The Summary Paper Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness Essay Example

The Summary Paper: Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness Essay There are different communities and different cultures on the Earth. Yet all of them consist of the same entities – human beings. Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness proves the point that respect for other cultures helps to keep the human self in the alien surroundings. Modern critical responses to the book show how valuable it is even nowadays, when the world seems to be more humanistic than in the 19th century. The story is called the â€Å"longest journey into self†, â€Å"a sensitive and vivid travelogue†, and â€Å"an angry document on absurd and brutal exploitation† (Guerard, 1987, p. 5).I will try to prove the points stated above by analysing the attitudes, which the characters of the story demonstrated to the other culture. I want to comment specifically on Marlow’s reasons to start for Africa; on the significance of â€Å"darkness† in the story; and of Conrad’s perceptions of colonization. I argue that in The Heart Of Darkness we are taught that violating people and cultures, which are different to ours, may seriously damage a human soul.Marlow seems to travel to Africa for several reasons. First, he made his child dream alive with admiration of â€Å"all the glories of exploration† (Conrad, 1946, p. 52) and â€Å"many blank spaces on the earth† (ibid.). Significant is his fascination with â€Å"a mighty big river†, on the African map, which resembled in his mind of â€Å"an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land† (ibid.). Marlow recalled that this snake-like river mesmerized him as if he was a bird.In the beginning of the narration, it is obscure why Marlow, first, refers to Africa among the places unexplored as delightful, and then, suddenly, speaks about â€Å"a place of darkness† (ibid.). One critic assumed that Africa â€Å"functions in the novel as a ‘foil’ for Europe, constituting a negative, blank space onto which is projected all that Europe does not want to see in itself, everything that is abhorrent and abject† (Brown, 2000, pg. 2). In our minds, snake symbolizes danger and seduction. It seems that the image of mysterious continent seduced Marlow into â€Å"the night journey into the unconscious, and confrontation of an entity within the self† (Guerard, 1987, p. 9).Marlow was not a businessman to get ivory at the Belgian trade stations. He was a sailor of peculiar sort, â€Å"a seaman, but he was a wanderer, too† (Conrad, 1946, p. 48). Marlow refers to the black continent as â€Å"the farthest point of navigation and the culminating point of my experience† (Conrad, 1946, p. 51). To him the desire to reach the river, which he has been dreaming about since the childhood, was somehow unreasonable. â€Å"I must get there by hook or by crook† (Conrad, 1946, p. 53), he explained to the listeners of his story about Mr. Kurtz.From the very beginning, the narrator underlines a strange uneasiness about the travelling obsession, as if â€Å"instead of going to the centre of a continent, I were about to set off for the centre of the earth† (Conrad, 1946, p. 60). The atmosphere of mystery and bad expectations is created by the author through the striking contrasts of dark and light, which are described in details by Marlow.At first thought, a reader thinks of the juxtaposition as natural distinction between England, where â€Å"the water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marshes was like a gauzy and radiant fabric† (Conrad, 1946, p. 46); and Africa with â€Å"colossal jungle, so dark-green as to be almost black, fringed with white surf† (Conrad, 1946, p. 60). As Guerard puts it, â€Å"the introspective voyager leaves his familiar rational world† (1987, p. 10), where everything is seen through the light lens. On the contrast, African river, the former fairy-tale snake, turns into the â€Å"streams of death in life, whose banks were rotting into mud, whose waters, thickened into slime, invaded the contorted mangroves, that seemed to writhe at us in the extremity of an impotent despair† (Conrad, 1946, p. 62). Guerard on the point of death references states, â€Å"And even Kurtz, shadow and symbol though he be, [†¦] is sharply visualized, an ‘animated image of death,’ a skull and body emerging as from a winding sheet, ‘the cage of his ribs all astir, the bones of his arm waving’† (1987, p. 14), proceeding with the remark, â€Å"This is Africa and its flabby inhabitants† (ibid.). Thus, a negative conceptualization of Africa as a dark, mysterious and perilous place is evident here. There white men become shadows of death and repulsive in their change.Besides scenery-based references to dark a nd light, there is another important realm where this contrast plays a significant role. That is the relationships of different races on the African continent. Marlow stresses that he is â€Å"not particularly tender† (Conrad, 1946, p. 65). Yet this mature and harsh man is beyond himself with bewilderment, sorrow, disgust and even terror at watching how hard native people were exploited by Belgian colonizers. The scene when he arrives at the trade station and meets the party of chained black starving ragged creatures doing unbearably hard work is striking. He speaks of devils there, comparing â€Å"the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire† (Conrad, 1946, p. 65) to â€Å"a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly† (Conrad, 1946, p. 65), evidently meaning colonization.The key to the understanding of genuine yet implicit motives the author held in mind when contrasting dark and light is Marlow’s reference to England as â€Å"one of the dark places of the earth† (Conrad, 1946, p. 48). He proved his point by reconstructing the behavior of the Romans during the colonization of the British Isles. However, Marlow does not call them colonizers. Neither does he give such name to the Belgian pilgrims in Africa, which means that he â€Å"establishes certain political values† (Guerard, 1987, p. 14). Brown assumes that â€Å"in Marlows account of his journey [†¦] there can be observed an obscure vacillation between the horror as an effect of colonial intervention and the location of the horrors cause as the environment itself† (2000, pg. 6). The negative attitude to colonization, therefore, is implicit in the story, when â€Å"colonial intervention [†¦] loses its possible critical edge by remaining an account merely of atrocious things happening in the colonies. This contrasts to the perversion of the Wests self-image†, as Brown proves (2000, pg. 6).Africa became a suitable territory for â€Å"the devotion to efficiency† (Conrad, 1946, p. 50) with its rich natural resources. There any man of white skin was regarded as â€Å"an emissary of light† (Conrad, 1946, p. 50) regardless of his personal qualities. And native people were seen as black ants in the fierce sun whose destiny was to carry loads and do dirty job. The living symbol of darkness in its specific sense which Conrad creates in the story is Mr. Kurtz, the most successful trading agent of the Company. Marlow is sent to pick him up from the farthest station with his loot of ivory. It appears that speaking about â€Å"heart of darkness† (Conrad, 1946, p. 95), Marlow did not mean the dark tint of African rivers or the dark color of the bush. Instead, he spoke about â€Å"the triumphant darkness† (Conrad, 1946, p. 159) of a white ruthless colonizer like Mr. Kurtz.In the end, Marlow recalls â€Å"the colossal scale of [Kurtz’s] vile de sires, the meanness, the torment, the tempestuous anguish of his soul† (Conrad, 1946, p. 156). A poor man who was unable to marry the woman he loved, Kurtz became a successful trader who served at his best for the Company but never forgot his own promotion. In his strive to be an honoured member of the high and prosperous society, Kurtz stomped over all human virtues of respect, morals, servitude and humanism. The dry heads, which surrounded his last camp in the African wilderness, symbolize the dryness of his human nature. Kurtz was a gifted and charismatic leader. However, he embodies the â€Å"triumph for the wilderness, an invading and vengeful rush† (Conrad, 1946, p. 156). Marlow refers to him as a â€Å"soul satiated with primitive emotions, avid of lying fame, of sham distinction, of all the appearances of success and power† (Conrad, 1946, p. 147).My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my everything belonged to him. It made me hold my breath in expec tation of hearing the wilderness burst into a prodigious peal of laughter that would shake the fixed stars in their places. Everything belonged to himbut that was a trifle. The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own. (Conrad, 1946, p. 116)â€Å"Marlows temptation is made concrete through his exposure to Kurtz, a white man and sometime idealist who had fully responded to the wilderness: a potential and fallen self†, Guerard assumes (1987, p. 9). Marlow calls Kurtz devil because no human being is allowed to be so atrocious and reckless in his desire to suppress people who are different than he, a white dominant male. His blindness to diversity – of cultures or human values – drives him to death and creates the atmosphere of darkness dominating.The idea of dominance is criticized by Marlow and Conrad as the author:The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different co mplexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. (Conrad, 1946, p. 50-1)Now we can recall once again the discourse about the Romans colonizing the Britons. Then, Marlow spoke of the warriors amidst the alien tribes who spoke different language, awful climate and etc. â€Å"They were men enough to face the darkness†, he admits almost admiringly (Conrad, 1946, p. 49), meaning that they faced difficulties and performed their duties well. However, closer to the end of the story the narrator seemed to be more indignant with â€Å"the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires† (Conrad, 1946, p. 47). Those germs, which remind us of some contagious disease, makes one man suppress the other, who is no less unique or significant. The detailed depictions of starving natives aim at teaching the lesson of tolerance and acknowledging the diversity. Kurtz, a white colonizer, in his obsession with power, appears to be more barb arous than the people he suppressed. Though energetic and charismatic, Kuntz dies as well as the idea of colonization in the modern world. This proves the initial argument about ominous results cultural and human violation brings to human soul and body. The Summary Paper Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness Essay Example The Summary Paper: Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness Paper There are different communities and different cultures on the Earth. Yet all of them consist of the same entities – human beings. Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness proves the point that respect for other cultures helps to keep the human self in the alien surroundings. Modern critical responses to the book show how valuable it is even nowadays, when the world seems to be more humanistic than in the 19th century. The story is called the â€Å"longest journey into self†, â€Å"a sensitive and vivid travelogue†, and â€Å"an angry document on absurd and brutal exploitation† (Guerard, 1987, p. 5). I will try to prove the points stated above by analysing the attitudes, which the characters of the story demonstrated to the other culture. I want to comment specifically on Marlow’s reasons to start for Africa; on the significance of â€Å"darkness† in the story; and of Conrad’s perceptions of colonization. I argue that in The Heart Of Darkness we are taught that violating people and cultures, which are different to ours, may seriously damage a human soul.Marlow seems to travel to Africa for several reasons. First, he made his child dream alive with admiration of â€Å"all the glories of exploration† (Conrad, 1946, p. 52) and â€Å"many blank spaces on the earth† (ibid.). Significant is his fascination with â€Å"a mighty big river†, on the African map, which resembled in his mind of â€Å"an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land† (ibid.). Marlow recalled that this snake-like river mesmerized him as if he was a bird.In the beginning of the narration, it is obscure why Marlow, first, refers to Africa among the places unexplored as delightful, and then, suddenly, speaks about â€Å"a place of darkness† (ibid.). We will write a custom essay sample on The Summary Paper: Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The Summary Paper: Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The Summary Paper: Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer One critic assumed that Africa â€Å"functions in the novel as a ‘foil’ for Europe, constituting a negative, blank space onto which is projected all that Europe does not want to see in itself, everything that is abhorrent and abject† (Brown, 2000, pg. 2). In our minds, snake symbolizes danger and seduction. It seems that the image of mysterious continent seduced Marlow into â€Å"the night journey into the unconscious, and confrontation of an entity within the self† (Guerard, 1987, p. 9).Marlow was not a businessman to get ivory at the Belgian trade stations. He was a sailor of peculiar sort, â€Å"a seaman, but he was a wanderer, too† (Conrad, 1946, p. 48). Marlow refers to the black continent as â€Å"the farthest point of navigation and the culminating point of my experience† (Conrad, 1946, p. 51). To him the desire to reach the river, which he has been dreaming about since the childhood, was somehow unreasonable. â€Å"I must get there by hook or by crook† (Conrad, 1946, p. 53), he explained to the listeners of his story about Mr. Kurtz.From the very beginning, the narrator underlines a strange uneasiness about the travelling obsession, as if â€Å"instead of going to the centre of a continent, I were about to set off for the centre of the earth† (Conrad, 1946, p. 60). The atmosphere of mystery and bad expectations is created by the author through the striking contrasts of dark and light, which are described in details by Marlow. At first thought, a reader thinks of the juxtaposition as natural distinction between England, where â€Å"the water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marshes was like a gauzy and radiant fabric† (Conrad, 1946, p. 46); and Africa with â€Å"colossal jungle, so dark-green as to be almost black, fringed with white surf† (Conrad, 1946, p. 60). As Guerard puts it, â€Å"the introspective voyager leaves his familiar rational world† (1987, p. 10), where everything is seen through the light lens. On the contrast, African river, the former fairy-tale snake, turns into the â€Å"streams of death in life, whose banks were rotting into mud, whose waters, thickened into slime, invaded the contorted mangroves, that seemed to writhe at us in the extremity of an impotent despair† (Conrad, 1946, p. 62). Guerard on the point of death references states, â€Å"And even Kurtz, shadow and symbol though he be, [†¦] is sharply visualized, an ‘animated image of death,’ a skull and body emerging as from a winding sheet, ‘the cage of his ribs all astir, the bones of his arm waving’† (1987, p. 14), proceeding with the remark, â€Å"This is Africa and its flabby inhabitants† (ibid.). Thus, a negative conceptualization of Africa as a dark, mysterious and perilous place is evident here. There white men become shadows of death and repulsive in their change. Besides scenery-based references to dark and light, there is another important realm where this contrast plays a significant role. That is the relationships of different races on the African continent. Marlow stresses that he is â€Å"not particularly tender† (Conrad, 1946, p. 65). Yet this mature and harsh man is beyond himself with bewilderment, sorrow, disgust and even terror at watching how hard native people were exploited by Belgian colonizers. The scene when he arrives at the trade station and meets the party of chained black starving ragged creatures doing unbearably hard work is striking. He speaks of devils there, comparing â€Å"the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire† (Conrad, 1946, p. 65) to â€Å"a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly† (Conrad, 1946, p. 65), evidently meaning colonization.The key to the understanding of genuine yet implicit motives the author held in mind when contr asting dark and light is Marlow’s reference to England as â€Å"one of the dark places of the earth† (Conrad, 1946, p. 48). He proved his point by reconstructing the behavior of the Romans during the colonization of the British Isles. However, Marlow does not call them colonizers. Neither does he give such name to the Belgian pilgrims in Africa, which means that he â€Å"establishes certain political values† (Guerard, 1987, p. 14). Brown assumes that â€Å"in Marlows account of his journey [†¦] there can be observed an obscure vacillation between the horror as an effect of colonial intervention and the location of the horrors cause as the environment itself† (2000, pg. 6). The negative attitude to colonization, therefore, is implicit in the story, when â€Å"colonial intervention [†¦] loses its possible critical edge by remaining an account merely of atrocious things happening in the colonies. This contrasts to the perversion of the Wests self-image†, as Brown proves (2000, pg. 6). Africa became a suitable territory for â€Å"the devotion to efficiency† (Conrad, 1946, p. 50) with its rich natural resources. There any man of white skin was regarded as â€Å"an emissary of light† (Conrad, 1946, p. 50) regardless of his personal qualities. And native people were seen as black ants in the fierce sun whose destiny was to carry loads and do dirty job. The living symbol of darkness in its specific sense which Conrad creates in the story is Mr. Kurtz, the most successful trading agent of the Company. Marlow is sent to pick him up from the farthest station with his loot of ivory. It appears that speaking about â€Å"heart of darkness† (Conrad, 1946, p. 95), Marlow did not mean the dark tint of African rivers or the dark color of the bush. Instead, he spoke about â€Å"the triumphant darkness† (Conrad, 1946, p. 159) of a white ruthless colonizer like Mr. Kurtz.In the end, Marlow recalls â€Å"the colossal scale of [Kurtz’s] vile desire s, the meanness, the torment, the tempestuous anguish of his soul† (Conrad, 1946, p. 156). A poor man who was unable to marry the woman he loved, Kurtz became a successful trader who served at his best for the Company but never forgot his own promotion. In his strive to be an honoured member of the high and prosperous society, Kurtz stomped over all human virtues of respect, morals, servitude and humanism. The dry heads, which surrounded his last camp in the African wilderness, symbolize the dryness of his human nature. Kurtz was a gifted and charismatic leader. However, he embodies the â€Å"triumph for the wilderness, an invading and vengeful rush† (Conrad, 1946, p. 156). Marlow refers to him as a â€Å"soul satiated with primitive emotions, avid of lying fame, of sham distinction, of all the appearances of success and power† (Conrad, 1946, p. 147). My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my everything belonged to him. It made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing the wilderness burst into a prodigious peal of laughter that would shake the fixed stars in their places. Everything belonged to himbut that was a trifle. The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own. (Conrad, 1946, p. 116)â€Å"Marlows temptation is made concrete through his exposure to Kurtz, a white man and sometime idealist who had fully responded to the wilderness: a potential and fallen self†, Guerard assumes (1987, p. 9). Marlow calls Kurtz devil because no human being is allowed to be so atrocious and reckless in his desire to suppress people who are different than he, a white dominant male. His blindness to diversity – of cultures or human values – drives him to death and creates the atmosphere of darkness dominating.The idea of dominance is criticized by Marlow and Conrad as t he author:The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. (Conrad, 1946, p. 50-1) Now we can recall once again the discourse about the Romans colonizing the Britons. Then, Marlow spoke of the warriors amidst the alien tribes who spoke different language, awful climate and etc. â€Å"They were men enough to face the darkness†, he admits almost admiringly (Conrad, 1946, p. 49), meaning that they faced difficulties and performed their duties well. However, closer to the end of the story the narrator seemed to be more indignant with â€Å"the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires† (Conrad, 1946, p. 47). Those germs, which remind us of some contagious disease, makes one man suppress the other, who is no less unique or significant. The detailed depictions of starving natives aim at teaching the lesson of tolerance and acknowledging the diversity. Kurtz, a white colonizer, in his obsession with power, appears to be more barbarous than the people he suppressed. Though energetic and charismatic, Kuntz dies as well as the idea of colonization in the mode rn world. This proves the initial argument about ominous results cultural and human violation brings to human soul and body.

Biography of Spartacus, a Slave Who Led a Revolt

Biography of Spartacus, a Slave Who Led a Revolt Spartacus (approximately 100–71 BCE), was a gladiator from Thrace who led a major revolt against Rome. Little is known about this fighting slave from Thrace beyond his role in the spectacular revolt that became known as the Third Servile War (73–71 BCE). Sources agree, however, that Spartacus had once fought for Rome as a legionnaire and was enslaved and sold to become a gladiator. In 73 BCE, he and a group of fellow gladiators rioted and escaped. The 78 men who followed him swelled to an army of more than 70,000, which terrified the citizens of Rome as it plundered Italy from Rome to Thurii in present-day Calabria. Fast Facts: Spartacus Known For: Leading a slave revolt against the Roman governmentBorn: Exact date unknown but believed around 100 BCE in ThraceEducation: Gladiatorial school in Capua, north of NaplesDied: Believed in 71 BCE at Rhenium Early Life While little is known about Spartacuss early life, it is believed that he was born in Thrace (in the Balkans). It is likely that he actually served in the Roman Army, though it is unclear why he left. Spartacus, perhaps a captive of a Roman legion and perhaps a former auxiliary himself, was sold in 73 BCE into the service of Lentulus Batiates, a man who taught at a ludus for gladiators in Capua, 20 miles from Mount Vesuvius in Campania. Spartacus trained at the gladiatorial school in Capua. Spartacus the Gladiator In the same year that he was sold, Spartacus and two Gallic gladiators led a riot at the school. Of the 200 slaves at the ludus, 78 men escaped, using kitchen tools as weapons. In the streets, they found wagons of gladiatorial weapons and confiscated them. Now armed, they easily defeated the soldiers who tried stopping them. Stealing military-grade weapons, they set out south to Mount Vesuvius. Three Gallic slaves- Crixus, Oenomaus, and Castus- became, along with Spartacus, the leaders of the band. Seizing a defensive position in the mountains near Vesuvius, they attracted thousands of slaves from the countryside- 70,000 men, with another 50,000 women and children in tow. Early Success The slave rebellion happened at a moment when Romes legions were abroad. Her greatest generals, the consuls Lucius Licinius Lucullus and Marcus Aurelius Cotta, were attending to the subjugation of the Eastern kingdom of Bithynia, a recent addition to the republic. The raids carried out in the Campanian countryside by Spartacus men fell to local officials to mediate. These praetors, including Gaius Claudius Glaber and Publius Varinius, underestimated the training and ingenuity of the slave fighters. Glaber thought he could lay siege to the slave redoubt at Vesuvius, but the slaves dramatically rappelled down the mountainside with ropes fashioned from vines, outflanked Glabers force, and destroyed it. By the winter of 72 BCE, the successes of the slave army alarmed Rome to the degree that consular armies were raised to deal with the threat. Crassus Assumes Control Marcus Licinius Crassus was elected praetor and headed to Picenum to put an end to the Spartacan revolt with 10 legions, some 32,000 to 48,000 trained Roman fighters, plus auxiliary units. Crassus correctly assumed the slaves would head north to the Alps and positioned most of his men to block this escape. Meanwhile, he sent his lieutenant Mummius and two new legions south to pressure the slaves to move north. Mummius had been explicitly instructed not to fight a pitched battle. He had ideas of his own, however, and when he engaged the slaves in battle, he suffered defeat. Spartacus routed Mummius and his legions. They lost not only men and their arms, but later, when they returned to their commander, the survivors suffered the ultimate Roman military punishment- decimation, by order of Crassus. The men were divided into groups of 10 and then drew lots. The unlucky one in 10 was then killed. Meanwhile, Spartacus turned around and headed toward Sicily, planning to escape on pirate ships, not knowing that the pirates had already sailed away. At the Isthmus of Bruttium, Crassus built a wall to block Spartacus escape. When the slaves tried to break through, the Romans fought back and killed about 12,000 of the slaves. Death Spartacus learned that Crassus troops were to be reinforced by another Roman army under Pompey, brought back from Spain. In desperation, he and his slaves fled north, with Crassus at their heels. Spartacus escape route was blocked at Brundisium by a third Roman force recalled from Macedonia. There was nothing left for Spartacus to do but to try to beat Crassus army in battle. The Spartacans were quickly surrounded and butchered, although many men escaped into the mountains. Only 1,000 Romans died. Six thousand of the fleeing slaves were captured by Crassus troops and crucified along the Appian Way, from Capua to Rome. Spartacus body was not found. Because Pompey performed the mopping-up operations, he, and not Crassus, got credit for suppressing the rebellion. The Third Servile War would become a chapter in the struggle between these two great Romans. Both returned to Rome and refused to disband their armies; the two were elected consul in 70 BCE. Legacy Popular culture, including the 1960 film by Stanley Kubrick, has cast the revolt led by Spartacus in political tones as a rebuke to slavery in the Roman republic. There is no historical material to support this interpretation, nor is it known whether Spartacus intended for his force to escape Italy for freedom in their homelands, as Plutarch maintains. The historians Appian and Florian wrote that Spartacus intended to march on the capital itself. Despite the atrocities committed by Spartacus forces and the splintering of his host after disagreements among the leaders, the Third Servile War inspired revolutions successful and unsuccessful throughout history, including Toussaint Louvertures march for Haitian independence. Sources Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. â€Å"Spartacus.† Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica, Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica, Inc., 22 Mar. 2018. Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. â€Å"Third Servile War.† Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica, Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica, Inc., 7 Dec. 2017. â€Å"History - Spartacus.† BBC.

6 Email Mistakes that Get You Fired

6 Email Mistakes that Get You Fired We spend a distressing amount of time on email. It’s a bigger and bigger part of our jobs and our lives. It can also be an extremely revealing facet of our personalities and an indicator of how capable we are professionally. We all think we write high-caliber, businesslike emails, but we all get plenty of emails that just aren’t polished enough. Is it possible you might be guilty of substandard email? Here are six things you should make sure you’re not doing.Being forward-happySimply forwarding an email to your coworkers or your boss does not clear you of responsibility. If you really want to disseminate that information, try editing the subject to be more eye-catching, then include a brief, but informative note in the body to introduce the email you are forwarding with the reason you are forwarding it.Being grammar lazyGrammar is not a relic of the past. And people will notice when you disregard it. If you want to be respected, you need to make a habit of drafti ng smart, professional emails. Resist the temptation to express yourself in exclamation points and emoji. Use concise, correct language instead. And remember to be brief.Relying on clichà ©Check the next five emails you write before you send them. Are you using stock clichà ©s and dead language that isn’t yours? Or worse- are you using corporate speak? Talking about â€Å"circling the wagons† or â€Å"digging deep† or other meaningless phrases? Try to keep your language fresh and clean and surgically to the point.IMHO lolzNobody cares that you can use all the trendy acronyms, whether either irony or earnest. There is no place for them in a professional forum. Srlsy.Replying allUnless you have a very good reason to do so- i.e. everyone on that original thread absolutely needs a piece of information that only you possess- just don’t do it. You’ll just clog everybody’s inboxes with an unnecessary reply. If you’re communicating with you r team and boss, leave your boss out of the back-and-forth and CC her only when she needs to be in the loop on a particular message.Cleaning out your inboxIt doesn’t seem like something you might be doing wrong; it’s what organized, productive people do, right? Wrong. Chances are, the time you spend sorting all your emails into file folders is time you could actually spend working and furthering your career.

Lab formal report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Formal - Lab Report Example The liquid is then transferred to boiling water to enhance the vaporization of the fluid. Subsequently, the liquids vapor will drive out air and in turn fill the flask at atmospheric pressure and the temperature of boiling water (Bettelheim & Landesberg, 2013). By cooling the container to facilitate the condensation of the vapor, the mass of the vapor was measured, and the value M calculated. The method depends on several aspects going right. The outstanding assumption is that the liquid is volatile enough to vaporize at relatively higher temperature (Bettelheim & Landesberg, 2013). Moreover, the liquid less volatile thus a smaller quantity will evaporate via the underlying orifice during the cooling process of the container. The vapor behaves ideally at both the temperature and pressure existing in the container’. The error varies from element to element. Acetone gas might have escaped via the stopper and the rest boiled completely to dryness. The experiment was time-consuming. The error between the trials was immense. An error of 11.9 was high but close. High temperature for the water bath was had to achieve resulting to

Exam_Decision support system and business intelligence 2 Essay

Exam_Decision support system and business intelligence 2 - Essay Example It is thus characterized by subject, integration, time and volatility. Subject-oriented – this is the type of data warehousing in which the data is arranged by the subject details that are relevant to the decision support processes thus enable users determine the how and why of the organization’s performance. Integrated-this is the characteristic of data warehouse in which the data is placed from different sources are placed in a consistent format. This is only possible if the data warehouse is dealing with major data warehousing conflicts like naming discrepancies. Time-variant-this is the characteristic of data warehouse that maintains historical data. Time is a very important aspect of warehousing that defines the status of data in real systems. This character is responsible for detecting trends, long-term relationships and deviations that help in comparisons and forecasting which forms a very important part of decision making. Non-volatile- this is the characteristic of data warehouse that ensures that data entered into the data warehouse is not manipulated by users through updating or changing. It also ensures that changes in the data are recorded as new data and obsolete data are discarded. Q2: Natural Language Processing is the mode of representation that was used by early text mining applications to introduce various structures to the text-based documents so that they could cluster them to the natural groupings or classify them to some predetermined classes. In the earlier text mining like bag-of –words the natural language was considered a cluster of words. Texts like paragraphs, sentence or complete document were often represented as a collection of world. This process disregarded the grammar of the text or the order in which these words appeared. Though this model has become obsolete, some document classification tools still use it. This is still applicable in span filtering where the e-mail message

Ohio State University Essay Example for Free

Ohio State University Essay Cynthia Ozick is a daughter to Celia Regelsion and William Ozick who was born on 17th April, 1928 in New York. She has a strong educational background. She is a BA degree holder from the university of New York and Masters degree (MA) holder from Ohio State University. She is a respectable and an outstanding writer who has written several fictions and essays and particularly on the life of Jewish Americans. Some of her works such as the novel entitled ‘Heir to the Glimmering world’ that was released in 2004 made her to become popular in the world especially in the United Kingdom. Ozick has achieved many awards due to her unmatched writing skills for example she won the 1986’s Rea Award for the short story writer. She was also on the limelight in 2005 when she won the Man Booker International award. As if this was not enough, she won herself the PEN award in honor of her excellent short story writing skills. Her writing career did not occur to her overnight in fact there are some historical factors that motivated and shaped her life to what she is now. This research paper is going to delve deeper into Cynthia Ozick’s historical background and try to establish the exact factors that influenced her to become a writer of her caliber. The paper will also give brief background information of her life and then conclude with a quick summary of the main points that have been discussed. In the very last page of this paper is a list of all the resources that have been consulted while conducting this research and are properly formatted in accordance with MLA formatting style. Cynthia Ozick was a second born in her family and her father owned a drugstore where Cynthia would assist him in delivering prescriptions. She hailed from a family that greatly valued education and that is why she ended following the path she took, wring novels, poems and plays. Her father was a great Jewish scholar while her uncle was a renown Hebrew poet whose work was widely read. It is her uncle who for the first time introduced her in the field of literature thereby laying the foundation of her future career. (Rothstein) She attended school at a time when anti-Semitism was on the highest degree. She first experienced it while she was schooling at Pelham Bay section where she would receive anti Semitic slurs and attacks especially when Christmas carols were sung in class for she would not sing along as it was her principle. (Jiffynotes. com) She never gave up with school life instead she read books of her older brothers and would get others from a mobile library that passed by their drugstore. Her life took a new dimension when she joined high school at Hunter College where she found the situation being different from that in primary school life in that her education excellence was respected and greatly appreciated something that paved way for her to pursue higher education in 1949 at New York University and later to join Ohio State University for her Master’s program. (Fallon, E. 320-22) Generally speaking, though her life was good at home it was not the same in public. It was in accordance with Jewish culture that young children in America be taken for religious instructions and Cynthia Ozick was no exception. She experienced her first childhood pain at the age of five and half when her grandmother took her for those classes at Yiddish only to be disappointed by the Rabbi who refused to accept the girl arguing that there was no need to educate females. â€Å"Take her home, a girl does not have to study’ (Lowin) Rabbi had no idea whom she was sending away because the girl was bright. Though she was sent away, her grandmother never gave up in fact she took her again the next morning and she was accepted. Rabbi later discovered that the girl was a quick learner and through Rabbi Cynthia came to learn Yiddish knowledge. The experience of her being sent away from school by Rabbi who believed that girls were dispensable to be educated motivated Cynthia in one way or the other. She says that her feminism cropped up due to this treatment. (Lowin J.) Another thing that motivated her to write novels was the memories of how she was treated at school in Bronx. Though the girl was intelligent there are other things that made her feel inadequate, ‘While Ozick describes the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx as a lovely place she found it ‘brutally’ difficult to be a Jew there she remembers having stones thrown at her and being called a Christ-killer as she ran past the two churches in her neighborhood† (Lowin J). she recalls how she was treated so many years down the line something she confirms in her novel, The Cannibal Galaxy which where she describes her life in school that she was suffering like a little worm in school perhaps because she was an immigrant child left under the hands of a teacher who cared less about her life. According to Fallon (323), though Cynthia would not relate well with other children at school there was another option and a better one, books. After school she would burry her head in books that she got from a mobile library that passed by their drugstore once in a week. She says that the mobile librarians would take their cup of coffee at Park View Pharmacy after they were through with their work and she would pick two big books and magazines which transferred her completely to another world, a world different from what she experienced in school, a world of books where no one would interfere with her life. It could be said that harassment she experienced at school was a blessing in disguise because it made her to study more thereby increasing her level of intelligence. She was motivated to spend more of her time reading as she could not relate well with other students who would even criticize and throw stones at her while passing by them. (Fallon 324) The books she received from the traveling library magically transformed her life from that of a doltish schoolgirl to a reader and a prominent writer. She started by going through fairly tails and ended up being a renown novelist. The other motivational force came from her uncle Abraham Regelson, a poet who was admired for his outstanding composing and writing skills. She says that Regelson paved a way for her to follow what she refers to as a strange career. She says, â€Å"It seemed quite natural to belong to the secular Id of literature† (Lowin). She attributed her career choice to her gender arguing that if she was born a boy may be she would have pursue something else instead of what she did. She felt more motivated when she joined high school at Hunter College, Manhattan. The school atmosphere was different from that of the primary school. Here it was academic excellence that made one to be recognized and for the simple reason that she was extremely bright, she felt like she was part of the big elite group. She clearly describes those feelings in her short story book â€Å"An Education. † After she successfully completed her high school education, she proceeded to the University of New York for her BA degree and after that joined Ohio state university for her Masters degree where she wrote her thesis ‘Parable in the Later Novels of Henry James’. In her peace of work entitled, According to Lowin, the lesson of the Master Cynthia Ozick explains how she was influenced by the work of Henry James such that she became a worshipper of literature. She says, â€Å"A worshipper who had to choose between human entanglement, real life and exclusive devotion to art, chooses art. She chose art over life, she says to her eternal regret† (Lowin). Her definition in work of art was confirmed when she directed all her efforts to what she referred to as ‘High Art’ and she embarked on writing philosophical novels such as Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love (MPPL). After that she stopped writing novels and committing herself to other pieces of work like writing Jewish literature. She also got culturally transformed and became what could be termed as Jewish autodidact (Rothstein, M. ). Later, she would further be influenced by the work of Heinrich Graetz – History of the Jews and thereby she took another dimension as far as writing was concerned. She started writing more about Jews and came to be referred to as a Jewish writer. She wrote many poems with Jewish themes and also published another piece of work entitled the Pagan Rabbi in 1966 which made her very popular as it was widely read. It is from this time that her character in the field of writing started to shine internationally. She won several awards and her stories were chosen as the best in the yearly American Short Stories. She also won the Faultner Award and the National Book Award plus other dozen grants and awards that were only coveted by many not mentioning the several honorary degrees she was warded by various universities. (Associated Press) Though she was not a direct victim of the Jewish Holocaust, she would recall how Jews were killed by deadly gas by the ruthless Nazis and particularly in Germany. These memories have also become another motivating force behind her career as a Jewish writer because she has spent a great deal of time and energy writing about what was happening during that time. In conclusion it can be said that Cynthia Ozick’s career was to a large extent shaped by anti-Semitism attacks she met at school. The fact that other students were isolating her and openly criticized opened another door for her. She found solace in books which she received from a mobile library that passed by their drug store. Again having come from a family with people who valued education, she got motivated to study harder than others. Later was later influenced by the work of Regelson and Heinrich Graetz. Again the memories of how the Jews were treated during the First World War reawakened her conscience something that made her to switch to a Jewish leader. Works Cited: Associated Press. Author Cynthia Ozick wins to lifetime achievement awards. Times Record News. April 24, 2008. Accessed at http://www. timesrecordnews. com/news/2008/apr/24/author-cynthia-ozick-wins-2- lifetime-achievement-a/? printer=1/ Lowin, J. Cynthia Ozick. Jewish Virtual Library. 1928. Available at http://www. jewishvirtuallibrary. org/jsource/biography/Ozick. html Fallon, E. A Readers Companion to the Short Story in English Society for the Study of the Short Story. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001 Jiffy notes . com. Cynthia Ozick. Thomson Gale, 2006. Available at http://www. jiffynotes. com/a_study_guides/book_notes/ssfs_0000_0022_0/ssfs_0 000_0022_0_00022. html Rothstein, M. Cynthia Ozicks Rabbinical Approach to Literature. New York Times. March 25, 1987. Available at http://query. nytimes. com/gst/fullpage. html? res=9B0DE5D91330F936A15750C0 A961948260sec=spon=pagewanted=all

Serial Killers :: Papers

In the last three decades the USA has been troubled by an approaching problem, the serial killer. A serial killer is a person who kills a number of people, usually considered over five, with a cooling off period between each murder, usually one murder at one given time). Two murders at one time occasionally happen and these murders may go on for a period of months or years until the killer is caught. Throughout the last three decades the US serial killer rate has risen 94% and it is estimated that by the next millennium it will claim an average of 11 lives a day. Serial Murder is an epidemic; there are at least 35 serial killers active in the USA today who claim one third of the annual murder rate. The USA has 6% of the world's population yet it has three quarters of all serial killers. Not only are serial killers appearing in more numbers in the US but also all over the world countries are terrorized by serial killers, which are appearing in more numbers year and year after. KILLER TRAIT: A serial killer is a typical white male, 20-30, and most of them are usually in the USA. Their main motives are sex (even though the act of sex may or may not take place), power, manipulation, domination and control. The sex motive is usually rape for an organized killer and sadism for a disorganized killer. They act in a series of 5 or more murders with a cooling off period between each murder. Serial killers can go on for months and years before they are usually caught. The victim is usually the same for every killer - prostitute, hitchhiker etc. Their victims may also have the same or similar attributes in gender, age, race, general look, residence etc. Serial killers also stick by their modus operandi very closely and may change it with experience. Most murders occur by strangulation, suffocation, stabbing etc. Serial killers act by a sex-murder fantasy based with their control, they usually live in this dream world in their teens until they act it out for real when they get into the adult stage. As each murder occurs a serial killer may be disappointed by his murder fantasy and may act it out again to achieve it to there own satisfaction. CHARACTERISTICS OF A SERIAL KILLER: 1. Killings are separate ('serial'), occurring with greater or less frequency, often escalating over a period of time, sometimes years, and will continue until the killer is taken into custody, dies, or is himself/herself killed.