be any discontinuous lines, overlapped lines and shades. (e) For each diagram, it must have : a. Title of the diagram, if specimen’s name write down the common name and/or scientific name b. Magnification power (if using compound or dissecting microscope) c. Labels (minimum 3 labels) 1 4. 3 Numerical data (a) Record numerical data in the particular tables. 4. 4 Graphs (a) Use the graph paper to plot any graphs. (b) For each graph, it must have : a. Title of the graph b. Title of Y- axis and X-axis c. Label (if necessary) 5. 0 Report 5. 1 Front cover (a) The standard front cover will be given to students by the respective lecturer. (b) Make sure that all particulars on the cover are completed before submitting the report. 5. 2 Format and evaluation (a) The particulars should be in the following order: – Title (as in manual book) – Objective (as in manual book) – Observation/Result (draw in blank A4 paper following the format given) – Discussion/Exercises/Questions – Conclusion (at least 2 conclusions) – References (at least 3 references following the format given) (b) The marks will be awarded (only if the experiment is conducted, i. e. the student is present during the particular experiment) in the following areas: Criteria Manipulative skill Observation/Result Discussion/Exercise/Questions Conclusion Reference Marks 25% 40% 20% 10% 5%. 5. 3 Submission of report (a) Reports of an experiment should be submitted at least THREE (3) DAYS after the experiment is completed. (b) Marks for reports submitted after the date line will be deducted. 2 HOW TO WRITE A REFERENCE FORMAT : 1. Authors: Authors are listed in the same order as specified in the source, using surnames and initials. Commas separate all authors. When there are eight or more authors, list the first six authors followed by three ellipses (†¦ ) and then the final author. If no author is identified, the title of the document begins the reference. 2. Year of Publication: In parentheses following authors, with a period following the closing parenthesis. If no publication date is identified, use â€Å"n. d. † in parentheses following the authors. 3. Source Reference: Includes title, journal, volume, pages (for journal article) or title, city of publication, publisher (for book). Italicize titles of books, titles of periodicals, and periodical volume numbers. REFERENCE BOOK Format : Author. (Year of Publication). Book Title (periodical). (Page referred). Place. Publisher Eg : Campbell, N. A. & Reece, J. B. (2007). Biology (8th ed. ). (pp. 80-94) Pearson, The Benjamin Cummings Publishing Company, Inc. JOURNAL Format : Author. (Year of Publication). Title of journal. Name of journal. (volume) :page referred. Eg : Keller, Margaret A. & E. Richard Stiehm (2000). Passive Immunity in Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases. Clinical Microbiology Reviews. 13 (4): 602–614. INTERNET Format : Author. (Year of Publication). Website title. Website address. Eg : Wikipedia. (2012). Eukaryote. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Eukaryote 3.

Compare and Contrast Scientific Rationality and Religious Belief

Compare and Contrast Scientific Rationality and Religious Belief Free Online Research Papers Like worst enemies and best friends, there are between science and religion as many binds as ruptures/breaks whether approaching or separating them with shared similarities and contrasts. In a general way, science addresses to the observable and physical world understanding through rational thought, generating hypotheses and testing them by means of experimentation and scientific method. Conversely, religion concerns more with the invisible order that gives meaning to the visible world, demanding the acceptance of truth according only to faith and belief, whether proven or disproved. Although apparently contradictory they both share a similar end, understanding the surrounding world, through different abstract means, rationality or belief. But then to what extent do these means differ from each other? Doesn’t science entails a kind of â€Å"religious† belief in rationality and the validity of scientific rules and methods? And isn’t religion just a kind of metaphysical rationality that also systematizes and intellectualizes the world through meaningful â€Å"hypothesis†? The answer to these questions requires as much rationality as belief for each question entails multiple answers and each answer bears a new question, according to the psychological, historical, social and cultural lens through which one looks at the phenomena. Comparisons between science and religion are as divergent and varied as that amount of scholars concerned with it. For this reason, I’ll try to interpret some of these thoughts, drawing the affinities and collisions that link or exclude religion from science and vice-versa, and ideally reach or, at least, search for a personal meaning yet rooted in a kernel of doubt: Both gods and doubt are widespread, transversal (if not universal) aspects of culture, the result not of inbuilt processes but of the interaction between language-using human beings and their social and natural environment (†¦) this fact is part of the social universe that humanity creates for itself by the very use of language, a universe which re-presents experience in a totally transforming way and always contains a kernel of doubt. (Goody (1996):679) Faithfully rational or rationally faithful? The truth is that science is organized like any other discourse, on the basis of a conventional logic, but it demands for its justification, like any other ideological discourse, a real â€Å"objective† reference, in a process of substance. (†¦) Science accounts for things previously encircled and formalized so as to be sure to obey it. â€Å"Objectivity† is nothing else than that, and the ethic which comes to sanction this objective knowledge is nothing less than a system of defence and imposed ignorance, whose goal is to preserve this vicious circle intact. â€Å"Down with all hypotheses that have allowed the belief in a true world†, said Nietzsche. (Baudrillard, 1983: 114-115) In the beginning of the eighteen century the world assists to turbulent and agitated times where change and progress were the ruling words. A era of great revolutions with the collapse of monarchies and empires; a time of great social experience and intense intellectual curiosity; the sprouting of nation states, democracy and market economy, in short, an unstable and changing century woven by dramatic transformations, which altogether enlightened humankind by showing it paths hitherto obscured and unseen. It was in the Enlightenment that reason and rationality shone upon men and its history, giving birth to a new era of rationalisation, secularisation, mechanisation and market rationality. Several thinkers were debating the definition of this new era, and all of them shared the optimistic vision and utopian hope that things were infinitely progressing towards an ideal of unlimited improvement, driven by science and its rationality. According to Kant’s metanarrative, men would finally attain freedom through the exercise of scientific reason, which understood the phenomena of the natural world through the categories of understanding (Morris (1987): 56). He believed that in the earlier stage people find it easier to be told what to do instead of reason by themselves, and therefore they were ruled by kings, emperors or church leaders. At some point of the future, people would learn to exercise reason and religion would no longer determine people’s choices, because they would be able to make take responsibility by themselves and finally reach freedom. Later on Hegel envisions the demise of religion considering it as just an absolute idea, our imperfect way of knowing that we can be better, that is to say, a kind of vehicle through which humanity could contemplate the ideal aspired. And finally Nietzsche announces that â€Å"God is dead† and the world once enlightened begins to be â€Å"disench anted†, as Webber puts it, by the increasing systematization of religious ideas and concepts, the growth of ethical rationalism, and the progressive decline of ritual and â€Å"magical† elements in religion (Morris, B. (1987): 69). Without defining such a complex phenomena as religion, Webber notes that supernatural belief is primordial and universal since it is present in all early forms of society. He considered rationalisation as typical of western society and the core of modernity, inciting abstracts, calculative, logical and empirical ways of looking at reality. This rationality entails a â€Å"legal-rational authority† in industrial society whereby explicit, intellectually calculable rules and procedures are systematized and specified, and increasingly substituted for sentiment and tradition. (ibid: 68). The protestant Ethic and the spirit of Capitalism of Webber is a wonderful example of how rationality and faith might be more connected and complementary that contrary to each other. Here, he draws the elective affinity between certain forms of religious thought and certain kinds of economics structures and activities, namely the ascetic ethic of Protestantism and the intellectual rationality of capitalism: One of the fundamental elements of the spirit of modern capitalism, and not only of that but of all modern culture: rational conduct on the basis of the idea of the calling, was born (†¦) from the spirit of Christian asceticism.(†¦)For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order.(†¦) Today the spirit of religious asceticism (†¦) has escaped from the cage. But victorious capitalism, since it rests on mechanical foundations, needs its support no longer. (Lambek (2002): 58-59) Differently from this individualism incited by a religious ethic, Durkheim emphasizes the social function of religion in binding people together in moral terms. Following the evolutionary assumption that to understand the whole organism you must first study each cell, Durkheim argued that a complex religion such as Christianity should first be studied from its most primitive and simple form – totemism. He found in totemism a notion of an impersonal power or force – the totemic principle – that was represented by a totem and its symbol as a way of categorising how the group fits in the â€Å"greater† world of nature. This symbolic object, the totem, recognised by everyone and evoked through ritual, unleashed a strong and powerful religious sentiment that linked people together as a group. Therefore, the totem is the emblem of the group who, through religious ritual, is exhilarated by a collective force giving them a belonging and secure feeling among them. The strength of this collective solidarity, created by religion, is perceived as an impersonal and external force that leads people to perceive it as God’s creation, when actually God is nothing but the clan/group itself, personified and represented into their imaginations in the visible and tangible form of the Totem: God is only a figurative expression of the society and, therefore, all social phenomena are religious in nature because they unify people around a symbol in moral terms. In this way, Durkheim thought religion was best understood as â€Å"metaphorical and symbolic† and that the concrete and living reality that it expressed was the social group. (Morris (1987): 119-120), which in turn leads us to its definition of religion as a unified system of beliefs and pratices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden, beliefs and practices which unite one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them (†¦) religion must be an eminently collective thing(Lambek (2002): 46) Durkeim’s approach to religion, as a social phenomena with countable causes and implications, opposes to the intellectualists’ categorization of knowledge in evolutionary terms, for example, the evolutionary scheme drawn by Frazer that begins in magic, as a primitive science, followed by religion, considered a bad science and finally ending in science. This kind of categorization leads to discrimination of so called â€Å"primitive† tribes as irrational and in The Savage Mind, Levi-Strauss, following Durkheim’s thought, plainly argues against this ethnocentric view: Magical thought is not to be regarded as a beginning, a rudiment, a sketch, a part of a whole which was not yet materialised. It forms a well-articulated system, and is in this respect independent of that other system which constitutes science, except for the purely formal analogy which brings them together and makes the former a sort of metaphorical expression of the latter. It is therefore better, instead of contrasting magic and science, to compare them as two parallel modes of acquiring knowledge. (Levi-Strauss(1972): 13). Levi-Strauss concerns in demonstrate the systematical observational knowledge of the natural world within preliterate societies, which largely supersedes their organic or economic needs. Thus, religious thought is, like science, preoccupied with an intellectual understanding of the world but through different logics and applied to different types of phenomena: one is supremely abstract and relates to modern science and rationality, the other is analogical and supremely concrete and relates to magico-religious thought: (†¦) there are two distinct modes of scientific thought (†¦): one roughly adapted to that of perception and the imagination: the other at a remove from it. It is as if the necessary connections which are the object of all science, Neolithic or modern, could be arrived at by two different routes, one very close to, and the other more remote from, sensible intuition. (Levi-Strauss (1972): 15) He defines mythical thought as a kind of bricolage where the savage, in search for a meaning, builds up structures by connecting together the remains of the events which he restlessly orders and re-orders imprisoned in the events and experiences. Differently, science operates by creating means and results in the form of events through hypothesis and theories which are its structures: (†¦) the scientist creating events (changing the world) by means of structures and the â€Å"bricoleur† creating structures by means of events (Levi-Strauss (1972): 22) Although being imprisoned in the events mythical thought also acts as a liberator that refutes the idea, assumed by science, that anything can be meaningless. Agreeing with Levi-Strauss that symbolic mechanism is the â€Å"bricouleur† of the mind, Sperber, in Rethinking symbolism, proposes an alternative to semiological views of symbolism. He assumes that human mind has various forms of thought and distinguishes encyclopaedia knowledge, related to the concrete world, from the symbolical thought. Symbolical though is a universal feature of human mind, that deals with things outside the domain of our knowledge and experience; thus we resort to it when ordinary reasoning is insufficient like, for instance, towards the existence of God: it isn’t verifiable but we build a mental picture and construct hypothesis of what he is like. Thus, symbolical domain is like a reservation where we put things that are not certain for us, until such a time we may be able to decide whether it is true or not: (†¦) the symbolic mechanism does not try to decode the information it processes. It is precisely because this information has partly escaped the conceptual code (†¦)that it is, in the final analysis, submitted to it.(†¦) A representation is symbolic precisely to the extent that it is not entirely explicable, that is to say, expressible by semantic means. (pg113). In a way, symbolical thinking, on which all religion is based, is the second representation of a conceptual representation, i.e., the new object created by the symbolic mechanism when the conceptual one fails in integrating information into acquired knowledge. To this assumed objectiveness of conceptual and scientific knowledge opposed to the subjectiveness of symbolical thought, Bourdieu suggests that science is not as objective as it assumes to be. He legitimely asserts that, within the field of science, there are all kinds of social hierarchies and structures which decide what can be studied, what can be said, who is a legitimate scientist and who isn’t†¦thus, the objectiveness presumed by science is as conditioned to power relations as religion itself: Scientific thought has no foundation other than the collective belief in its foundations that the very functioning of the scientific field produces and presupposes. (†¦) finds its basis in the totality of the institutional mechanism ensuring the social and academic selection of legitimate scholars (†¦), the training of the agents selected, and control over acess to the instrument of research and publication, etc. (Bourdieu (1991): 8-9) While Bourdieu talks about the social side of scientific establishment and religion, Gell is more concerned about the human mind and how both magic and technology are rooted in a similar way of thinking. Defining technology as those forms of social relationships which make it socially necessary to produce, distribute and consume goods and services using technical processes (Gell (1988) : 6), Gell distinguishes different types of techonologies – productive, reproductive and of enchantment. This latter is like magic and exploits psychological biases so as to enchant the other person and cause him/her to perceive social reality in a way favourable to the social interests of the enchanter (ibid: 7). Like magic, technology is also enchanted since it derives from the idea of achieving something without any effort or labour, aiming to make everything magically easy; therefore, they are both rooted in the creative and playful side of human mind that imagines something that has never e xisted before and puts it into practice: It is technology which sustains magic, even as magic inspires fresh technical efforts. The magical apotheosis of ideal, costless, production is to be attained technically, because magical production is only a very flattering image of the production which is actually achievable by technical means. (Gell (1988): 9) So it is evident that also in our society, although purged from supernatural forces, new forms of magic exist, for example, advertising that mythologizes commodities with unlimited possibilities and inventions: And if we no longer recognize magic explicitly, it is because technology and magic, for us, are one and the same (Gell (1988): 9) Charles Taylor’s Rationality and Relativism also provides a very cultural relativist approach towards the rationality of science. He shows how science is a very peculiar and unique phenomenon rooted in particular traditions of thought and historical conditions. He makes us see how science, rather than religion, constitutes a bizarre outlook of reality, developed from the strange attempt to theorise the world and progressively separating ourselves from it. Thus, he concerns with knowing if there are valid, universal standards of rationality and to what extent can we make transcultural judgments of rationality. He defines rationality by a logical consistency and articulation of ideas which demand for an activity of theoretical understanding, inherent to Western’s legacy from ancient Greece: (†¦) we have a rational grasp of something when we can articulate it, that means, distinguish and lay out the different features of the matter in perspicuous order. (Taylor (1982): 90) By this preoccupation of describing the world through reasoning and creating a theoretical framework of comprehension we intend to achieve a â€Å"disengaged perspective†: We are not trying to understand things merely as they impinge on us, or are relevant to the purposes we are pursuing, but rather grasp them as they are, outside the immediate perspective of our goals and desires and activities. (†¦) we come to distinguish this disengaged perspective from our ordinary stances of engagement, and that one values it as offering a higher – or in some sense superior – view of reality. (Taylor (1982): 89) Therefore, by our own standards of a theoretical culture, we tempt to judge other cultures that show a complete disinterest of a theoretical knowledge from the world. But, as Taylor asks, ‘why must the universe exhibit some meaningful order (†¦)?†. There are simply different ways of engaging to the world: a theoretical way, through the scientific study of reality, and an atheoretical way, â€Å"in which we try to come to terms with the world (Taylor (1982): 97) and assume a meaningful order. The first, at the core of modern science, purges any expressive dimensions or meaningful order by the understanding laws of physical nature and its technological control; the second, underlying primitive magic, links together knowledge and wisdom, that is to say, understanding the world and attuning with it: Science could only be carried on by a kind of ascesis, where we discipline ourselves to register the way things are without regards to the meanings they might have for us. (Taylor (1982): 97) Before these differences one can make ethnocentric judgments of superiority arguing that western science and technology are more successful in mastering the world and attaining its aims, but it is also a fact that we have been made progressively more estranged from ourselves and our world in technological civilization (Taylor (1982): 103). Thus, whatever judgments of superiority are made, scientific rationality and magico-religious belief are, not only different standards of reality, but also incommensurable perspectives and activities. In a similar way, Tambiah questions the notion and limits of rationality itself and criticizes science for being a carrier of Western ideology that serves the interest of elite. In Magic, science, religion and the scope of rationality he concerns with the demarcation, differentiation and overlap of this different ways of understanding the world, offering a brief historical account from early Christianity to the nineteenth century. He starts by asking himself: How do we understand and represent the modes of thought and action of other societies, other cultures? Since we have to undertake this task from a Western baseline so to say, how are we to achieve â€Å"the translation of cultures†, i.e., understand other cultures (Tambiah (1990): 3) With this in mind, he criticizes the division between religion and magic, made by early anthropologists, arguing that it derived from the Judaeo-Christian and Greek thought biases, inherited by Western thought; so, since other religions lack this distinction, it is not fair to assume that religion and magic are separate. He notes that even the Greeks did not completely separate magic from science and religion because, although science arose from magical practices when people began to perceive nature and natural laws, instead of God, as the ground of all causality, they still believed that the divine principle pervaded all phenomena. Therefore, the evolutionary distinction of â€Å"religion† from â€Å"magic† is clearly political, for it supports racism and the discrimination of primitive cultures by western colonizers. In this way he notes the â€Å"faith† inherent to scientific rationality: A commitment to the notion of nature as the ground of causality, of nature as a uniform domain subject to regular laws, can function as a belief system without its guaranteeing a verified â€Å"objective truth† as modern science may define it. In other words, the appeal to â€Å"nature† or â€Å"science† can serve as a legitimation of a belief and action system like any other ideological and normative system. (Tambiah (1990): 10) Similarly to Taylor, Tambiah also regards to magico-religious practices and science as different attempts of people to act upon the world and change it, suggesting that they should be seen as different things with different goals and means to achieve them. Magic hasn’t the purpose to admit hypothesis and verify them, instead, it only makes symbolic statements that express the desired results; besides that, magical ritual cannot be disproved as scientific experiments. Thus, magic and religion rely on symbolic thought and action and have a particular and universal way of thinking analogical thought. Analogical thought is a kind of wishful thought, because it consists in observing a similarity between two things, make hypothesis according to that similarity and simply assume it instead of, like science, test it to find whether it is valid or not. Like Bourdieu, Tambiah also argues that magic and religion are not academic subjects but things that people do, therefore, they can only be understood within the context of people’s lives. In academia there are intellectual biases that tempt scholars to subtract things from practice and experience in order to exam them, but magical or religious beliefs are not meant literally, because they are non-literal symbolical and performative actions, related to cosmology and metaphysical concerns: The distinctive feature of religion as a generic concept lies not in the domain of belief and its â€Å"rational accounting† of the workings of the universe, but in a special awareness of the transcendent, and the acts of symbolic communication that attempt to realize that awareness and live by its promptings (Tambiah (1990): 16) Bourdieu also adverts to the social implications of a scholastic point of view, that determines and subdues our way of looking at a particular phenomenon, and entails a certain theoretical adjustment to the reality itself: Thus what (†¦)all those whose professions is to think and/or speak about the world have the most chance of overlooking are the social presuppositions that are inscribed in the scholastic point of view (†¦)the unconscious dispositions, productive of unconscious theses, which are acquired through an academic or scholastic experience(†¦) (Bourdieu (1991) : 381) Finally, he also suggests that science is not as objective as it assumes to be, asserting legitimely that, within the field of science, there are all kinds of social hierarchies and structures which decide what can be studied, what can be said, who is a legitimate scientist and who isn’t†¦thus, the objectiveness presumed by science is as conditioned to intrinsic power relations as religion itself: Scientific thought has no foundation other than the collective belief in its foundations that the very functioning of the scientific field produces and presupposes. (†¦)the totality of the institutional mechanism ensuring the social and academic selection of legitimate scholars (†¦), the training of the agents selected, and control over acess to the instrument of research and publication, etc. (Bourdieu (1991): 8-9) Overall, in spite of the lack of agreement between all these different perspectives and ideas, there is one thing that they all account for: how these cultural variations prove that religion still remains an essential facet of the human mind and how, far from being disenchanted, our modern world creates its own enchantments where religion, â€Å"re-semantized† in new contexts, remains an integral part of these multiple modernities. Conclusion: From this evidence, I tend to think that both science and religion are a way of giving sense to the world we perceive, that both result from the human demand for ordering and giving meaning to the apparent chaos of the world and both entail a kind of intellectual exclusion from the world in order to be included in it, through a distance that allows us to analyse and understanding it better, like we distance ourselves from a painting in order to contemplate it better. Nevertheless, scientific rationality tries to achieve this by changing the world and its surrounding nature, by mastering it according to the insatisfactions, desires and needs that disquiet human beings through a rational and systematical understanding applied in technology. Differently, religious belief achieves this, not by changing the external world, but instead by changing the world within ourselves, changing that same disturbing insatisfactions, needs and desires through a metaphysical and meaningful knowledge applied in a moral discipline. So, while the former tries to â€Å"tidy up† the exterior world by changing its disposition through knowledge of the external and physical order; the latter concerns in tiding up the interior world we perceive with knowledge of the interior and spiritual order. In short, while science and rationality leads us to master the world and modifying it to the shape of our needs, religion and belief teach us how to master ourselves and modify ourselves to the shape of the world we live in; the former revolutionizes, the latter conforms. Also, science tends to be more auto-destructive, in the sense that the emergence of a paradigm entails its surpassing by a new one, whereas religion, although suffering changes from a re-contextualization and â€Å"re-semanthization†, tends to an idealistic stabilization and immutability that, because it is disproved, excludes a constant testing and verification. Nevertheless, for all this reason it seems to me that religion and science are not as contradictory as they are complementary to one another, since a merely inner speculation can leads us to stagnation, while a merely outer one might increase infinitely our insatisfaction. By this I mean that it seems to be a preoccupant unlevelling between our scientific-technological development and our ethical-moral progression, since the former evolves at an incredibly fast pace that the latter not always follows. And I think dramatic events such as the ones assisted recently by terrorism are a clear prove of that. But even most illustrative for me is what happened in Hiroshima sixty years ago, which alarmingly shows how we, as human beings, might not yet be prepared to hold the incommensurable power that science and technology put uncontrollably at our disposal. Thus, I think it is crucial to think as Webber did of â€Å"science as a vocation† and questioning it as our rationality once di d with religion: Natural science gives us an answer to the question of what we must do if we wish to master life technically. It leaves quite aside, or assumes for its purposes, whether we should and do wish to master life technically and whether it ultimately makes sense to do so. (pg8) As Weber observes, science preoccupies itself with the field of techniques and technologies aiming to control life, rather then looking for its meaning. Science explains but lacks of significance, providing only a meaningless and disenchanted interpretation of the world on behalf of its rational understanding. Instead, religion entails the intellectual sacrifice of knowing without explaining, of believing on unconditional devotion on behalf of a meaningful knowledge. To this I add the notion that as religion entails this intellectual sacrifice so science entails a spiritual sacrifice of attuning with the world. Returning to the painting comparison, science can explains us every concrete detail of the painting materials, the exact way in which the painter moved his brush and the perfect examination of the canvas’s state but in this rational, analytical and systematical observation it failed the most important thing – to contemplate and passionately penetrate in its beaut y, perfectly understanding it instead of imperfectly explain it. What then is it more valuable and worthier: to know without believing or to believe with knowing? A meaningless explanation or a unexplained meaning? I think the answer is in between, where scientific rationality and religious belief blend with each other in a â€Å"faithfull† rationality that believes and a â€Å"rational† faith that explains – a â€Å"love poem† yet to be written in the history of humankind and re-enchant the world†¦ BIBLIOGRAPHY Christian Blog Site. 2007. Daily Shepherd – Christian Blog Site. dailyshepherd.com Baudrillard (1983) Simulations. New York : Semiotext[e] Bourdieu, Pierre (1991) The peculiar history of scientific reason Sociological Forum 6 (1) Bourdieu, Pierre (1990) The Scholastic Point of view in Cultural Anthropology 5 (4) (Nov.1990), pp. 380-391 Dan, Sperber (1974) Rethinking Symbolism Gell, Alfred (1988) â€Å"Techonology and Magic† in Anthropology Today 4 (2) : 6-9 Goody, Jack (1996) A kernel of doubt in The Journal of The Royal Anthropological Institute, vol.2, No.4 Levi-Strauss, Claude (1972) The Savage Mind, London: Weidenfeld Nicolson Lambek, M. (ed.) (2002) A reader in the Anthropology of Religion Oxford : Blackwell Morris, Brian (1987) Anthropological studies of religion: an introductory text New York : Cambridge University Press Tambiah, Stanley J. (1990) Magic, science, Religion and the Scope of Rationality Taylor, C. (1982) Rationality. In Rationality and relativism Hollis M. S. Lukes eds Weber, Max (2001) A à ©tica protestante e o espirito do capitalismo Lisboa : Editorial Presenà §a Research Papers on Compare and Contrast Scientific Rationality and Religious BeliefCanaanite Influence on the Early Israelite ReligionRelationship between Media Coverage and Social andComparison: Letter from Birmingham and CritoAnalysis Of A Cosmetics AdvertisementAssess the importance of Nationalism 1815-1850 EuropeThree Concepts of PsychodynamicEffects of Television Violence on ChildrenMind TravelResearch Process Part OneCapital Punishment

Aztlan, The Mythical Homeland of the Aztec-Mexica

Aztlan, The Mythical Homeland of the Aztec-Mexica Aztln (also spelled Aztlan or sometimes Aztalan) is the name of the mythical homeland of the Aztecs, the ancient Mesoamerican civilization also known as the Mexica. According to their origin myth, the Mexica left Aztlan at the behest of their god/ruler Huitzilopochtli, to find a new home in the Valley of Mexico. In the Nahua language, Aztlan means â€Å"the Place of Whiteness† or â€Å"the Place of the Heron.† Whether it was a real place or not is open to question. What Aztlan Was Like According to the various Mexica versions of the stories, their homeland Aztlan was a luxurious and delightful place located on a large lake, where everyone was immortal and lived happily among abundant resources. There was a steep hill called Colhuacan in the middle of the lake, and in the hill were caves and caverns known collectively as Chicomoztoc, where the ancestors of the Aztec lived. The land was filled with vast quantities of ducks, herons, and other waterfowl; red and yellow birds sang incessantly; great and beautiful fish swam in the waters and shade trees lined the banks. At Aztlan, the people fished from canoes and tended their floating gardens of maize, peppers, beans, amaranth, and tomatoes. But when they left their homeland, everything turned against them, the weeds bit them, the rocks wounded them, the fields were filled with thistles and spines. They wandered in a land filled with vipers, poisonous lizards, and dangerous wild animals before reaching their home to build their place of destiny, Tenochtitlan. Who Were the Chichimecas? In Aztln, the myth goes, the Mexica ancestors dwelled in place with seven caves called Chicomoztoc (Chee-co-moz-toch). Each cave corresponded to one of the Nahuatl tribes which would later leave that place to reach, in successive waves, the Basin of Mexico. These tribes, listed with slight differences from source to source, were the Xochimilca, Chalca, Tepaneca, Colhua, Tlahuica, Tlaxcala and the group who were to become the Mexica. Oral and written accounts also mention that the Mexica and the other Nahuatl groups were preceded in their migration by another group, collectively known as Chichimecas, who migrated from the north to Central Mexico sometime earlier and were considered by the Nahua people less civilized. The Chichimeca do not apparently refer to a particular ethnic group, but rather were hunters or northern farmers in contrast to the Tolteca, the city dwellers, the urban agricultural populations already in the Basin of Mexico. The Migration Stories of the battles and interventions of the gods along the journey abound. Like all origin myths, the earliest events blend natural and supernatural events, but the stories of the migrants arrival at the Basin of Mexico are less mystical. Several versions of the migration myth include the story of the moon goddess Coyolxauhqui and her 400 Star Brothers, who attempted to kill Huitzilopochtli (the sun) at the sacred mountain of Coatepec. Many archaeologists and historical linguists support the theory of an occurrence of multiple in-migrations to the basin of Mexico from northern Mexico and/or the southeastern United States between 1100 and 1300 CE. Evidence for this theory includes the introduction of new ceramic types in central Mexico  and the fact that the Nahuatl language, the language spoken by the Aztec/Mexica, is not indigenous to Central Mexico. Moctezumas Search Aztlan was a source of fascination for the Aztecs themselves. The Spanish chroniclers and codexes report that the Mexica king Moctezuma Ilhuicamina (or Montezuma I, ruled 1440–1469) sent an expedition to search for the mythical homeland. Sixty elderly sorcerers and magicians were assembled by Moctezuma for the trip, and given gold, precious stones, mantles, feathers, cacao, vanilla and cotton from the royal storehouses to be used as gifts to the ancestors. The sorcerers left Tenochtitlan and within ten days arrived at Coatepec, where they transformed themselves into birds and animals to take the final leg of the journey to Aztlan, where they re-assumed their human form. At Aztlan, the sorcerers found a hill in the middle of a lake, where the inhabitants spoke Nahuatl. The sorcerers were taken to the hill where they met an old man who was the priest and guardian of the goddess Coatlicue. The old man took them to the sanctuary of Coatlicue, where they met an ancient woman who said she was the mother of Huitzilopochtli and had suffered greatly since he left. He had promised to return, she said, but he never had. People in Aztlan could choose their age, said Coatlicue: they were immortal. The reason the people in Tenochtitlan were not immortal was that they consumed cacao and other luxury items. The old man refused the gold and precious goods brought by the returnees, saying these things have ruined you, and gave the sorcerers waterfowl and plants native to Aztlan and maguey fiber cloaks and breechcloths to take back with them. The sorcerers transformed themselves back into animals and returned to Tenochtitlan. What Evidence Supports the Reality of Aztlan and the Migration? Modern scholars have long debated whether Aztln was a real place or simply a myth. Several of the remaining books left by the Aztecs, called codexes, tell the story of the migration from Aztlan- in particular, the codex Boturini o Tira de la Peregrinacion. The tale was also reported as oral history told by Aztecs to several Spanish chroniclers including Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Diego Duran, and Bernardino de Sahagun. The Mexica told the Spanish that their ancestors had reached the Valley of Mexico about 300 years before, after having left their homeland, traditionally located far north of Tenochtitlan. Historical and archaeological evidence shows that the migration myth of the Aztecs has a solid basis in reality. In a comprehensive study of the available histories, archaeologist Michael E. Smith found that these sources cite the movement of not just the Mexica, but several different ethnic groups. Smiths 1984 investigations concluded that people arrived in the Basin of Mexico from the north in four waves. The earliest wave (1) was non-Nahuatl Chichimecs sometime after the fall of Tollan in 1175; followed by three Nahuatl-speaking groups who settled (2) in the Basin of Mexico about 1195, (3) in the surrounding highland valleys about 1220, and (4) the Mexica, who settled among the earlier Aztlan populations about 1248. No possible candidate for Aztlan has yet been identified.   Modern Aztlan In modern Chicano culture, Aztln represents an important symbol of spiritual and national unity, and the term has also been used to mean the territories ceded to the United States by Mexico with the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848, New Mexico and Arizona. There is an archaeological site in Wisconsin called Aztalan, but it is not the Aztec homeland.   Sources Edited and updated by K. Kris Hirst Berdan, Frances F. Aztec Archaeology and Ethnohistory. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Print.Elzey, Wayne. A Hill on a Land Surrounded by Water: An Aztec Story of Origin and Destiny. History of Religions 31.2 (1991): 105-49. Print.Mundy, Barbara E. Place-Names in Mexico-Tenochtitlan. Ethnohistory 61.2 (2014): 329-55. Print.Navarrete, Federico. The Path from Aztlan to Mexico: On Visual Narration in Mesoamerican Codices. RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics.37 (2000): 31-48. Print.Smith, Michael E. The Aztecs. 3rd ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. Print.-. The Aztlan Migrations of the Nahuatl Chronicles: Myth or History? Ethnohistory 31.3 (1984): 153-86. Print.Spitler, Susan. Mythic Homelands: Aztlan and Aztlan. Human Mosaic 31.2 (1997): 34-45. Print.

What is MEC Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

What is MEC - Essay Example It educates children of employees. It also targets vulnerable children of the society. It also promotes the health of the society through production of quality goods and services that are environmental friendly. The company also gears itself towards strengthening its organizational structure and service delivery. It employees qualified personnel who promotes the welfare of the company and all the shareholders. The company also invests in community infrastructure through building schools, roads and hospitals (MEC 2013). This is aimed at enhancing corporation with the outsiders. The company also maintains economic development and job creation through paying taxes to the government and offering job opportunities. The organization believes that it needs to play its part in the growth and development of the community. It also expects the government to perform its roles diligently by providing an appropriate environment. Companies are obligated to preserve the environment. The company produces goods that are environmental friendly, renewable and utilizes less energy (MEC 2013). This is aimed at reducing environmental pollution and creates a good rapport with investors. For example, the company’s textile products contain over 50% cotton or recycled polyester (MEC 2013). It is believed such products can decompose and they are recyclable. In addition, the company has strived to improve human conditions in its factories. The company has exit doors in case of a fire breakout. It also has fire extinguishers and personnel work within stipulated time. Lastly, the company promotes conservation of ecology, water catchment areas and other recreational centers. MEC focuses on working with suppliers and factories by empowering them to uphold the MEC code of conduct. The conduct usually prescribes the minimum standards that enhance environmental responsibility. The company also believes in environmental responsibility because it audits factories

Show as below Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Show as below - Research Paper Example So, both these novels will be discussed and compared in the context of the American Southern literature and its characteristics, particularly through the key themes and symbols of racism and female subjugation, and how it reflected the society of those times. Southern literature refers to the American literature which is about the Southern part of the United States or written by writers from that region and so it will reflect certain similar characteristics. â€Å"Southern literature announces the conjunction of the US South and an expressive art — texts identified as belonging to a particular history, social organization, and cultural imaginary† (MacKethan). Some of the characteristics of Southern literature are slavery, relationship between man and nature, religious fervor, a sense of justice, female subjugation, and many more. When one focuses on Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it is evident that the novel featured many of the above characteristics with many readers and critics considering it to be the most influential Southern novel of the nineteenth century because of its frank dealing of the above aspects particularly racism and religion. This novel deals with the adventurous journey undertaken by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn and Jim along the Mississippi River. The novel is told in an episodic structure, with new characters entering and leaving the story, even as the two lead characters experience different and intricate facets of racism. On the other hand, and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God is about the life and times of Janie Crawford, a middle-aged African woman. When she returns to her hometown of Eatonville, Florida, after a long gap, she goes down on the memory lane by talking to her friend Pheoby Watson. She talks about her life and how men in her life brought out certain traits, particularly her wish to live a life on her own terms,