10 Tips for Clean, Clear Writing

10 Tips for Clean, Clear Writing 10 Tips for Clean, Clear Writing 10 Tips for Clean, Clear Writing By Mark Nichol Adhering to the following guidance about usage, syntax, punctuation, style, and form will perceptibly improve the quality of your writing. 1. Use vivid verbs. Monitor your writing for excessive use of forms of â€Å"to be†- is, be, and their variants- and other helping verbs such as has, as well as other weak verbs like do and go, and replace with active verbs. Also, avoid baseline action words when possible. For example, people don’t just walk: They lumber, march, or stroll. Don’t strive to eliminate every instance, but do minimize vague verbs. 2. Reword or delete clichà ©s. Think outside the box. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. All (fill in the blank) are not created equal. These. Are. So. Lame. (YMMV.*) 3. Always use the serial comma. When listing more than two things, include a comma before the conjunction preceding the final item. Omitting the comma can prompt ambiguity about the list’s organization, but inserting it never contributes to confusion. Related article: The Rationale for the Serial Comma. 4. Avoid scare quotes. Generally, use â€Å"scare quotes† only to signal that the writer is calling out the quoted content as being dubious or ironic, not to introduce an unfamiliar term. Related article: 3 Erroneous Uses of Scare Quotes. 5. Hyphenate phrasal adjectives. If a two-word phrase doesn’t appear in the dictionary as a standing open compound, it is not exempt from hyphenation. Exceptions can be made for terms of art (vocabulary specific to a topic or discipline and well known among one’s readership), but use this privilege sparingly, and double-check that open phrasal adjectives aren’t ambiguous or confusing. Related article: 5 Types of Phrasal Adjectives That Require Hyphens. 6. When in doubt, don’t capitalize. If you’re not certain that a word or phrase should be capitalized, look the term up in authoritative sources. Writers often Capitalize Important Concepts that don’t deserve such emphasis, but careful writers don’t. (Also, for example, job titles are capitalized before a name but not after it, and generic terms that are abbreviated references to proper names- such as act when referring to a specific piece of legislation- are just that: generic.) Related article: Avoid Gratuitous Capitalization 7. Refrain from using all-caps. Employ italics to emphasize a word or phrase. Reserve use of all capital letters for humorous indication of shouting or panic, and avoid in formal writing. 8. Be consistent in formatting treatment. If a caption is boldfaced or italicized or appears in a different font, all captions should be formatted that way. If top-level headings are capitalized headline style (Capitalized Like This) rather than sentence style (Capitalized like this), treat subheadings the same way. 9. Vary sentence length. A healthy mix of sentence length and syntactical forms (simple declarative statements, sentences with lists, sentences with subordinate clauses and parenthetical phrases, and so on) keeps the reader engaged. Lockstep sentence construction and consistently short or long sentences are distracting. 10. Manage paragraph length. The traditional five-sentence paragraph form is fatiguing. Strive to craft paragraphs that will, in published form, be about ten to fifteen lines in narrow columns or five to ten lines in full-width display, and, as with sentence length, avoid paragraphs of consistent length. Related article: How Long Should a Paragraph Be? If you decide to ignore or break a rule for effect, take care with the rest of your content, or your attempt at deviation may seem like simply the most egregious of your errors. * Your mileage may vary. 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 Writing Basics category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Wether, Weather, Whether"Wracking" or "Racking" Your Brain?Writing a Thank You Note

The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein

The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein Are modern-day, American women happy? Are their lives more fulfilling than those of women who lived before the Equal Rights Amendment? Have the expectations of stereotypical gender roles faded away? Is society still dominated by a patriarchal boys club? Wendy Wasserstein considers these questions in her Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Heidi Chronicles. Although it was written over twenty years ago, this drama still mirrors the emotional trials many of us (women and men) experience as we try to figure out the big question: What should we do with our lives? A Male-centric Disclaimer First of all, before this review continues, it should be disclosed that it was written by a guy. A forty-year-old male. If the subject of analysis in a womens studies class, your reviewer might be labeled as part of the ruling class in a male-biased society. Hopefully, as the critique continues, it wont present as obnoxiously do the self-confident, self-loving male characters in The Heidi Chronicles. The Good The strongest, most appealing aspect of the play is its heroine, a complex character who is emotionally fragile yet resilient. As an audience we watch her make choices that we know will lead to heartache (such as falling in love with the wrong guy), but we also witness Heidi learning from her mistakes; ultimately she proves that she can have both a successful career and a family life. Some of the themes are worthy of literary analysis (for any of you English majors looking for an essay topic). In particular, the play defines feminists of the 70s as hard-working activists who are willing to forgo gender expectations to improve womens status in society. In contrast, the younger generation of women (the ones who are in their twenties during the 1980s) is portrayed as more consumer-minded. This perception is demonstrated when Heidis friends want to develop a sitcom in which women Heidis age are very unhappy. Unfulfilled, frightened of growing old alone. In contrast, the younger generation want to get married in their twenties, have their first baby by thirty, and make a pot of money. This perception of a disparity between the generations leads to a powerful monologue delivered by Heidi in Scene Four, Act Two. She laments: Were all concerned, intelligent, good women. Its just that I feel stranded. And I thought the whole point was that we wouldnt feel stranded. I thought the point was that we were all in this together. Its a heartfelt plea for a sense of community that for Wasserstein (and many other feminist authors) failed to come to fruition after the dawn of the ERA. The Bad As you will discover in more detail if you read the plot outline below, Heidi falls in love with a man named Scoop Rosenbaum. The man is a jerk, plain and simple. And the fact that Heidi spends decades carrying a torch for this loser drains away some of my sympathy for her character. Fortunately, one of her friends, Peter, snaps her out of it when he asks her to contrast her misery with the more devastating problems going on around them. (Peter has recently lost many friends due to AIDS). Its a much-needed wake-up call. Plot Summary The play begins in 1989 with a lecture presented by Heidi Holland, a brilliant, often lonely art historian whose work focuses on developing a stronger awareness of female painters, getting their work exhibited in otherwise male-centric museums. Then the play transitions to the past, and the audience meets the 1965 version of Heidi, an awkward wallflower at a high school dance. She meets Peter, a larger than life young man who will become her best friend. Flash forward to college, 1968, Heidi meets Scoop Rosenbaum, an attractive, arrogant editor of a left-wing newspaper who wins her heart (and her virginity) after a ten-minute conversation. The years go by. Heidi bonds with her girlfriends in womens groups. She crafts a thriving career as an art historian and professor. Her love life, however, is in shambles. Her romantic feelings for her gay friend Peter are unrequited for obvious reasons. And, for reasons hard to fathom, Heidi cant give up on that philandering Scoop, even though he never commits to her and marries a woman whom he does not love passionately. Heidi wants the men she cannot have, and anyone else she dates seems to bore her. Heidi also desires the experience of motherhood. This yearning becomes all the more painful when she attends the baby shower of Mrs. Scoop Rosenbaum. Yet, Heidi is ultimately empowered to find her own path without a husband. Although a bit dated, The Heidi Chronicles still remains an important reminder of the tough choices we all make when we try to chase not just one but a whole handful of dreams. Suggested Reading Wasserstein explores some of the same themes (womens rights, political activism, women who love gay men) in her comical family drama: The Sisters Rosenweig. She also wrote a book called Sloth, a parody of those over-enthusiastic self-help books.

The Concept and Process of Marketing (Coca-Cola case) Essay

The Concept and Process of Marketing (Coca-Cola case) - Essay Example Marketing can also be defined as a process through organization creates effective channels of exchanging of goods and services with their customers, through coordination of the four P’s of marketing, which are product, price, place and promotion. Marketing therefore involves identifying a product that can satisfy a given consumer need, determination of its price, determination of an effective distribution channel for the product to reach the customer, and finally designing ways to inform the potential consumers about the product (Wysong and Flores, 2008, p.54). 1.2 Consumers Needs and Wants Consumers are motivated to buy goods and services by their specific wants and needs, a consumers needs are those items that every person requires for survivor such as clothes, food and shelters. The consumer’s wants refers to those items that a person would consider buying after fulfilling his or her needs, which may include a car, going for holiday among others. However, a want can easily translate into a need when a person desperately wants an item. However, Hartline and Ferrell (2010, p.184) warns that referring to needs as necessities is simplistic since the definition of a need is subjective. Therefore, in this respect, a need occurs when a consumer’s level of satisfaction is below the desired level while a want is a desire of a given product to cater for a need (Hartline and Ferrell, 2010, p.184). As stated earlier, a consumer will buy goods and services primarily to satisfy his or her wants and needs. Therefore, it is prudent for a business to understand the needs, which can be satisfied by its products. As Hartline and Ferrell...For instance, Coca-Cola has in the past used their bottles to conduct a lottery, whereby a faithful customer who manages to collect specific winning bottle tops gets the reward. 2.37 Consumer profitability. Companies undergo various costs in the process of advertising, consumer relations, and in the process of trying to increase their sales. Consumer profitability is the difference between the revenue that a company gets customers, and the cost they incur to get those customers (Raaij and Eric 2002, p 1). Coca- Cola Company should do the cost benefit analysis, in order to ensure that revenue incurred in the customer relation process is more than the costs incurred, and that such difference is significant. 2.38 Narrow marketing focus Narrow marketing involves a product with fluctuating prices in the market, which is usually as a result of change in demand or supply. A narrow marketing strategy involves a company not putting efforts to win new customers. The cost of narrow marketing focus is low sales, fluctuation in product demand. Coca–Cola Company can avoid this pitfall through adopting strategies to get new customers and using good customer relations to retain existing customers.

Health information research project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Health information research project - Essay Example The policy is that this information needs to be conveyed to the patient before the physician releases the medical information to the authorities maintaining the computer databases. This is because the patient’s informed permission needs to be obtained for treatment (Wilson 2009). For obtaining this, the patient has the right to get the complete information about where their records are being stored. Further, they have the right to know the persons and organizations that have access to their computerized medical databases (O’Caroll et al ed 2003). 3. The AMA’s policy is that the procedures for eradicating the computerized database of inaccurate data need to be established (www.ama-assn.org).This information of purging of inaccurate data needs to be notified to the patient before the purging of data and after the completion of purging. This policy has been adopted to give the patient a chance to get a printed copy of the computerized information before it is lost completely .Further they have the right to know that their records have been eradicated forever from the computer. 4. The AMA’S policy on confidentiality of computers is that the computerized database should be online to the computer terminal only when authorized computer programs that require the computerized data are being used (www.ama-assn.org). External individuals and organizations should not be provided online access to this data. Security measures like password protection, encoding of information etc are required to control unauthorized access to the medical data according to AMA’s policy. This is to prevent the unauthorized access by any external agent to a patient’s confidential medical data. The legal basis for this is the right of privacy derived from constitution (Wilson, 2009). 5. According to AMA’s policy, when a computer service bureau erases medical data, the bureau needs to verify in writing to the

Industralization after Civil War Essay Example for Free

Industralization after Civil War Essay After the Civil War, the United States became much more industrialized society. Between 1865 and 1920, industrialization improved American life in many ways, transforming it into a modern industrial society but also created problems for the American people. Three major improvements that contributed to the United States economy were the railroads, factories and immigration. Railroads during the period of the industrial revolution were good throughout the north and were supported by the federal government to help build the north into achieving a prosperous economy. The railroads made transportation of goods and products easy, cheap and reliable. The steel industry made the expansion of the railroads possible and by the 1900’s, Carnegie made great contributions to the business world, enabling railroads to connect to seaports, cities and industrial centers. Urbanization and Immigration began around the 1870 and the 1920’s. Immigrants migrated to cities like New York, Chicago and Boston. Approximately 25 million people migrated to the U.S and they contributed to the growth of the cities and new technologies. They worked low- paying factory jobs and overcrowded neighborhoods, moving the middle class out of their communities (Shultz, 2014). While great accomplishments took place during this period, it also affected different people like African Americans, Farmers, Children, Women and Immigrants. African Americans faced many challenges in terms of freedom and acceptance from the old to the new south. In the old south, they were slaves working day and night with no rights. After the civil war, during the reconstruction their lives improved, being freed with rights such as the 14th- and 15th amendments that granted them citizenship and the right to vote. However in the â€Å"New South† their rights seemed meaningless because of the Jim Crow laws, violence and the lack of their voting rights. The Jim Crow laws they prohibited them from attending the same schools as whites and sitting in the same areas in restaurants, which increased the racism of  blacks and whites. Children were also affected while this time due to the high demand for them to work in factories was great. Many children started at the age 14, but would be hired form age 6, who usually worked tedious long hours. By the end of the 1800’s, child labor laws were passed, but employers ignored the laws, and the number of child factory workers increased (Shultz, 2014). Children were great at doing this task because they accepted low pay, didn’t complain about the wages, and were able to fit in small in cracks that the average man and women couldn’t do. The economy of the south wasn’t very strong due to the fact, profits were made because l abor was unpaid, and the limited crops planted were cotton, tobacco and sugar. Some of the natural resources of the south included farmland, water power, steam power coal, iron and oil. Agriculture was the primary source of employment; while textiles and steel industries became prosperous in the south after the civil war (Weightman, 2007). Many sharecroppers faced hardships and sharecropping became unprofitable for workers because they were uneducated, and cheated by the landowners that owned the supplies. Fresh produce began to be in great demand once refrigerated railcars were introduced. References Ashton, T.S. The Industrial Revolution: 1760-1830. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Schultz, Kevin: 2014 U.S History since 1865 Volume 11: pg. 291, 311-320 Weightman, Gavin. The Industrial Revolutionaries: The Making of the Modern World, 1776-1914. New York: Grove Press, 2007.

Sophocles Antigone, Aeschylus Prometheus Bound, Jean Anouilhs Antigone and Ridley Scotts Blad :: Prometheus Bound Antigone Blade Runner

Sophocles' Antigone, Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, Jean Anouilh's Antigone and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner The representative population of a community is not comfortable when confronted by an individual who defies the laws that bind them. Whether or not the laws or the powers behind them are just, the populace must deal with any challenge to their authority. In some cases, the community, fearful of a powerful regime, will side with that power and avoid the risks associated with rebellion. Others find the tyranny too unjust to stand idly by and, risking their lives, join with other defiant individuals against it. The group of characters named as Chorus in both Sophocles' Antigone and Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound witness the rebellion of the titular characters against their respective authorities. In both plays, the Choruses (heretofore distinguished as Chorus A for Antigone and Chorus P for Prometheus Bound) recognize the ruling powers as both dangerous and tyrannical and are sympathetic to the plights of Antigone and Prometheus. However, the similarities between the two groups end at this point. While the actions of Chorus A are understandable given that their maturity has made them keenly aware of their own mortality, they appear mundane and self-serving in comparison to the noble selflessness of the youthful Chorus P. Chorus A are introduced as "the old citizens of Thebes" (p65). The effect of age upon their demeanor is immediately evident in their description of the defeat of Polynices and his armies. The elders are certainly triumphant, calling out: "Glory! ...great beam of the sun, brightest of all that ever rose against the seven gates of Thebes, you burn through the night at last!" (117-19). In these lines there is also a shade of relief. Born of freedom from the fear of their enemy's ...vast maw gaping closing down around our seven gates, his spears thirsting for the kill..." (132-34). These men are not the brave Theban warriors who fought with Eteocles. They are the elder citizens who cowered through the night of war hoping for, and receiving, "Victory! Glorious in the morning..." (164). They are cautious enough to stay out of the physical battle and they display the same self-interest when involved in the coming political confrontation between Antigone and Creon.

Conglomerate Essay

Materials manager at Captiva Conglomerate, A1 Carpenter, is holding a meeting with his Inventory and Spares manager, Sam, his Supply manager, Aaron, vice president of Operations, Jason, vice president of Finance, Monica, and director of Information Technology, Jana, to discuss the contract with SOS for an inventory management and spare parts management system. – Sam, from Inventory and Spares, believes the spare parts system is not useable for him and his personnel, plus the delivery of the system is four months behind schedule. The information technology department believes the system works great from the perspective of Jim. – The inventory management system is 10 months behind schedule and repercussions towards the supplier are minimal due to a lenient and poorly written contract, which stated verbiage such as â€Å"best efforts† and â€Å"whenever possible. † – The contract with SOS has used the entirety of the $1 M allotted, even though the supplier has accepted 17 unpriced change orders. Jason, from Operations, specifies that the new system ould provide him better support, uptime, and cut inventory while providing improved support. – The question about who wrote the specification for the contracts is brought up and it is pointed out by Aaron, from Supply, that they were drafted by the supplier and initialed by Jana, from Information Technology Can Captiva Conglomerate produce better written and produced specifications, solving the problem of poorly written contracts, by implementing cross functional teams integrated by the pertinent members of all areas of the organization involved in the respective procurement? Best Solution: Establish a multi-functional team to include the purchasing manager, finance, a legal representative, IT, operations, and inventory & spares to come up with a plan and strategy to definitize and clear up the SOS contract requirements. After this is ccomplished, re-engage with SOS to establish the new clear path for moving forward through a new agreement in order to achieve the deliverables needed by Captiva. Immediately following, a standard operating procedure would be created to establish guidance on putting together multifunctional teams for any major acquisition. Advantages: Clearing up the requirement documents will help Captive achieve the desired results it was looking for through the contract with SOS. – This approach will also help establish a firm and final price for the deliverables needed. Involving all epartments in the acquisition process aids in establishing realistic lead times, improved specification writing, and proper financial planning. – Creating a standard operating procedure will avoid the mistakes of the SOS contract in the future. – Multifunctional teams create an environment of efficiency and effectiveness for solving large problems or tackling complex large requireme nts. Disadvantages: Additional time, resources, and cost will be incurred to clear the mess Captiva currently has. – The contract with SOS will require additional funding in order to eceive the final deliverables. Additional coordination with other departments will require additional effort. – There is always risk in trying to enter a new agreement with SOS and resistance could be encountered without a guaranteed result. Alternate Solution: Establish a new training on the approach towards new acquisitions and who should be involved in the process. Centralize the procurement process in Captiva, as it seems that the acquisition of the system through SOS was done solely by the Information Technology department and the president. Provide additional funding to the SOS contract in an attempt to finalize it. Advantages: New conditions will improve the writing of specifications and statements of work. – The centralization of purchasing will produce specialization and better accountability of procurements. – The current goal is still to receive both deliverables from SOS, while maintaining a good working relationship. Disadvantages: Cost of completing the contract will continue to increase as no set path to fixing it has been established. – Time and cost of establishing a new training program

Provide Displays in Schools Essay

The school’s setting on displays show that displays are allowed on the walls in the classrooms, corridors, in the school hall and sometimes in the offices. By having displays up around the school it gives the children a sense of achievement and the children will feel valued. Also by having displays up on the walls in the school, it makes the school look brighter, and more cheerful. The policy on displays includes that the display should create awareness and give information. It should give information on what ever subject it has been based on. The display should have a clear title and name tags of who ever made the display, which shows the achievement of the child or class. Other pupils should learn from these displays and gain knowledge or experience. The children should always have an input with the displays, including colour, pattern and design of the display because this will get them working together and they will gain experience. A teacher or teaching assistant will decide where to put the display, and make sure that it is an appropriate place to put it, to make sure it is safe. The health and safety of the staff, pupils and visitors should be taken into consideration of the location of the display, just in case things stick out of this display because it may cause harm to someone. You should laminate the paper before sticking it on and blue tack should be used instead of pins because it is a lot safer and cleaner. The staff must be aware of the object on the display that could cause harm to someone. Someone should take regular inspection of the display just in case something has broken and is hanging off or has fallen to the floor, causing a health risk. It’s important to have displays in the school because it shows a sense of pride and appreciation of the children work, because nothing shows you like and appreciate someone’s work than hanging it so everyone can see it. The children will feel their work is thought of and valued. Also by having displays on the wall, they don’t go unnoticed which means when a display has had it’s time and needs to be updated, you can’t ignore it. It also means that you have to look after the display so it keeps a good example on the school and makes the people who made it look good. Displays can decorative and make a classroom look a lot more interesting and brighter. This can directly impact a pupil into a having a positive state of mind, helping a pupil try harder and complete work and learn, all from the motivation of a display. In general when you pass something everyday you tend to notice the details about it, so when you pass a big colourful display in the corridor you will gain more knowledge about it everyday. I think this benefits a child’s learning in the school. The risk assessment of the display is always important because you need to think of a lot of different things to ensure the staff, pupil and visitors safety. The first thing you need to think of is; where is the display? Is it in a suitable area where it will not damage or injure anyone? Another question you need to ask yourself is; what is on the display? You need to ensure that there is nothing on the display that is sharp, could burn or injure. It shouldn’t be able to dislodge, shouldn’t belong to anyone but you, it can’t be poisonous and it should not rot. You need to asses how things are fixed to the display because they should not be able to dislodge. You also need to think of who will interact with the display, for example a small child could be very interested in the display, but there could be heavy object attached to it. Therefore you will need to ensure the child’s safety by either not including this heavy object on the display, or putting it high enough and stable enough out of the child’s reach.

8 Eroding Inflectional Endings

8 Eroding Inflectional Endings 8 Eroding Inflectional Endings 8 Eroding Inflectional Endings By Mark Nichol English once, like many other languages, laden with inflectional endings experienced an erosion of inflection hundreds of years ago, but sometimes it seems as if shaving influences are at work again. Here are eight examples of words that are part of standing phrases that are, at least in colloquial usage, undergoing alteration. 1. Barbed wire Many people, mishearing or not paying attention to this phrase when it is spoken aloud, or hearing it mispronounced, write or call it â€Å"barb wire.† The fencing material consists of wires with barbs, yes, but the default format for expressing that wire is barbed is to write or say â€Å"barbed wire.† 2. Corned beef The same truncation occurs with this name for beef that is corned. Corned, in this case, refers to the fact that corns, or large grains, of salt are used to preserve the meat. (Corn originally referred to any small, hard particle, then to grains, and then, in the United States, to a specific grain formerly called maize.) As the meaning of the adjective slips into obscurity, however, the meaningless â€Å"corn beef† may prevail. 3. Dome/domed stadium These references to roofed athletic facilities are interchangeably correct; one refers to the type of stadium, the other to the manner in which they are built. 4. Fine-tooth/fine-toothed comb Both descriptors for a comb with fine, or small, closely spaced, teeth are valid; surprisingly, however, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Online list only â€Å"fine-tooth comb,† though the other form would appear to be the â€Å"proper† one. Other resources list â€Å"fine-toothed comb,† but that usage seems to be in the minority. 5. Iced tea As with the mispronunciation or mishearing of â€Å"barbed wire† and corned beef† as â€Å"barb wire† and â€Å"corn beef† and their resulting misspelling, â€Å"iced tea† is often clipped to â€Å"ice tea,† which makes no sense; ice is been added to the tea, so it has been iced. (This name clarifies that the tea is not being served hot, as is traditional.) 6. Long-stemmed roses Yet again, a misunderstanding results in a variant of a standard description. Roses cut with long stems have long been called long-stemmed roses, but â€Å"long-stem roses† is also seen. Either way, because â€Å"long† and â€Å"stem(med)† do not constitute a standing phrase, the two words should be hyphenated together. 7. Stained glass window â€Å"Stain glass window† is a rare erroneous usage; the window is made of stained glass, not stain glass, so the -ed ending is required. However, because â€Å"stained glass† is a standing phrase (found in the dictionary), the words need not be hyphenated before the noun. 8. Skim milk/skimmed milk Like the preference of â€Å"fine-tooth comb† over â€Å"fine-toothed comb,† the ascendancy of â€Å"skim milk† over â€Å"skimmed milk† (at least in the United States; the latter form is preferred in British English) is anomalous but well attested. 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 Spelling category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:25 Subordinating ConjunctionsThe Six Spellings of "Long E"Show, Don't Tell

How Peer Review Works in the Social Sciences

How Peer Review Works in the Social Sciences Peer review, at least in intent, is the way the editors of academic journals attempt to keep the quality of articles in their publications high, and assure (or attempt to assure) that poor or fallacious research does not get published. The process is tied up with political and economic issues involving tenure and pay scales, in that an academic who participates in the peer review process (whether as author, editor, or reviewer) gets rewarded for that participation in an increase in reputation which can lead to an increase in pay scales, rather than direct payment for services rendered. In other words, none of the people involved in the review process is paid by the journal in question, with the sole exception (maybe) of one or more editorial assistants. The author, editor, and reviewers all do this for the prestige involved in the process; they are generally paid by the university or business that employs them, and in many cases, that pay is contingent upon obtaining publication in peer-reviewed journals. The editorial assistance is generally provided in part by the editors university and in part by the journal. The Review Process The way academic peer review works (at least in the social sciences), is that a scholar writes an article and submits it to a journal for review. The editor reads it over and finds between three and seven other scholars to review it. The reviewers selected to read and comment on the scholars article are chosen by the editor based on their reputations in the specific field of the article, or whether they are mentioned in the bibliography, or if they are personally known to the editor. Sometimes the author of a manuscript suggests some reviewers. Once a list of reviewers is drawn up, the editor removes the name of the author from the manuscript and forwards a copy to the chosen stout hearts. Then time passes, a lot of time, generally, between two weeks and several months. When the reviewers have all returned their comments (made directly on the manuscript or in a separate document), the editor makes a preliminary decision about the manuscript. Is it to be accepted as is? (This is very rare.) Is it to be accepted with modifications? (This is typical.) Is it to be rejected? (This last cases is also fairly rare, depending on the journal.) The editor strips out the identity of the reviewers and sends along the comments and her preliminary decision about the manuscript to the author. If the manuscript was accepted with modifications, it is then up to the author to make changes until the editor is satisfied that the reviewers reservations are met. Eventually, after several rounds of back and forth, the manuscript is published. The period from submission of a manuscript to publication in an academic journal generally takes anywhere from six months to over a year. Problems with Peer Review Problems inherent in the system include the time sink between submission and publication, and the difficulty obtaining reviewers who have the time and inclination to give thoughtful, constructive reviews. Petty jealousies and full blown political differences of opinion are difficult to restrain in a process where no one is made accountable for a specific set of comments on a particular manuscript, and where the author has no ability to correspond directly with her reviewers. However, it must be said that many argue that the anonymity of the blind review process allows a reviewer to freely state what he or she believes about a particular paper without fear of reprisal. The burgeoning of the internet in the first decade of the 21st century has made a huge difference in the way articles are published and made available: the peer review system is often problematic in these journals, for a number of reasons. Open access publishingin which free draft or completed articles are published and made available to anyoneis a wonderful experiment that has had some hitches in getting started. In a 2013 paper in Science, John Bohannen described how he submitted 304 versions of a paper on a bogus wonder drug to open-access journals, over half of which were accepted. Recent Findings In 2001, the journal Behavioral Ecology changed its peer review system from one which identified the author to reviewers (but reviewers remained anonymous) to a completely blind one, in which both author and reviewers are anonymous to one another. In a 2008 paper, Amber Budden and colleagues reported that statistics comparing the articles accepted for publication before and after 2001 indicated that significantly more women have been published in BE since the double-blind process began. Similar ecological journals using single-blind reviews over the same period do not indicate a similar growth in the number of woman-authored articles, leading researchers to believe that the process of double-blind review might assist with the glass ceiling effect. Sources Bohannon J. 2013. Whos afraid of peer review? Science 342:60-65. Budden AE, Tregenza T, Aarssen LW, Koricheva J, Leimu R, and Lortie CJ. 2008. Double-blind review favours increased representation of female authors. Trends in Ecology Evolution 23(1):4-6. Carver M. 2007. Archaeology journals, academics and open access. European Journal of Archaeology 10(2–3):135–148. Chilidis K. 2008. New knowledge versus consensus – a critical note on their relationship based on the debate concerning the use of barrel-vaults in Macedonian tombs. European Journal of Archaeology 11(1):75–103. Etkin A. 2014. A New Method and Metric to Evaluate the Peer Review Process of Scholarly Journals. Publishing Research Quarterly 30(1):23-38. Gould THP. 2012. The Future of Peer Review: Four Possible Options to Nothingness. Publishing Research Quarterly 28(4):285-293. Vanlandingham SL. 2009. Extraordinary Examples of Deception in Peer Reviewing: Concoction of the Dorenberg Skull Hoax and Related Misconduct. 13th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics: International Symposium on Peer Reviewing. Orlando, Florida. Vesnic-Alujevic L. 2014. Peer Review and Scientific Publishing in Times of Web 2.0. Publishing Research Quarterly 30(1):39-49. Weiss B. 2014. Opening Access: Publics, Publication, and a Path to Inclusion. Cultural Anthropology 29(1):1-2.

Land Rover and its Business System Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 1

Land Rover and its Business System - Case Study Example Now finally the Land Rover is working under the hands of Tata Motors from 2008. (Land Rover confirms grant offer to build a new model, March 2009) (Land Rover Company Profile, April 2009). At present, the company is all set to start its revolutionary project of making the smallest, lightest and most fuel-efficient car that Land Rover has ever built, based on the LRX concept vehicle displayed in the auto show at Detroit last year. The project has got the grand welcome by the UK government by a stimulus package of  £27 million in the month of April, as a support to the UK auto industry whose sales has gone down by 30% in the second half of 2008 and as per the analysis report the situation yet takes some more time to get back to the same level. Phil Popham, the managing director of Land Rover, said: "At the moment we are planning on the assumption that it will be a couple of years before the industry starts to improve drastically, and maybe five years before returning to the pre-credit crunch trends we were seeing globally in the motor industry." (Arnott S., April 2009). The project is going to cost around  £400 million and is to be started by the year-end in Halewood, on Merseyside. The project is primarily taken up due to the shift of the global auto industry towards green cars to check the global warming and also is a part of raising efforts towards making more fuel efficient and cost effective cars. The prevailing economic recession which has made consumers more cautious about their spending and other related factors have driven the demand for lighter, relatively low priced, fuel efficient and environmentally friendly cars. Under European law, automakers have to cut carbon emission of new vehicles by 19% within a period of five years (Arnott S., April 2009). But, Jaguar-Land Rover under sustainability programme is expecting to cut the same by 25%.  The parent company of Land Rover has already taken the initiative to make the world’s lowest cost car â€Å"Nano† (Scanlon J., March 2009).