Alcoholism Alcohol And Alcohol Addiction - 1362 Words

Alcoholism is an addiction to the consumption of alcoholic liquor or the mental illness and compulsive behavior resulting from alcohol dependency. Alcoholism formerly called alcohol dependence or alcohol addiction, is the more severe end of the alcohol use disorder spectrum. It is a destructive pattern of alcohol use that includes tolerance to or withdrawal from the substance, using more alcohol or using it for longer than planned, and trouble reducing its use or inability to use it in moderation. Other potential symptoms include spending an inordinate amount of time getting, using, or recovering from the use of alcohol, compromised functioning, and/or continuing to use alcohol despite an awareness of the detrimental effects it is having on one s life. Some symptoms of Alcoholism include: drinking alone, not being able to recall how many drinks were consumed, always feeling an urge to drink, blacking out, allowing drinking a daily routine so much that it begins to interfere with your daily lifestyle. There are several different factors that causes individuals to abuse alcohol, it can be biologically, psychologically, socially and socio culturally. Biologically many scientific studies, including research conducted among twins and children of alcoholics, have shown that genetic factors influence alcoholism. These findings show that children of alcoholics are about four times more likely than the general population to develop alcohol problems. Children of alcoholics alsoShow MoreRelatedAlcoholism And Alcohol Addiction Has Become A National Crisis1417 Words   |  6 Pages Alcoholism and alcohol addiction has become a national crisis. In the United States approximately 62,000 men died un-necessarily as a result of alcohol abuse in 2014. Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is the fourth leading cause of preventable deaths with approximately 1.1 million men over the age of 18 currently receiving treatment for an AUD. Globally, the burden of alcohol abuse reflected 3.3 million deaths from consumption in 2012 alone. (NIH 2016). This case study of about a 66 year old male namedRead MoreWithdrawal from Alcohol Addiction819 Words   |  3 Pagesand even seizures—these withdrawal symptoms are endured regularly by people with extreme alcohol addiction. Alcoholism presents life-ravaging problems: negligence, anger issues, propensity for hazardous behavior, and longer recovery from alcohol use’s aftereffects (#1). Alcoholics exhibit diminished immunities and are at elevated risk for cancer, epilepsy, cardiovascular disease, HIV/AIDS, and more. Alcoholism is both devastating and alarmingly common, affecting 4-5% of the United States’ populationRead MoreSubstance Abuse : Alcohol Addiction1399 Words   |  6 PagesSubstance Abuse: Alcohol Addiction S15107273 In my essay I will be conversing about a contemporary issue; Alcohol abuse and the implications for the individuals and for society. Alcohol is a drug also classified as a depressant that slows down dynamic functions that results in slow reactions, less concentration and distressed observations. Alcohol dependence is referred to as a chronic disease allied with excessive and habitual use of alcohol. Alcohol dependence comprises of four symptoms; cravingRead MoreThe Long Lasting Effect of Alcohol on The Brain1208 Words   |  5 PagesS., nearly 80,000 people die from alcohol-related causes, making it the third leading preventable cause of death in our country† (Alcohol Facts 1). Alcoholism is a major controversy in the United States, and many debate whether alcoholism is a disease or choice. Accordingly, based on scientific evidence, alcoholism is a disease because it has major long-term effects on the brain, it is an addiction, and it is treated medically. The first major reason alcoholism should be considered disease is theRead MoreSoc 203 social problems1286 Words   |  6 Pagesï » ¿ Alcoholism: A Social Problem I. Introduction Alcoholism is a major social problem that not only has an impact on the life of an alcoholic, but family members as well as society. Alcoholism is the third most common mental illness that affects more than 17 million people in the United States according to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse. Alcoholism does not discriminate against age, race nor gender. II. 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Becoming addicted to alcohol has the ability to effect people for years and can influence chi ldren and adults to follow the same path. Drug and alcohol addiction has the ability to have emotional impact on many people. In the U.S the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) demonstrates 23.5Read MoreAlcoholism : The Misuse And Addiction1361 Words   |  6 PagesAlcoholism: The Misuse and Addiction â€Å"I know my limit†, â€Å"Just one more drink†, and â€Å"I’m not drunk† are common phrases people often associate with being an alcoholic. While is true that some alcoholics can use such phrases, that is not what makes them an alcoholic. Alcoholics or rather anyone who happens to drink a little too much, are marked as being alcoholics. But what does it really mean to be an alcoholic? Or better yet, what does it mean to suffer from Alcoholism? Over the years, a controversialRead MoreI Want For Free Myself From This Disease1552 Words   |  7 Pagesneed self-control.† Alcoholism is the consumption of liquor that mentally increases the human dependence for alcohol. For those with alcoholism, the only thing they can rely on is alcohol. Problematically, it could be whisky, scotch or a quart of beer. Living with the illness of alcoholism is a calamity, which can only be understood by interpreting how common the problem occurs, how it is treated to better oneself and how often treatment can fail. Continuous alcohol addiction has been an issue forRead MoreAlcoholism And Its Effects On Society1099 Words   |  5 PagesWhat is addiction? Many people think that they are not addicted to something. Addiction is a chronic illness and if it left untreated, it could be fatal (2015, February, 3). This disease is located in the limbic system of the brain. It is behaviourally symptomatic. Addicted people become dangerous and irresponsible; they display a destructive behavior. At that time addicts lose loved ones, jobs, friends, and stable life. It destroys families and everything in its path. Addiction affects people

Manifest Destiny and Sectionalism free essay sample

After President John Tyler vetoed a bill to establish a new Bank of the United States,| A)|he was formally expelled from the Whig party. | B)|all but one member of his cabinet resigned. | C)|an attempt was made in the House of Representatives to impeach him. | D)|Tyler also vetoed a bill to distribute federal land revenues to the states. | E)|all of the above. | 2. |The only member of President Tylers Whig cabinet who did not resign in protest over his policies was| A)|Henry Clay. | B)|Zachary Taylor. | C)|Robert Walker. | D)|Daniel Webster. | E)|Millard Fillmore. | 3. |The Aroostook War was the result of| A)|a short-lived insurrection in British Canada. | B)|the Caroline incident. | C)|Canadian weapons and aid given to American Indians. | D)|a dispute over the northern boundary of Maine. | E)|a fishing dispute between Britain and the United States. | 4. |The major argument against annexing Texas to the United States was that| A)|it could involve the country in ruinous wars with Britain and France. We will write a custom essay sample on Manifest Destiny and Sectionalism or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page | B)|it would add strength to the southern â€Å"slave power. | C)|Texas would be far larger than any existing American state. | D)|it would be better to retain an independent Texas as a buffer state. | E)|it would lead to tensions and possible war with Mexico. | 5. |Arrange in chronological order the United States acquisition of (A) Oregon, (B) Texas, (C) California. | A)|A, B, C| B)|C, B, A| C)|B, A, C| D)|B, C, A| E)|A, C, B| 6. |In the Oregon treaty with Britain in 1846, the northern boundary of the United States was established to the Pacific Ocean along the line of| A)|42?. | B)|52? 40. | C)|54? 40. D)|36? 30. | E)|49?. | 7. |Arrange the following in chronological order: (A) Bear Flag revolt, (B) Slidell mission rejected, (C) declaration of war on Mexico, (D) American troops ordered to the Rio Grande Valley. | A)|B, D, C, A| B)|A, C, B, D| C)|D, B, A, C| D)|C, A, D, B| E)|A, D, C, B| 8. |President Polks claim that â€Å"American blood [had been shed] on the American soil† referred to news of an armed clash between Mexican and American troops near| A)|El Paso. | B)|the Nueces River. | C)|Santa Fe. | D)|the Rio Grande River. | E)|San Antonio. | 9. Match each American officer below with his theater of command in the Mexican War. A. Stephen W. Kearny|1. northern Mexico|B. Zachary Taylor|2. California|C. Winfield Scott|3. Santa Fe|D. John C. Fremont|4. Mexico City|| A)|A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4| B)|A-3, B-1, C-4, D-2| C)|A-3, B-4, C-2, D-1| D)|A-2, B-1, C-3, D-4| E)|A-4, B-1, C-2, D-3| 10. |According to the principle of â€Å"popular sovereignty,† the question of slavery in the territories would be determined by| A)|the state legislature after a territory was admitted to the Union. | B)|a national referendum of the Electoral College. C)|congressional legislation. | D)|the Supreme Court. | E)|the vote of the people in the given territory. Douglas| E)|Zachary Taylor| 13. |The most alarming aspect of the Compromise of 1850 to northerners was the law providing for| A)|the continuation of slavery in the District of Columbia. | B)|the possible expansion of slavery in the New Mexico and Utah territories under â€Å"popular sovereignty. †| C)|the new Fugitive Slave Law. | D)|the payment of $10 million to slaveholding Texas. | E)|continuation of the interstate slave trade. | 14. Most American leaders believed that the only way to maintain control of the new Pacific Coast was to| A)|establish naval bases at San Diego and Puget Sound. | B)|build a canal across Central America. | C)|grant the territories quick statehood. | D)|construct a transcontinental railroad. | E)|build a string of military forts across the West.

Southwest Case Study free essay sample

In 2009 Gary Kelly, the CEO of Southwest airlines, was contemplating what it would take for Southwest to survive the economic downfall, due to high oil prices and decline in demand, that was upon the airline industry. One might argue that in the face of many options Southwest both diversified in there solutions as well as stayed true to the brand they had created. We will argue they did both. They branched out in terms of expansion and customer service, while remaining true to their brand in terms of management style and their online presence, or digital strategy. Introduction This case study is the story of a small regional airline carrier applying southwest values to become a major industry force. Southwest airlines began its business nearly 40 years ago in Dallas, Texas. Out of the ashes of a regional airline fight, Southwest airlines flourished by applying its two key goals of simplicity and low costs. We will write a custom essay sample on Southwest Case Study or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page In 2009 (the time this case study was published), Southwest Airlines had decreasing revenues due to the financial housing/lending crisis, but was faring much better than many of its rivals. The 2009 10-K for Southwest Airlines does not list the direct competitors of the company. However, Yahoo’s financial website lists several of Southwest’s current competitors: Delta Airlines (DAL), Jet Blue (JBLU), and United Continental Holdings (UAL). Southwest Airline’s total revenues for FY09, FY08, and FY07 were $10,350MM, $11,023MM (11. 55% growth), and $9,861MM, respectively. A large percentage of these fluctuations in revenue can be explained in relation to passenger fares with FY09 average passenger fares of $114. 61, FY08 of $119. 16, and FY07 of $106. 60. As the economy took off from 2007 to 2008, so did the fares which also increased Southwest airlines total revenue. The opposite holds true as we entered the deepest parts of the recession in 2009, and average fares declined. Southwest airlines also has positive net income, which is in contrast to many of its competitors. See the table below for additional details: Table 1 Southwest’s Key Information Southwest (LUV) FY09 (in millions)FY08 (in millions)FY07 (in millions) Revenue$10,350$11,023$9,861 Op. Expenses$10,088$10,574$9,070 Net Income$99$178$645 Cash$1,114$1,368$2,213 Acct Rec$169$209 Inventory$221$203 CapEx$585$923$1,331 Southwest’s competitors were also on the move in FY09. In FY09, Delta Airlines was engaged in several alliances with international and domestic carriers to improve market penetration and cooperation of frequent flier mileage programs. Financially, Delta has reduced capacity and is interested in completing the merger with Northwest. JetBlue, on the other hand , is a smaller regional airline carrier, utilizes only electronic tickets, allows reservation specialists to work from home, utilizes similar aircraft (Airbus A320 EMBRAER 190) that are generally new, and maintains a strong position in the New York Area (40% of all domestic passengers at JFK). JetBlue was also hit by the recession s net income dropped in FY08, but rebounded in FY09. United Airlines, on the other hand, had a slight uptick in revenue, but lost money in FYs 08 09 (as evidenced in net income). To further compound the disastrous economic environment, the company suffered hedging losses as a result of oil climbing to $145/barrel and immediately collapsing to the $30/barrel range. United Airlines has a large international and domestic presence, while also carting cargo (3% of company’s total revenue). In summary, Delta and United are industry behemoths that fly both domestically and internationally and use the spoke and hub approach to air travel. Meanwhile, JetBlue is an upstart Northeast regional air carrier that employs a cost-conscious strategy similar as Southwest Airlines. In contrast, Southwest Airlines only fly’s domestically, and utilizes discount pricing and cost-efficient methods to pass savings on to customers. Problem Definition According to the U. S. Department of Transportation airlines can be categorized into four types of services: International, National, Regional, and Cargo (â€Å"The Industry Handbook,† n. d. ). Although Southwest started as a regional airline in 1971 it has grown to become one of the world’s largest low-cost carriers while still remaining a national service carrier, currently servicing only the United States. In 2008 the airline industry as a whole was facing slowing demand and an increase in fuel prices that, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), cost the industry US$5. 2 billion in lost revenues (â€Å"IATA Airlines to lose US$5. 2 billion in 2008 Slowing Demand and High Oil to Blame,† n. d. ). Southwest Airline faces intense competition in the airline industry due to common factors including but not limited to airport capacity, route structures, technology, cost of aircraft, weather, fuel costs and labor. The focus for this paper will be the strategy that they took in addressing management style, opportunity for expansion, enhancing customer experience and their digital strategy in terms of sales to get ahead, or stay ahead, of the competition. In Porter’s five forces analysis, as seen in figure 1, you can see that competition arises from both horizontal and vertical sources, other airlines, consumers and suppliers, respectively. Other airlines introduce the availability of substitutes, competitive rivalry and threat of new entrants which lends to Southwest’s considerations to expansion and management style. The consumers and suppliers introduce the power of the bargaining, hence the attention to enhancing customer service and online strategy. Figure 1: Porters Five Force’s Analysis Model In the â€Å"Enhancing Service at Southwest† case the 10% drop in passenger traffic along with the loss of revenues and profits is stated as being the root cause of concern for the airline, which is in line with what the industry was facing at that time. Southwest was in need of determining how it would handle the service decisions. The operating model for the airline had been focused on point-to-point travel without all the frills. They did not offer assigned seats, meal service, coordination between airlines or business class options and services, but was this a service strategy that could continue? Many airlines had been offering such services and it was time to decide if enhancing customer service by adding these services would fit into the Southwest strategy. Another strategy that could be adopted would be for Southwest to expand into international markets, being a national carrier at the time this was outside of their current structure and experience. International markets bring the necessity to look at the taxation, infrastructure, environmental and economic state of the countries that would be serviced. Could Southwest airlines successfully integrate into the international market? Southwest was one of the first companies to offer purchase of its services online, which allowed for lower overhead and ability to fill flights that had not sold out at the last minute using its DING! application. With the availability and use of the internet increasing, along with their competition employing similar capabilities, was it time for Southwest to upgrade? Although Southwest used the internet as a medium for passengers to manage their itineraries, check in before arriving at the airport, and even purchase tickets from their phone. In an age of information that was the value customers had come to expect (Johnson and Hall, 2009). Many airlines were now offering reward incentives, additional booking tools and other add-ons that no longer gave Southwest the competitive advantage they were used to. Similarly, the good spirited nature and playful anecdotes by employees along with pleasant customer service has become part of what was expected by Southwest customers. Although, other airlines did not offer quite the same experience that you would get by flying with a Southwest crew, they did offer other amenities that were lucrative to travelers, especially business travelers. Southwest management wanted to provide a working environment for their employees that was enjoyable, as this excitement would be passed down to their customers. Would the management style and operational strategy allow Southwest to stay above water when the demand started to increase? This was something that needed to be addressed by the management team that was keeping employees during the time of employee reduction throughout the industry. The questions related to service, expansion, digital strategy, and management performance will be addressed in this case analysis. Analysis A chief differentiator for Southwest Airlines is service. However, in the competitive landscape of the airline industry it is easy for a competitor to copy the strategy of another. Thus, it is important for Southwest to continuously innovate its approach to service. Chapter 2 of the textbook Operations and Supply Chain Management highlights several competitive dimensions of service (Jacobs and Chase, 2011): 1. Cost or Price 2. Quality 3. Delivery Speed 4. Delivery Reliability 5. Coping with Changes in Demand The case study highlights how Southwest Airlines adopts low cost coast to coast fares of $99. The market share for low cost air carriers has grown to nearly 30% of the entire market (Murakami, 2013). Whenever Southwest Airlines enters a market, there is a direct correlation between cost reductions of current incumbents and Southwest. However, full service airlines also fight back by â€Å"differentiating their services against those of LCCs or vice-versa, and eventually the airlines differentiating services gained the power to be able to control their price-cost margins† (Murakami, 2013). This is another reason for Southwest to continue to innovate its cost package. The year after the case study, Southwest tried to reduce cost by: salary freezes for upper management and the overall headcount, reduced capital expenditures on new aircraft, the addition of winglets to reduce drag on its airplanes, and by adding GPS to its airplanes opening air-routes by not relying on ground based information/data (â€Å"EDGAR ONLINE SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO (LUV) 10-K 1/29/2010,† n. d. ). As the company rebounded from the depths of the recession, it has tried to maintain costs through: periodic engine washes, ground power for airplanes at gate, auto-navigation instrumentation to maintain optimum cruising speeds, lower engine idle speeds, and single engine taxiing (â€Å"EDGAR ONLINE SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO (LUV) 10-K 2/7/2013,† n. d. ). In addition, to all of these cost-cutting methods, Southwest Airlines is in the process of converting several of its airplanes to be green. This means that parts of the airplane, such as the seat covers, will be made out of recycled parts. In return, Southwest earns credits in return that can be used to buy fuel as discounted prices and even pass more savings on to the consumer. Quality is paramount to business. Per the hybrid model study, â€Å"having developed high levels of quality capabilities significantly supports the development of delivery capabilities† (Hallgren, Olhager, Schroeder, 2011). The quality of Southwest’s service personnel speaks for itself. In a study performed by the Mays Business School, Southwest Airlines was ranked second only to JetBlue for: individual attention, helpfulness, courtesy, promptness, and overall satisfaction (Babbar Koufteros, 2008). This speaks mountains about Southwest’s ability to grow its market share through intense focus on servicing its customer. While examining opportunities to improve or cut costs related to service, Southwest undoubtedly considered service offshoring. The problem with service offshoring is that it can lead to cultural conflicts that ultimately lead to lower quality (Youngdahl, Ramaswamy, Dash, 2010). Southwest has stuck to its core values over time of only hiring the best employees (~1. 5% of applicants) in the markets that it serves. The problem is that the other airlines may eventually adopt this service emphasis. At the time of the case study, Southwest was interested in improving its service by: adding â€Å"Fly By† Security Lanes (priority access for top-tier customers), improved baggage tracking, call back service while waiting for customer support on the telephone, and outbound messaging which has allowed the company to send flight information to its customers (â€Å"EDGAR ONLINE SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO (LUV) 10-K 1/29/2010,† n. Since the depths of the recession, Southwest has tried to improve service by: inflight internet live television, improved outbound messaging with the ability to be hang up and be re-connected later when an agent is available, and by giving gate agents hands free headsets so that they can better serve the customer at the gate (â€Å"EDGAR ONLINE SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO (LUV) 10-K 2/7/2013,† n. d. ). Southwest also relies on providing its services (i. e.  , aircraft) with reliable speed to meet the market’s changing demands (points 3,4,5 above). By utilizing the same Boeing 737 airplanes across its entire business, Southwest obtains cost advantages in maintenance, spare parts, training of staff and utilization of pilots across any plane. Utilization of the same plane design also has advantages in decreasing the airline industry’s bottleneck: transitions. Per the case study, the average time for a transition is 60 minutes, while Southwest currently averages 25 m inutes. In order to minimize the impact from the bottleneck, Southwest has all employees both on and off the aircraft service it while it is docked. By understanding the layout of the plane, attendants are able to seamlessly communicate key transition steps. Throw in speedy boarding, and Southwest is able to minimize the transition time. Also, Southwest has historically maintained a new air fleet, which also cuts back on maintenance while adding to reliability. In the FY12 10-K, management discussed a strategy to modernize its aging fleet, â€Å"the Company has multiple efforts underway to replace its older aircraft with newer aircraft that are less maintenance intensive and more fuel efficient and that also have a greater range. The Company expects its long-term fuel efficient fleet modernization plan to provide substantial flexibility to manage its fleet needs in a variety of economic conditions† (â€Å"EDGAR ONLINE SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO (LUV) 10-K 2/7/2013,† n. d. ). A second opportunity Southwest Airlines must consider is expansion. The case study highlights the use of a point to point framework, instead of the hub and spoke network that many other airlines use. Each of the points in the â€Å"point to point† network is a smaller airport on the outskirts of a larger metropolitan area. The use of these less congested airports has kept costs low while also permitting Southwest to expand without interference from major airlines. At the time of this case study, Southwest airlines was a regional company that flew from point to point within the United States. The downside of this strategy, is that in order to keep growing, it would need to reach out and adopt the strategies of other airlines by entering other major hubs and/or introducing international routes. The airline industry has changed drastically since the case study, with several airlines merging or acquiring partners. Delta has since merged with Northwest, Southwest has since acquired AirTran, and United Airlines has combined with Continental. From Table 3, all of the airlines are posting greater revenue, with Delta and United posting significantly larger revenue due to the combined revenue streams. However, while Delta is posting much larger net incomes after its merger with Northwest, United Airlines still has negative net income. This imbalance in net income may be attributed to the un-realized synergies from the merger with Continental, being on the wrong side of a furl hedge, or simply by being tied back to the competitive nature of the airline industry. Capital expenditures (CapEx) have also increased as the airlines strive to increase their fleets while the companies are on stable ground and interest rates are low. Southwest airlines conducts the majority of its business in the United States with soon to come destinations to Puerto Rico, Mexico, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Aruba, The Dominican Republic, and Bermuda (â€Å"EDGAR ONLINE SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO (LUV) 10-K 2/7/2013,† n. d. ). Furthermore, Southwest Airlines will begin offering international service out of Hobby Airport in 2015. With the addition of AirTran, Southwest has picked up several key gates/hubs. Table 3 2012 Economic Data Southwest (in millions)Delta (in millions)JetBlue (in millions)United Airlines (in millions) Revenue$17,088$36,670$4,982$37,152 Op. Expenses$16,465$34,495$4,606$37,113 Net Income$421$1,009$128($723) Cash$1,113$2,416$182$4,770 Acct Rec$332$1,693$106$1,338 Inventory$469$1,023$36$695 CapEx$1,348$1,968$542$2,016 Southwest has taken a steady approach to expansion. Chapter 5 of the textbook Operations and Supply Chain Management highlights several ideas about capacity planning in services (Jacobs and Chase, 2011): 1. Time 2. Location 3. Volatility of Demand â€Å"A customer cannot be given a seat that was unoccupied on a previous airline flight if the current airline flight is full† (Jacobs and Chase, 2011). Thus, time is important to Southwest. As Southwest continues to expand its services it must re-evaluate the best routing for each plane to ensure that the planes are at capacity the majority of the time. Secondly, while expanding; Southwest must consider the locations of its future destination airports. If the airports are located far away from the metropolitan area, then it will challenge the customer to balance flight cost with the added cost of car rental and transit. Picking the right locations, instead of settling for any location, will permit Southwest Airlines to reap strategic monetary rewards (i. e. , lower costs of operation) Finally, it is important to consider the volatility of demand. Consumers drive the utilization of Southwest’s product. If South west airlines expands, but the demand is only present during specific times then there is a potential ding to Southwest’s bottom line. Per Southwest’s 10-K, typically the first and fourth quarters are the weakest demand periods (â€Å"EDGAR ONLINE SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO (LUV) 10-K 2/7/2013,† n. d. ). Per IATA, â€Å"North American airlines saw demand rise 1. 7% over the 2012 period. This was a slowdown on October growth, which was 3. 6%. Capacity rose 4. 7%, causing load factor to fall 2. 2 percentage points to 77. 5%. Recent economic indicators have shown a solid fourth quarter, despite the disruption of the government shutdown in October. † (â€Å"IATA Passenger Demand Moderates in November,† n.d. ). With the acquisition of AirTran, Southwest is prepared to serve a growing economy in the Caribbean market segment. In preparation for future expansion, Southwest must cautiously evaluate demand such as to not take on unwanted debt (current debt levels of ~12. 3B) or assets (current debt levels of ~19. 3B). The previous analysis points have been based on the premise that Southwest was tak ing risks and venturing outside of their comfort zone to increase their market share, but they were also continuing some of their tried and true methods as well. By implementing a digital strategy in the form of online travel booking Southwest used this disruptive innovation to add value for consumers (â€Å"Shaping Strategy in a World of Constant Disruption Harvard Business Review,† n. d. ). Automated booking started in 1946 by American Airlines, by 1962 ReserVec started remote access automated booking for TCA, but these were all to be used by travel agents and not the general public. It was not until 1994 when Southwest started offering e-tickets that could be purchased directly by the consumer using the internet. By the end of the 1990’s more than half of all tickets were purchased online. In 2005 Southwest introduced their DING! Application, this allowed customers to access last minute and highly reduced fares. Again, Southwest was the first to roll out any such program. By staying ahead of the online boom they were able to offer customers value at the touch of a finger. By 2010 the DING! application was available on all mobile platforms for easy access (â€Å"Southwest Corporate Fact Sheet Corporate Fact Sheet Southwest Airlines Newsroom,† n.d. ). By maintaining and enhancing their online services they have been able to expand their website to include hotel booking, car rentals, cruises and complete vacation packages with the added benefit of receiving â€Å"reward points† for the completed reservation. â€Å"The heavy investment in these boundary-spanning systems creates an extended resource-based advantage that is difficult to replicate† (Lewis, Brandon-Jones , Slack, Howard, 2010). According to their yearly report. Southwest has maintained an 80% booking rate through their internet site from 2008 to the present. In 2006 they started their social media program, showing 12 million monthly visits. With computer savvy customers they offer a number of ways to provide customer feedback, as seen in figure 2, the success here is that they leverage their employees, clearly represent the brand, respect the employee story, they’re lean, efficient, focused and most importantly, they listen. Figure 2: Southwest Customer Feedback ((â€Å"2012SouthwestAirlinesOneReport. pdf,† n. d.)) The future of technology in the airline business includes location based services that will allow the passenger to track their baggage as well as the airline to track the customers. Electronic compensation and rebooking for overbooked flights, missed connections and cancelled flights, reducing the amount of time customers have to spend in lines. Mobile payments will allow the customer to pay for fares on their phone s and finally social media to provide the right feedback that can be acted upon in real time (â€Å"Amadeus-The-Always-Connected-Traveller-2011-EN,0. pdf,† n. d. ). With Southwest’s goal of making travel easier and more efficient for their customer they should no doubt be on the front end of the application development. Finally, by keeping the great customer service as an ongoing vision and purpose of the company Southwest has been a lead the industry in customer satisfaction with a meager 0. 25 complaints per 100,000 customers enplanements, as seen in figure 3. Figure 3: Customer Satisfaction (â€Å"2012SouthwestAirlinesOneReport. pdf,† n. d. ) Southwest airlines take a social management approach that encourages respect, community outreach and a caring attitude amongst other things. According to their 2012 yearly report Southwest reports that one of their Citizenship Goals, employee related goals, is to â€Å"win the hearts and minds of customers by delivering excellent customer service and fostering customer commitment† (â€Å"2012SouthwestAirlinesOneReport. pdf,† n. d. ). This is the underlying management goal to ensure that customers keep coming back. â€Å"Workplaces such as Yahoo, Southwest Airlines, Domino Pizza, Brady Corporation, Ben and Jerry, Odetics, Sun Micro System, and Kodak have encouraged use of fun and appropriate humor in the workplace and that culture seems to appeal to high-tech Millennials. Their stock prices have remained steady, comparatively speaking, in this volatile and turbulent economic environment† (Smith Khojasteh, 2014) In 2013 Southwest launched an internal vision to its employees to remind them of the foundation that the company was built on, connecting people to what’s important in their lives (â€Å"Southwest Airlines Motivates Its Employees With A Purpose Bigger Than A Paycheck Forbes,† n. d. ). In this way Southwest has stuck true to it’s vision. Even in times of recession, industry slowdown, and expansion Southwest has chosen not to reduce resources and encourage employees to participate in ongoing education so they are ready to take on whatever opportunity may come up. Recommendations â€Å"For instance, assume that a consumer has to purchase a ticket for an international flight. Airline Company A has the lowest price; Airline Company B has the best food and airline C is always on time. The consumer will clearly not buy 3 tickets from Company A and B and C in order to realize the benefit of these 3 attributes. The consumer will purchase only one airline ticket† (Ehrman, 2014). Southwest airlines differentiates itself on the attributes of simplicity and low costs. To stay competitive, Southwest must continue to push boundaries while sticking to these two simple attributes. This section of the case analysis will discuss recommendations for Southwest airlines as it heads into the next century of air travel (100 years on January 1, 2014). Southwest prides itself on the ability to provide superior service. By hiring the right employees (

River Island Clothing Co. Ltd. Essay Essay Example

River Island Clothing Co. Ltd. Essay Essay Example River Island Clothing Co. Ltd. Essay Paper River Island Clothing Co. Ltd. Essay Paper The concern started in 1948 as a little lock-up store in East London selling wool and ladies dressing. As the concern increased stores were added under the name of â€Å"Lewis Separates† and the focal point became ladies dressing. By 1968 there were some 70 shops in the UK and â€Å"Lewis Separates† introduced into a few of its shops a trade name new construct and name. Innovative in design and format these shops used strong colorss. bold manner imagination and dad music to make â€Å"Chelsea Girl. † the first UK concatenation of manner dress shops. With continuing enlargement. menswear was introduced in 1983 under the â€Å"Concept Man† trade name and from 1988 farther development took the signifier of the development ofa new trade name construct of a themed shop offering manner for work forces and adult females. The new trade name was called â€Å"River Island† and today the merchandise scope includes men’s and women’s vesture and fo otwear. accoutrements and cosmetics. A dedicated in-house design and sourcing squad creates stylish. fashionable and quality vesture stand foring value for money. targeted at the manner witting 18-35 twelvemonth old market. As at 28 December 2002 River Island had net capital resources of ?85. 5 million and achieved gross revenues of ?377. 6 million for the 52 hebdomads. River Island is a entirely owned subordinate of Lewis Trust Group Ltd. which is the parent of a diversified group engaged in the retailing. belongings. leisure and fiscal services sectors. As at 31 December 2002 Group consolidated net capital resources amounted to ?408 million. Relevant Markets River Island designs and retails men’s and women’s vesture. footwear. accoutrements and cosmetics. The bulk of merchandises are designed in-house and sold chiefly under the River Island trade name. although other River Island owned trade names are used. A little proportion of gross revenues are attributable to thirdparty trade names. River Island has shops in over 180 locations Great Britain and Northern Ireland. 9 stores in the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere in the universe retails through franchise spouses in Kuwait. Saudi Arabia. United Arab Emirates. Bahrain. Malta. Cyprus and Poland. In all districts the mark market is the manner cognizant 18-35 twelvemonth old sector. In add-on to its stores. River Island retails through mail order catalogue and web site. RI/11427 ( updated ) 25/05/2004 1 Within the geographic markets mentioned above. the River Island shop card is available merely in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In add-on to its shop card. River Island accepts a full scope of payment methods from clients. including hard currency. check. recognition and debit cards. Competition within these markets. Our commentary relates merely to the UK market. Within the retail vesture market there is non merely important competition in footings of the figure and differing nature of retail merchants engaged in the sector ( e. g. big section shops. little independent vesture stores. multipleoutlet vesture retail merchants. specializer footwear retail merchants. etc ) but a significant comprehensiveness of pick of merchandise available to the populace. Unlike some other merchandise sectors ( which participate in shop card issue ) the retail vesture sector is non dominated by a limited figure of retail suppliers and the populace has an extended portfolio of dressing retail merchants with which to put their usage. A big bulk of consumers besides have a broad pick of alternate payment methods and/or beginnings of deferred payment ( e. g. shop cards. recognition cards. personal loans. debit cards linked to borrowing installations ) . We see the proviso of a shop card as offering both an alternate payment method ( where the client has the immediate ability to pay by other agencies ) and an extra payment method ( where the client does non hold the immediate ability to pay by other agencies ) . We try to aline the card to our trade name. and to make benefits for our clients. by offering trueness price reductions and particular offers. For a retail merchant such as River Island. the intent of our shop card is chiefly to supply a convenient method of payment ( whether option or extra ) . Whilst it makes no identifiable difference to us whatever agencies of payment a client chooses. we do hold the ability to pass on with card holders and to offer them benefits which we consider will help trueness. We offer such benefits as: RI/11427 ( updated ) 25/05/2004 Cardholder one-off price reductions Invitations to particular events Loyalty price reductions and wagess Sale previews 2 Discounts on 3rd party services/products Third party offers Forthcoming new merchandise information. These benefits can be promoted by and large. or more specifically targeted based on purchase behavior demonstrated by card disbursement patterns A shop card programme besides provides the retail merchant with a important channel of communicating with clients. a installation non available through other payment mechanisms. The River Island shop card. whilst it includes an optional recognition installation ( i. e. deferred payment ) in common with all recognition cards. is non intended or promoted as a vehicle for longer term adoption. Neither is the card intended as a agency of recognition for those who find trouble with other beginnings of finance. First. the card is a agency of payment. It may be that users choose to utilize the card because they do non hold another agencies of payment at that minute. However. it does non so follow that they will utilize the card installations since they will non incur involvement if they pay off the balance within up to 54 yearss. We have no fiscal involvement in the card operated for us by GE and we have no influence over our card provider’s statistical recognition hiting standards and mechanism. Nor do we hold any contractual influence over the APR charged. or other footings. We sell manner merchandises. It is our position that our clients base their buying determination on their desire for a specific merchandise. We do non believe that the handiness of recognition is a driver as it might be for furniture or larger family goods. Shop cards are usually tied to a individual trade name proprietor or retail merchant and to that extent shop cards do non straight vie with each other. They do vie with other signifiers of payment. peculiarly mechanisms which include the ability to postpone payment. Any analysis of the benefits/costs associated with shop cards and the competitory place of shop cards in the market place. when compared with other agencies of payment. needs to take history of the entirety of the shop card offering and non merely a individual facet of comparing. Barriers to Entry/Ease of Switch overing Merely one or two retail merchants operate their shop cards in-house. River Island uses the services of GE Capital Bank Ltd. In the context of River Is land sing conveying its shop card operation inhouse ( which could potentially better competition in the 3rd party supplier market ) there are important barriers to entry. including. ( a ) Set up costs for RI/11427 ( updated ) 25/05/2004 3 ( B ) Ongoing costs Name Centre operation Computer systems to pull off card histories Hardware costs for the above Development of recognition hiting system Human resources recruitment Training Department Compliance Department Recognition hiting Human resources Occupancy costs for call Centre Higher selling costs covering design/print issue of shop card certification Card fabrication costs Bad debts Fraudulent card applications and use Against these barriers the lone important advantage would be fiscal if we could bring forth more value. However. it has to be borne in head – whether in relation to a self-operated card or an alternate to GE – that we need to offer our clients continuity and we need certainty that our card supplier is able to execute. Store card operation is a really hard concern. GE have demonstrated that they can execute. To day of the month few others have done this in the UK. There is a little figure of 3rd party store-card suppliers in the UK market and of those suppliers GE Capital Bank is reported to hold over 50 % of the market. Because of differing accomplishments involved in the proviso of shop card and recognition card services. suppliers ( e. g. Bankss and finance houses ) of other consumer cards and other signifiers of episode recognition are non in a place to readily offer shop card services for retail merchants. Therefore there is some inelasticity in the supply side of 3 rd party store-card suppliers. In add-on. easiness of exchanging by a retail merchant can be influenced by Exclusivity clauses in an bing contract Lengthy contract periods Existing supplier has developed a information base of cardholder disbursement and borrowing behavior that is non readily movable to a new supplier. Financial and clip costs involved in exchanging. New cards have to be issued to all bing cardholders. showing a possible break hazard. Customer Information The River Island store card can be applied for in individual at any one of our stores or electronically through our Website World Wide Web. Riverisland. com. The application process is that prescribed by our card supplier. The card is promoted on the River Island Website. in our mail-order catalogue with application for the card being made through either method described above. but chiefly through our stores. Customer information about the shop card is provided through In shop postings A â€Å"please take one† cusp available in our stores During history gap processs when the client is finishing an application signifier with our gross revenues advisor A â€Å"welcome† brochure issued at the clip the shop card is issued to the cardholder. The cusp and brochure in peculiar provide written information in untechnical linguistic communication about the benefits of the shop card in add-on to summarizing cardinal information about the fiscal facets of the card. The full footings and conditions of the card recognition understanding are provided to the client on the contrary of the card application signifier. a transcript of which is handed to the client following its completion. The full footings and conditions are besides repeated when the card and any renewal/replacement of it are despatched to the cardholder. Customers are entitled to take away a clean â€Å"voided† application signifier prior to doing any application and successful appliers are besides offered a â€Å"no quibble† warrant that within 60 yearss of opening their history. they may pay off any outstanding balance. shut their history and non be charged any fees or involvement.

Free Essays on Lonliness

Loneliness Leaves Clues This story strangely portrays a relationship between a brother and sister who are going through depressing times: â€Å"Loneliness left clues, and I would pick up his while he picked up mine, neither of us ever mentioning them†(82). The short story that I chose is from the February, 2002 edition of Harper’s Magazine. Antonya Nelson is the author of the story titled â€Å"Ball Peen†, which refers to a hammer that the narrator describes as a ball peen hammer. This title is significant because it is referred to and used figuratively throughout the story. The author doesn’t let the hammer slip your mind, relating back to it whenever there is a chance. The ball peen hammer symbolizes the narrator’s strength. Much of her strength is derived from her brother, who gives her confidence and consoles her. A young woman, placing you in her thoughts and perceptions, narrates the story. Her name is not mentioned in the story so I will acknowledge her as the narrator. She begins her story by glimpsing back on one Christmas when she is fifteen. This is the Christmas that her brother, Sonny, gives her a hammer as a gift. At first this gift meant that he had forgotten to get her a present, but later she realizes that he picked it out just for her. She comes to appreciate it and finds that it was actually very useful. She explains that she even grew fond of it: â€Å"For comfort, I often slip my hand in my purse, as if in a pocket, to cup that smooth ball peen†(77). After introducing the hammer the narrator then starts telling her story at hand. She lives in a town called Telluride where she was born and raised. She is the only one out of her family left there, babysitting her parent’s old house for them. Her brother moved away as a teenager to Colorado Springs following his girlfriend who moved there. Her parents moved there soon after when Telluride becomes famous for it’s skiing. The narrator reveals that she is ha... Free Essays on Lonliness Free Essays on Lonliness Loneliness Leaves Clues This story strangely portrays a relationship between a brother and sister who are going through depressing times: â€Å"Loneliness left clues, and I would pick up his while he picked up mine, neither of us ever mentioning them†(82). The short story that I chose is from the February, 2002 edition of Harper’s Magazine. Antonya Nelson is the author of the story titled â€Å"Ball Peen†, which refers to a hammer that the narrator describes as a ball peen hammer. This title is significant because it is referred to and used figuratively throughout the story. The author doesn’t let the hammer slip your mind, relating back to it whenever there is a chance. The ball peen hammer symbolizes the narrator’s strength. Much of her strength is derived from her brother, who gives her confidence and consoles her. A young woman, placing you in her thoughts and perceptions, narrates the story. Her name is not mentioned in the story so I will acknowledge her as the narrator. She begins her story by glimpsing back on one Christmas when she is fifteen. This is the Christmas that her brother, Sonny, gives her a hammer as a gift. At first this gift meant that he had forgotten to get her a present, but later she realizes that he picked it out just for her. She comes to appreciate it and finds that it was actually very useful. She explains that she even grew fond of it: â€Å"For comfort, I often slip my hand in my purse, as if in a pocket, to cup that smooth ball peen†(77). After introducing the hammer the narrator then starts telling her story at hand. She lives in a town called Telluride where she was born and raised. She is the only one out of her family left there, babysitting her parent’s old house for them. Her brother moved away as a teenager to Colorado Springs following his girlfriend who moved there. Her parents moved there soon after when Telluride becomes famous for it’s skiing. The narrator reveals that she is ha...

Independent critical evaluation of a planning model Essay

Independent critical evaluation of a planning model - Essay Example When we differentiate and assign the derivative to zero. Hence, and , so So profit is maximised when the output (q) is set to 10 Now, let us consider how we can investigate the model as a case study. The profit model is made up of two distinct sections i.e. Revenue and Costs. Revenue is based upon the linear demand equation and linear demand, consists of an intercept term and a slope term. Costs on the other hand, consist of two distinct entities i.e. a Fixed Cost (the cost of maintaining a business irrespective of level of output) and, a Variable Cost (the additional costs associated with changes in output). If we consider Revenue, then we are considering the product of the linear demand equation and output ('q'). We know that the linear demand equation consists of an intercept term and a slope term. Hence by creating changes in the coefficients associated with the linear demand equation, we can create changes in the Revenue equation. So, we can change the value of the Intercept term and/or the Slope term. Changes in either will create changes in the Revenue equation. Creating changes in the revenue equation will ultimately create changes in the Profit equation! Similarly, the cost equation consists of a fixed cost and a variable cost. Changes in either will cause changes in the Profit equation. Hence, the case study analysis is set up as follows: we will consider changes in the Fixed Cost, then changes in the Variable Cost, followed by changes in the intercept term and then in the slope term of the linear demand equation. Speaking about changes in the Fixed Cost look at graphs changes. Simply vertically moves the position of the graph of the equation. In the case of the Profit graph, a decrease in the... ), i.e. the minus sign outside the brackets of the TC effectively changed the sign of every term within the brackets when the brackets were removed! So 000 is our profit equation! Notice how it represents a quadratic equation with a negative sign in front of the 'squared' term. Such an indication tells us that we are looking at a MAXIMUM point. Let us plot a graph of our profit equation! Costs on the other hand, consist of two distinct entities i.e. a Fixed Cost (the cost of maintaining a business irrespective of level of output) and, a Variable Cost (the additional costs associated with changes in output). Hence by creating changes in the coefficients associated with the linear demand equation, we can create changes in the Revenue equation. So, we can change the value of the Intercept term and/or the Slope term. Hence, the case study analysis is set up as follows: we will consider changes in the Fixed Cost, then changes in the Variable Cost, followed by changes in the intercept term and then in the slope term of the linear demand equation. Speaking about changes in the Fixed Cost look at graphs changes. Simply vertically moves the position of the graph of the equation. In the case of the Profit graph, a decrease in the value of the fixed costs moves the profit graph upwards (and vice versa). Hence, the constant values (-2,000 and 150 in this case) are technically

Recruitment and selection Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Recruitment and selection - Essay Example Recruitment and selection are identified as a fundamental to success of an organisation. Placing a deserving candidate at a right place, at a right time ensures that the organisation would not perform below its targeted objectives. Within that context, a process of recruiting and selecting possesses a paramount importance as it is that door that facilitates new comers to become a part of a team.However, online recruitment and selection have considerably revolutionized this concept from the management points of view and from a potential applicant’s point of view Placing a deserving candidate at a right place, at a right time ensures that the organisation would not perform below its targeted objectives. Within that context, a process of recruiting and selecting possesses a paramount importance as it is that door that facilitates new comers to become a part of a team. However, online recruitment and selection have considerably revolutionized this concept from the management point s of view and from a potential applicant’s point of view. 13 Boots and Waitrose are two companies who are analysed from the management’s perspective. The former sets a certain expectations. And, for that purpose it uses the images and pictures in a way to influence over the thinking of potential candidates for employment in Boots. It portrays the pictures and images of its employees as being satisfied with the environment and they enjoy working with Boots. The Boots management considers and values such depictions as a way to communicate with the potential employees. They believe that the content and messages being displayed on its recruitment website must be simple, easy to read and understandable, and it must deliver what the management expect that content to. On the other hand, Waitrose do not use images and pictures of its employee to depict the inside environment of Waitrose. Instead, Waitrose believe in using more professional content and professional use of words in a way to satisfy the expectations of potential employees. For example, its use the word â€Å"partners† instead of using â€Å"employees†. This sort of management philosophy highlights how much values Waitrose attaches with its current and potential partners. They give them a sense of partnership rather than a concept of employee-employer relationship. 13 5.2 Recommendations 14 6.0Bibliography 15 7.0Appendices 16 7.1Peer Review Forms 16 7.2 Interview Questions 19 Executive Summary 1.0 Introduction Recruitment and selection is one of the most important factors to consider for an organisation. Welch and Welch (2005:81 as cited in Banfield & Kay, 2008) said â€Å"†¦nothing matters more in winning than getting the right people on the field.† This is exactly the same when it comes to organisations, recruitment and selection is responsible for ensuring that they have the right people working in the best positions for the organisation to succeed. The use of on line recruitment has increased in more recent years, it is claimed by Price (2007) that 90% of large US businesses use online recruitment. This is becoming a vital part of the recruitment and selection process in the 21st century as more and more jobseekers are turning to the internet in order to find a job that suits them. It is also claimed that web based recruitment can decrease cost of recruitment by 95% from more traditional methods (Price, 2007). This has obvious financial advantages for organisations, but other benefits to organisations include reduced staffing cost as they do not need employees to process large amounts of applications and it allows organisations to shortlist applicants in a much more efficient fashion. Online recruitment is aimed at the younger applicants (Hankins et al, 2005 as cited in Bratton & Gold, 2007) which suggests that it would particularly focus on employing fresh graduates with the high levels of talent and enthusiasm. This report is going to foc us on the online recruitme

The statement of purpose Essay Example for Free

The statement of purpose Essay Being an international student is a major learning curve. Miles away from Hong Kong, I’m way out of my comfort zone, navigating a stormy sea of emotions unique to international students- the excitement of seeing new things and places, the pride of being an international student, the fear of dealing with home sicknesses, the frustration of not being able to fully understand everything in this country, the embarrassment of even the minute faux pas I do. Academic challenges are nothing compare to the emotional battles one must face. Â   While there is no harness that I can latch to, my experiences back home can steer my journey here. As a school prefect, I was in charge of keeping order and discipline in my school. I can use it to keep my perspective balance on everything that comes my way, to be able to open my eyes to the world in a new way. I am proud to say that I am an international orientation leader in my community college now. Being a leader has kept me sane, kept my feet on the ground. I know that I am responsible to my fellow international students and I’m doing my best to do so, by combining studying hard and being a good example to them. My current GPA is 3.9. I know having good grades are not everything to a student. Believe it or not, students also need to have a life that does now involve memorization and algebraic equations. Being a leader has expanded my network, exposed me to other students who I now call friends. In HK, I was in our ping-pong team, played saxophone and piano. I hope to continue my hobbies here, perhaps enlist in the school band. HK is a fast-paced environment. Everybody moves quickly, as if on a race. By studying here, I hope to do the opposite. Don’t get me wrong. Fast can be fabulous. Email and YM are a godsend solution to instant conversations. But there are some things that can’t be rushed, such as readying yourself for the future. Adapting to a new environment can be daunting but capitalizing on my personal experiences is something I can rely on to survive this journey.

Importance of Setting in The Blue Hotel Essay -- Blue Hotel Essays Ste

Importance of Setting in Stephen Crane's The Blue Hotel  Ã‚  Ã‚   In   'The Blue Hotel,' Stephen Crane uses various provocative techniques to ensure that the setting adds to the richness of the story. 'The Blue Hotel' is set in a cold Nebraska town at the Palace Hotel in the late 1800's, but there is more to setting than just when and where a story takes place.   In a written work, it is the author's job to vividly depict events in order to keep the reader?s attention and to create colorful mental images of places, objects, or situations. The story is superbly enhanced through Crane?s use of setting to develop mood, to create irony, and to make nature foreshadow or imitate human actions. From the beginning, Crane creates an atmosphere of violence, eeriness, and uneasiness.   He writes, ?The Palace Hotel, then, was always screaming and howling in a way that made the dazzling winter landscape of Nebraska seem only a grey swampish hush.?   When Scully, the proprietor of the hotel, greets the Cowboy, the Easterner, and the Swede, the latter is seen as ?shaky and quick-eyed.?   He is a suspicious character that acts quite out of place.   The first people that the entourage encounters are playing cards.   It is Johnnie, who is the son of Scully, and an old farmer with grey and sandy whiskers.   The farmer spits tobacco juice into a sawdust box to show his contempt and anger towards Johnnie.   Johnnie agitates the farmer to such an extent that the farmer leaves the hotel silently explosive.   At this point, a new game of High Five begins.   The Cowboy immediately bothers the others with his incessant banging of the cards.   The Swede is silent until the game absorbs the other players.   He breaks this concentration when he says, ?I suppose there ... ...y stab by the gambler. Setting is one of the most important facets of a story.   It encompasses more than what simply meets the eye.   An elementary look into the setting of ?The Blue Hotel? reveals a place and possibly a time for a story to take place.   However, a deeper, more critical look exhibits how Crane uses a highly descriptive setting to explain the story rather than relying on character?s thoughts and dialogue.   Crane?s profound use of setting enables the reader to easily follow the storyline and, therefore, maximizes the experience of reading his short story.   It is little bits and pieces of detail that the reader gradually becomes aware of that make ?The Blue Hotel? a grand work of literature. Works Cited: Crane, Stephen. "The Blue Hotel." Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter Fourth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995. 1626-1645.

Meat Consumption

23 May 2011 One Bite At a Time Most Americans are aware of global warming, cancer, heart disease and the fact that the earth’s supply of good water is diminishing. In an effort to conserve our planet people drive hybrid cars, recycle, and use low energy light bulbs and appliances, which is great. However, most Americans are unaware and uninformed about how meat effects global warming, our health, and how much of our planet’s water and resources meat production consumes.Meat contributes to global warming, increases risk for cancer, causes heart disease and uses a tremendous amount of resources to produce, therefore people need to be informed about what they are eating through food labeling and Surgeon General warnings, as well as cutting back to appropriate portion sizes. Farming used to do good things for our planet, where as now its causing harm due to mass production and factory farms. â€Å"Traditionally, farm animals played a useful role . . . they ate grass, crop wastes, and kitchen scraps that people could not eat and turned them into good that people could eat.Their manure provided the soil with needed nutrients . . . the animals pulled plows and provided services that enhanced human life†(Robbins 233). Things have changed drastically since the days of simple farming. Today, â€Å"With the expansion and mechanization of animal farming . . . there are now 20 billion livestock on Earth- more than triple the number of human beings†(Robbins 234). The problem with having so many livestock on earth is that the manure that used to provide soil with nutrients now releases nitrous oxide, which contributes to global warming. According to the U.N Food and Agriculture Organization â€Å" Worldwide livestock farming generates 18% of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions . . . all the world’s cars, trains, planes and boats account for a combined 13%†. However it’s more than just the manure contributing to global warming. FAO estimates that 70% of former forest covers were cut down to make room for grazing. This is a problem because â€Å"Lost forest cover heats the planet, because trees absorb CO2 while they’re alive . . . when they’re cut down or burned, the greenhouse gases are released back into the atmosphere†(Walsh).Cutting back on meat, or eliminating it all together would be a great way to help preserve our planet and much cheaper than a hybrid car. If meat production continues to grow, not only will it keep contributing to global warming, it will continue using the earth’s precious resources. The amount of food and water needed for farming is obscene. Water is something that we take for granted. There is no replacement for water, so when there is a 3 to 1 ratio from livestock to humans, why are we wasting so much of our earth’s precious water on livestock? Forty-two percent of the fresh water available to us in the United States is used for agricul ture† (Silverstone 25). Granted it’s not all devoted to animals, and the amount of water needed to produce meat varies in different parts of the country.In California, according to the Water Education Foundation, to produce one pound of California beef the amount of water required is 2,464 gallons; comparatively a pound of tomatoes only requires 23 gallons of water (Robbins 236-237). Think of how much water California would save if everyone cut back on meat. Then there is the other problem, how much food we use to feed the livestock. Sixty million acres of the United States are devoted to growing hay primarily for livestock, while we only use 13 million acres to grow fruits and vegetables†(Silverstone 25). If there were less of a demand for livestock, that would enable us to use the land devoted to growing hay for growing vegetables, fruit and other plant based foods while using considerably less water. Not only is meat taking a toll on the environment, it’ s taking a toll on the heath of America. Eating meat, especially the portions Americans eat, cause Heart Disease and increase a person’s risk for Cancer.The facts that there are triple the amount of livestock on earth means only one thing, that humans eat entirely too much meat. In fact, â€Å"The average person in the industrialized world eats more than 176lb of meat annually†(Walsh). People would argue that we need meat to survive, but in fact meat causes more harm than it does good because of saturated fats and cholesterol. â€Å"Cholesterol is found only in animal foods and is particularly concentrated in organ meats and eggs†(Davis and Vesanto 27), therefore, it would be hard to argue that cutting back or eliminating meat would be a bad thing.Another major problem is that meat contains a ton of saturated fats, which raise a person’s blood cholesterol and causes plague to clog arteries, clogged arteries lead to high blood pressure and heart attacks (S ilverstone). â€Å"More than anything else, blood cholesterol determines your likelihood of having a heart attack†(Marcus 10). There have also been many studies that link meat consumption to cancer. â€Å"Researchers at the University of California at San Diego have isolated a sugar molecule that shows up in many cancerous human tumors . . Not only does Neu5Gc seem to build tumors, our human bodies produce antibodies against Neu5Gc, which causes inflammation, helping the tumors to grow even more†(Silverstone 17). The connection between eating meat and cancer from the research done at UC San Diego is that the sugar molecule Neu5Gc comes from red meat and is not produced in the human body (Silverstone). In America people have a hard time recognizing that what they eat contributes to disease, they would rather put blame on smoking and drinking when it comes to cancer.However, â€Å"The American Cancer Society estimates that 75 percent of all cancers are the product of ou r environment and lifestyle . . . 30 to 40 percent of all cancers are caused by diet†(Davis and Melina 32). The consumption of meat has also been liked to Osteoporosis; â€Å"When you eat meat, your blood becomes acidic . . . In order to balance all the acidity, your bones come to the rescue by releasing some of their minerals†(Silverstone 17). â€Å"Diets†, in America revolve heavily around meat and dairy products; no wonder cancer is the second leading cause of death.These are significant problems because Heart Disease and Cancer are the number one and two killers in America. â€Å"Almost one of every two Americans will die from Heart Disease . . . 40 million diagnosed with heart disease, and 1. 5 million a year having heart attacks†(Marcus 8). There is no denying that disease is developing at a rapid pace. Everyone knows someone who had or has cancer or heart disease. They are awful diseases, and â€Å"a high-fat, animal based diet is the single most s ignificant cause of death from heart disease†(Marcus 3).If people cut back or eliminated animal products from their diets, not only would they be eating less of the foods that cause their bodies harm, they would be eating more nutrient rich foods (fruits and vegetables) that help fight off and prevent disease. â€Å"Doctors like Dean Ornish and John MacDougall have discovered that plant-based diets have the power to reverse heart disease, diabetes, even cancer†(Silverstone 7). One might argue that eating vegan or vegetarian is expensive; but would you rather pay a little bit more at the grocery store now, or pay for an xpensive heart surgery or chemotherapy because of what that inexpensive meat did to your body? There are some things already being done in an effort to get Americans to cut back on meat, but they aren’t enough. Yes, there are more vegetarian options at grocery stores now; you no longer have to go to a specialty market to get vegetarian options. In major chain grocery stores like Ralph’s and VONS, they carry vegetarian brands of non-meat items like Boca and Garden burger; you can buy tofu, tofurkey, non-dairy cheese, yogurt and milk.The only problem is that its not always easy to find, they usually have a separate â€Å"heath food isle† where they keep all the non-animal products. Then there is the John Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health. They have started a global movement to get people to cut back on meat by reinventing a campaign called Meatless Mondays that was based on a campaign used during WW1 to conserve food for soldiers. In 2003, they recreated Meatless Mondays as public heath awareness program to help Americans reduce their risk for preventable disease by cutting back on meat. It was originally endorsed by over 20 schools of public health and is now global.Countries, hospitals, restaurants and Universities around the world are joining the movement for Meatless Mondays; it could always ge t bigger though. If there was backing from our government like there was during WW1 just think of how much larger this campaign could get. During that time, â€Å"The effect was overwhelming . . . In November 1917, New York City hotels saved some 116 tons of meat over the course of one week†(Meatless Mondays). If the U. S food administration made the same effort today, the United States could be one step closer to a healthier population. There needs to be a Surgeon General’s warning on meat products.The duties of the Surgeon General are to â€Å"Protect and advance the health of the nation through educating the pubic, advocating for effective disease prevention and health promotion programs and activities, and, providing a highly recognized symbol of national commitment to protecting and improving the public’s health†(Surgeon General). If the Surgeon General serves as â€Å"America’s doctor†, and is concerned advocating for disease preventio n, they should take a serious look at promoting a low fat plant-based diet. According to â€Å" Dr. William Castelli, director of the Farmington Heart Study . . a low-fat plant-based diet would decrease an individual’s risk of heart attack by 85 percent†(Silverstone 16). The government, starting with the Surgeon General, also needs to do their job in educating the general public on what meat does to their bodies. Everyone is familiar with the Surgeon General’s warning on cigarettes, that smoking causes cancer and increases you risk for heart disease; if eating meat causes heart disease and increases risk for cancer and other diseases like osteoporosis it is important people know what they are putting in their bodies just like cigarettes.Food labeling needs to be the same for meat as it is for every other food product. Almost everything you buy these days has a nutrition label except for fresh meat and poultry. At the end of 2009 the Department of Agriculture pro posed a solution that forced grocery stores and supermarkets to provide nutrition facts. However, the solution doesn’t work because the grocery stores and supermarkets don’t have to put it directly on the package; they can put the nutrition facts on a poster, pamphlet, or anywhere in the store that is available to customers if they request (Hurley and Liebman).If they were forced to add the nutrition facts directly to the package on fresh meats just like every other food product out there, it would at least inform people on what they are putting into their bodies and reduce the amount of meat purchased, and therefore reducing the amount of meat produced. Restaurants need to decrease portion sizes and offer non-meat items. â€Å"The U. S department of Agriculture says that a typical serving of steaks, roasts, chops and poultry parts is just 3 ounces†(Hurley and Liebman).Most restaurants typically serve a six-ounce chicken breast, and the size of a steak ranges fr om 6 to 12 ounces. That is a huge problem right there, no wonder obesity is a problem in the United Stares. If restaurants were required to serve the appropriate serving size recommended by our government and health officials, there would be less people eating meat, which would once again lead to less meat being produced. Another problem with restaurants, especially chain restaurants are that they don’t always serve non-meat items. I have worked for T.G. I Friday’s for the past seven years, and they don’t even serve a veggie burger. Restaurants should be required to serve a vegetarian option. Most people love dining out and if they had non-meat options it would allow them make healthier decisions and help contribute to the reduction of the amount of meat produced. If Americans want to do their part in conserving our planet while reducing their risk for heart disease, cancer and other nasty diseases they need to consider how what they eat effects themselves and t he environment.The government needs to provide guidelines and Surgeon General warnings to help inform and guide our nation to eating less meat and living a healthier lifestyle. If we all do our part one bite at a time we will have a healthier nation, reduce the amount of harm farming is doing to our planet (because their would be less livestock on earth), as well as use less of our earth’s precious resources.Works Cited â€Å"A Campaign Becomes a Movement†. Meatless Mondays. n pg. n. d. Web. 11 May 2011. Davis, Brenda and Melina, Vesanto. The New Becoming Vegetarian. Summertown, Tennessee: Healthy Living Publications, 2003. Print. Hurley, Jayne and Liebman, Bonnie. â€Å"The Kindest Cut†. Nutrition Action Health Letter. 37. 8 (Oct 2010): pg. 13. Web. 11 May 2011. Marcus, Erik. Vegan The New Ethics of Eating. New York: Mcbooks Press, 2001. Print. Office of Surgeon General. â€Å"About the office of the Surgeon General†. Surgeon General. n. pg. n. d. Web. 9 May 2011. Robbins, John. The Food Revolution. San Francisco: Conari Press, 2001. Print. Silverstone, Alicia. The Kind Diet. New York: Rodale Inc, 2009. Print Walsh, Bryan. †Meat: Making Global Warming Worse†. Time. Sept. 2008:n. pg. Time. com. Web. 3 May 2011.

Organizational Chart Essay

The company I worked for in the past was FORE Properties. This was a chain or apartment communities that were all purchased and built by the owner and run by the property managers, assistant property managers, and the leasing team. The â€Å"chain of command† went as follows. This is my knowledge to the best of my ability. New positions may have been added or I was never aware of their presence. There are many different reasons why I did not enjoy working for this company. None of them have anything to do with the organization structure. For one, I accepted the position as leasing consultant when I was 3 months pregnant. After working for the company for a few months, I was told that my appearance was unsatisfactory. I was wearing clothes from Motherhood Maternity and looked better than most employees. They were referring to my face because I had severe acne due to the stress of the pregnancy and the job. They were also referring to my hair because it had recently been cut short. My regional actually told me I looked sick. I had extreme fits of morning sickness throughout the whole pregnancy, so looking sick came with the territory. My job was actually threatened several times due to my â€Å"appearance.† Another reason I did not enjoy working for this company is because on one occasion, I was in the shower, getting ready for my regularly scheduled weekend work day, which I hated because I could not spend time with my family, and I slipped in the shower. I was immediately rushed to the ER because being pregnant and falling is a serious issue. I contacted my manager as soon as I could to let her know that I could not physically make it in the office that day and she wrote me up because I contacted her AFTER the office should have been open. I explained that there is nothing I could  have done differently and that my child’s life was in danger. I refused to sign the write up to admit that I was guilty of anything because I wasn’t. The main reason I did not like the job was because the product I was trying to sell was disgusting. For starters, the apartments are income restricted. You have to make a certain amount of money to live there, so it is pointed toward a lower margin. The apartments themselves were never cleaned, stunk like cigarettes, and had multiple different kinds of linoleum and carpet throughout a single apartment. My manager could have paid to have each apartment looking amazing, but instead kept her budget low so she would receive a bonus for not going over budget. I mentioned this several times to my regional, and even had her come and view our apartments, but we were told to lease them anyways. I tried to explain that no one would want to live in an apartment like this. I myself come from the ghetto of South Austin Texas and have lived in some DISGUSTING apartments, but I would not chose to live in these apartments if you paid me. They still put a sense of urgency on us to get the apartments leased and began threatening our jobs. The whole situation was horrible and I am glad I got out of it when I did. I was even told to constantly walk up to the third floor to clean cockroaches out of the breezeways when I was 9 months pregnant. One time I was even told that I would be standing on the corner in a clown suit with a sign that points to the apartments to get traffic in. Being 9 months pregnant, not fitting into the costume and it being 110 degrees outside, I put my foot down and contacted HR and explained what I was being told to do. I was protected from the dressing like a clown, but still expected to walk up and down three flights of stairs in high heels and about to deliver a baby. If I was the regional, the manager, or even the owner, I would invest more time and money into making the property look amazing, inside and out. I would be sure that each and every employee is treated as fair as possible. I would never expect anyone to do anything that they could not physically do. I think the more you push someone to do something, the more stressed out they become and the less they provide you with good work. In conclusion, working for a company has its up’s and down’s. It is up to each level of the structure to make the best of each situation that they are dealt. If they see something that is not right, they need to take charge and handle the situation immediately. I wish that in several instances, my  assistant manager had spoken up for me and handled the situation instead of keeping quite out of fear of losing her job as well. REFERENCES Green, Sarah. Personal Experience, (2010). Working as a leasing consultant for FORE properties. Bateman, T. S., & Snell, S. A. (2011). Management: Leading & collaborating in a competitive world (9th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Ethical Integrity

Ethical Integrity Free Online Research Papers In life today, we have dealt with many different challenges. As humans we are accountable for meeting certain guidelines in most of everything we accomplish. For most of us it is how we were raise and what values that were instilled in us by our parents. Ethical integrity is not being nice to others but being truthful to ourselves, on and off work. Ethics and integrity go hand in hand in how we live our lives. As we progress in our work ethics, our values strengthen and we start to take shape. As we look further and in this subject, we will find that integrity is used in the most of values that we choose to use. Looking online at Dictionary.com, it defines integrity as adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty. Today’s society believes that ethical integrity is more of a standard than an option. In the Air Force they use something that is called to Core Values and the first Core Value is Integrity First, Service before Self, and Excellence in All We Do. As an Air Force Military Training Instructor I instill integrity from day one of basic training. When I get them on the first night, I am informing them of what integrity is and how to apply it in everyday life. When they graduate from basic training they can apply this in their career and be responsible as adults and have a new set of values. An article on ethics and integrity was printed by Bob Czimbal and Michele Brooks, director and seminar leaders for The Abundance Company. They discuss how if you have ethics plus integrity you get alignment. Ethics as stated from Czimbal and Brooks, is an external system of rules and laws. Usually there are rewards when we follow the rules and punishment when we break them. With this definition stated brought the word of integrity which is defined an internal system of principles which guides our behavior. The rewards are intrinsic. Integrity is a choice rather than an obligation. It may be influenced, but cannot be forced upon another person. Integrity is doing what is right even if no one is looking. Most businesses today have you review their code of ethics to ensure you know what the rules you must follow so that you know how the business works and flows and one. From the military point of view, I get briefed of what is expected of me before I step foot on the job. I am explained what I can and cannot do in the work place. I also have to read a few regulations that the Air Force writes and we must follow that correlate with the local workplace laws. It reminds us that Integrity in the workplace is a must and just because you might not always be supervised you must be true to yourself in some situations and do the right thing. By doing so it shows our employer that we are representing the Air Force with the use of integrity and that we can represent ourselves with a set of values the Air Force instills in us from day one. The way a person conducts themselves at work is observed from all your coworkers every day. Some things might be acceptable at work as they work off work. The codes of ethics are there to remind us how to behave at work and to not bring inappropriate behavior to the workplace. A lot of certain behavior is not acceptable at the workplace such as sexual harassment. That is why the rules are required to be enforced by all employees. If a high number of inappropriate behavior complaints are reported we then get together and remind the whole group that this is unacceptable and to remember the code of ethics that we use. Sometimes we have individuals re-read the code to refresh their memory. Other times we bring outside agencies in to talk to the group and to use real stories to educate how even the smallest of things can breakdown a workplace. As a Military Training Instructor I strive to become the best that I can be. As I teach these values to the recruits I also learn a few new ones myself. I am supposed to be the image of a perfect being I emulate integrity and show them how to represent the Air Force in the proper way. Before I became an instructor, I was always the individual who reminded people what integrity was but they didn’t care what integrity was. I was raised not knowing what that was. When I joined the Air Force I learned what integrity was and was able to pass it along to every trainee to take along with them along in their career. If I can have my life changed by a few Values in my life I want everyone to have what I have. The longer we work at a certain workplace we will build trust with the workers and receive a good reputation. Accomplishing the work and the way we handle ourselves around our co-workers, over time, gives them confidence to do anything. Going back to Czimbal and Brooks, Sk ills for Success, their formula for integrity and ethics does equal alignment. To look at this from a different perspective, Clark, author of Why Social Work Practitioners Need Research Ethics Knowledge, takes a different paproach into ethical integrity. The article mentions that (pg 5) practitioners are under pressure, they use intervention and assessments to use as the projects in their study field of ethics. The Code of Federal Regulations is also known as their â€Å"common rules†. There are three designated major categories of vulnerable people; which in the past have been exploited because of their compromised status in society, cognitive limitations associated with age, or their medical vulnerabilities. Social workers are authorized to take action when concerns outweigh the integrity of their job. In the ethical integrity, earning trust and respect are very critical when dealing with a job like this. There are language and culture barriers that can slow things down. This is a job that requires an open mind and the sense of compassion and c onsideration. There are different types of ethical issues that integrity plays an important role. As the employer is an individual comes to me with certain issue I will have to be careful how I handle them. There different issues involving other people that can affect the way a decision is made in any certain matter. Depending on the decision you make, it could be good or bad. It is knowledge and experience and what words we decide to use when dealing with individual with issues. We actually learn what to say to individuals with time in a business we also learn from the individuals with the issue on how to handle the next person with the same types of issues. In my job as an instructor I deal with this all the time. When a recruit comes to me with an issue I have to take into consideration that I might not like this person because he has not been progressing with the rest of the group. I have to put that aside when he asks for help on a personnel issue. I cannot make a decision based on th e fact he is a slow learner. From the experience of management and styles used by my leaders, from my point of view is to always set the example and teach them the correct way on how to use integrity and pass it on to others. Being a professional at all times allows you to show you employers what a leader should represent and how decisions are made. Ethics plays a huge part in all of this. When we work if we use integrity when we make decisions you will see more quality in peoples work as the time progresses. You can attempt to teach ethical integrity but it will determine on the person if they apply it or not. As an employer you have to give the hard feedback on employee performance no matter how much you would hate to. To have and keep an open mind, integrity involves a part of humility that decided our actions and decisions. Over the years of doing this, we learn from the people that we counsel and the experience in handle these situations. Did we pick up a board that no one even seen and if not picked up would have someone tripped and injured themselves? If that had happened in my job that would have been a real bad incident. Using integrity means you always do the right thing even know now sees you accomplish the task. It is the principle of the thing that we look at. Do we or do we not may be many of the questions when we walk by something or someone. From the time your day starts you may have to plan your day and it may go the way you want it to it won’t go the way it was intended. As long as we consider throughout the day the that your mind will assist you in mak ing the correct decision and keep us on top of the principle and make the correct choice in ethical decisions. So what is ethical integrity? The definition from the dictionary broke down the words into their category. We know honesty is the core root of principles that we live by. The key really is in the morality of principles that we use; our conscience mind is pretty unique and valuable to our inner most selves. Ethics is basically the moral part of the principle in the way we act, what we say, and do as to how we listen and use our conscience for the common sense. As said already when it comes to teaching others, we have a code that is lived by, whether it is at work or at home it is for the living day to day basis as life brings many challenges. To be responsible and utilize the tools given and with that keep learning more skills for life as each day is lived. As an individual we are liable for our behavior and our actions. The wisdom gathered can be from many sources. There are those who live by the ten commandments, there are those who have a set of principles that they live by through an organization or nonprofit organization. There are those that have a different religion with their beliefs. The good does not have to come from a book or a piece of paper, but it does come through the inner self of a person and by the laws of nature, we are entitled to use respect, to keep compassion, to seek rather than be the one to get, do rather than be lazy, and so on. The wisdom gathered as mentioned endures with experience. We use ethics as an external overview while integrity is from within, this keeps the compatibility as open as our mind. Research Papers on Ethical IntegrityMoral and Ethical Issues in Hiring New EmployeesOpen Architechture a white paperArguments for Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS)Genetic EngineeringWhere Wild and West MeetComparison: Letter from Birmingham and CritoAnalysis of Ebay Expanding into AsiaIncorporating Risk and Uncertainty Factor in CapitalDefinition of Export QuotasPersonal Experience with Teen Pregnancy

How to Improve Your SAT Writing Score 9 Key Strategies

How to Improve Your SAT Writing Score 9 Key Strategies SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Are you struggling with SAT Writing + Reading scores between 300 and 500? You're not alone- hundreds of thousands of students are scoring in this range, too. But many don't know the best ways to break out of this score range and score 600 or higher. Here, we'll discuss how to improve your SAT Writing score effectively, and why it's so important to do so. Put these principles to work and I'm confident you'll be able to improve your score! Brief note: This article is for students scoring below 600 on Evidence-Based Reading and Writing (EBRW). Although this score is a combination of your Reading and Writing scores, in this article, I'm focusing exclusively on Writing. So when I talk about scoring a 600 on Writing, what I really mean is getting a Writing test score of 30. If you're already scoring above 600, my articles onhow to get a perfect SAT scoreand how to get a perfect SAT Writing scorewill be more appropriate for you. You can still read this article, though, as some of it might be helpful to you. By contrast, ifyour goal is a 500 (or a 25 test score on Writing), these concepts will still equally apply, so I encourage you to continue reading! In this article, I'm going to discuss why scoring high is a good idea, explain what it takes to score a 600 on SAT Writing, and then go over key test-taking strategies. Stick with me- this is like building a house. You need to lay a good foundation before you can put up the walls and pretty windows. Here,we need to understand why you're doing what you're doingbefore we can dive into tips and strategies. Getting a 600 on SAT Writing: Understand the Stakes Improving your low SAT Writing score to something in the 600 range will dramatically boost your chances of getting into better colleges. Let's take a popular school, Penn State University, as an example.Its average SAT score is 1270. Its 25th percentile score is 80, and 75th percentile is 1370.Furthermore, its acceptance rate is 51%. In other words, a little more than half of all applicants are admitted. But the lower your scores, the worse your chances will be of getting in. Based on our analysis, if you score around 80, your chances of admission to Penn State drop to 25%, or around 1/4 chance.But if you raise your SAT score to 1370, your chances of admission go up to 75%- that's a much higher chance of admission! For the Writing section, this is especially true if you want to apply to humanities or language programs. These programs expect your SAT Writing score to be better than your Math score. So if you score low on this section, they'll likely doubt your ability to do college-level humanities work. As you can see, it's really worth your time to improve your SAT score. Hour for hour,it's the best thing you can do to raise your chance of getting into college. Know That You Can Raise Your SAT Writing Score This isn't just some lame inspirational message you see on the back of a milk carton. I mean, literally, you and every other student can do this. At PrepScholar, I've worked with thousands of students scoring in the lower range of 300-500. Time after time, I see students beat themselves up over their low scores who think improving them is impossible. "I know I'm not smart." "I've just never been good at writing, and I can't see myself scoring high." "I don't know what to study to improve my score." It breaks my heart. Because I know that, more than anything else, your SAT score is a reflection ofhow hard you work and how smartly you study.Not your IQ or your school grades. Not how Ms. Anderson in 9th grade gave you a C on your essay. Here's why: the SAT is a weird test. When you take it, don't you get the sense that the questions are nothing like what you've seen in school? You've learned grammar before in school. You know some basic grammar rules. But the SAT questions just seem so much weirder. The test is purposely designed this way. The SAT can't test difficult concepts because this would be unfair to students who never took AP English. It can't ask you to dissect Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. The SAT is a national test after all, which means it needs a level playing field for all students around the country. As a result, the SAT has to test concepts that all high school students will learn. Subject-verb agreement, run-on sentences, pronoun choice, etc. You've learned all of this in school. But the SAT still has to make the test difficult, so it tests these basic concepts in strange ways. This trips up students who don't prepare for it, but it rewards students who understand the test well. Here's an example of an SAT Writing question, which requires you to find the grammar error in the sentence: The commissioner, along with his 20 staff members, run a tight campaign against the incumbent. This is a classic SAT Writing question. Try to solve it before reading on. The error here is in thesubject/verb agreement. The subject of the sentence is "commissioner," which is singular. The verb, however, is "run," but because the subject is singular, it should really be "runs." If you didn't see an error, you fell for a classic SAT Writing trap.It purposely confused you with the interrupting phrase, "along with his 20 staff members." You're now picturing 20 people in a campaign, which suggests a plural verb! The SAT Writing section is full of questions like this one. Nearly every grammar rule is tested in a specific way, and if you don't prepare for these, you're going to do a lot worse than you should. Here's the good news: this might have been confusing the first time, but the next time you see a question like this, you'll know exactly what to do:find the subject and the verb, and get rid of the interrupting phrase. Essentially, to improve your SAT Writing score, you just need to do the following: Learn the grammar rules tested on the SAT Study how the SAT tests these grammar rules, and learn how to detect which grammar rule you need to know for a question Practice with a lot of realistic SAT Writing questions so you can learn from your mistakes I'll go into more detail about exactly how to do all of this. But first, let's see how many questions you'll need to get correct on SAT Writing to get a 600 EBRW score. What It Takes to Get a 600 (or 30) on SAT Writing If we have a target score in mind, it helps to understand what you need to get that score on the actual test.Remember that we're aiming for a 600 EBRW score- or, more specifically, aWriting test score of 30,out of 40. Scoring is a little complicated for SAT Writing. Unlike the Math section, which is scored on a scale of 200-600, Writing is combined with Reading to give you a single Evidence-Based Reading and Writing (EBRW) score.In order to get this scaled score, however, your Writing and Reading scores start out as raw scores (equal to the number of questions you got right). These are converted into test scores on a scale of 10-40. Finally, the two test scores are combined and converted to a single EBRW score on a scale of 200-600. In this sense, when we talk about getting a 600 on SAT Writing, what we really mean is getting a 30 out of 40 on SAT Writing. Note thatif you opt for the SAT Essay, this score willnotbe included in your SAT Writing score (it used to be before 2016; now, it's a completely separate score). If you could use a refresher on how the SAT is scored,read our in-depth guide to SAT scoring. Here's a raw score to SAT Writing score conversion table from an official SAT practice test. Be aware that SAT conversion tables differ for each test, so they can't offer an exact conversion- just an estimate. Raw Scaled Raw Scaled Raw Scaled Raw Scaled 44 40 32 30 20 23 8 14 43 39 31 30 19 22 7 13 42 38 30 29 18 21 6 13 41 37 29 28 17 21 5 12 40 36 28 28 16 20 4 39 35 27 27 15 19 3 10 38 34 26 26 14 19 2 10 37 34 25 26 13 18 1 10 36 33 24 25 12 17 0 10 35 32 23 25 16 34 32 22 24 10 16 33 31 21 23 9 15 Source: Official SAT Practice Test #1 Notice that if you're aiming for a 30/40 on Writing, you need a raw score of 31-32, or around 77%. This means you need to correctly answer a bit above 3/4 of all questions. Whatever you're scoring now, take note of the difference you need to get to a 30. For example, if you're scoring a 23, you'd need to answer 10- more questions right to get to a 600.Once again, if your goal is a 500 (or a 25 in Writing), the same analysis applies. OK- so we've covered why getting a higher SAT Writingscore is important, why you specifically are capable of improving your score, and the raw score you need to get to your target. Now we'll actually get into actionable strategies that you should use in your own studying to maximize your score improvement. How to Improve Your Low SAT Writing Score: 9 Strategies Below, I introduce my top strategies to help you get the high SAT Writing score you deserve. Strategy 1: Get Used to the SAT Writing Passage Format The SAT Writing format consists of a passage on the left-hand side and questions on the right. The questions are indicated in the passage by underlines and number markers. Take a look: This format is a little odd to get used to since you need to alternate between reading the passage and answering questions about grammar and writing style. As some of the questions require you to understand the passage as a whole, it can get pretty tricky. And darting your head left and right to answer questions can ultimately make you lose concentration. So in what order do you read the passage and answer the questions? We recommend this three-step strategy: Read every sentence to completion.If the sentence has an underline in the middle, don't stop reading the sentence. Finish reading it so you understand what it's talking about. Go back to the question and answer it. If the question has multiple questions tagged, tackle them one at a time. We find that this strategy works best for lower-scoring students. It strikes a good balance between comprehending the passage and answering questions quickly. Do notread the entire passage and then answer the questions. It's usually not important to comprehend the entire passage as you need to do on Reading. Most questions are very focused sentence by sentence, meaning you don't need other sentences to answer them correctly. You can read more about tackling SAT Writing passages here. Strategy 2: Know What's Being Tested on SAT Writing Now that you're comfortable with the SAT passage format, it's important to know what's actually being tested on this section.You know grammar skills are being tested, but which ones?Do you know what rhetoric/style skills are being tested as well? When you go into battle, you need to know your enemy. Here's a great breakdown at a high level of what's tested on SAT Writing. And here's a great listing of the top 12 SAT grammar rules you should know. I won't list them here since the article I linked to is a much better explanation. For more tips on SAT grammar, check out our guide to all essential grammar rules you should know. All these skills bring us to my next strategy ... Strategy 3: Learn the Most Important Grammar Rules and Ignore the Others There's just no way around it. You need to know what the most important grammar rules are and how they work in order to do well on SAT Writing. The good news is thatcertain grammar rules are far more common than others on the SAT. For example, punctuation is the #1 grammar rule on the test- and almost six times more common than modifiers! Overall, there aren't that many grammar rules you need to master. In this sense, SAT Writing is a bit easier than SAT Math, for which there are more than a dozen unique skills you need to do well. What this means is that you can get more bang for your buck if you study correctly. Instead of reading a grammar book cover to cover, you should focus on the most critical grammar rules to improve your score most. We dissected every official SAT practice test available to figure out how many questions will appear for every skill. Here's an overview of what we found for SAT Writing: SAT Writing Skill Questions per Test Grammar Punctuation 4.5 Sentence Structure 3.8 Conventional expression 2.5 Agreement 2.3 Possessives 2.3 Parallel structure 2 Pronouns 1 Verb Tense 1 Modifiers 0.8 Rhetoric Sentence Function 8.5 Concision 4 Transition 3.8 Logical sequence 2.5 Precision 2.3 Quantitative 1.5 Style and tone 1.5 This list isn't that useful without practice. Now that you know what to expect on SAT Writing, you need to practice the most common skills again and again.This will get you the biggest bang for your buck for every hour you spend studying. This is how I designed our PrepScholar SAT program to work. We customize your study program to your strengths and weaknesses, forcing you to spend study time on what is really going to improve your score. You don't have to find your own SAT practice questions or decide what to study in what order- we do all of that for you! Next strategy: find your weak links and fix them. Strategy 4: Find Your Grammar Weaknesses and Drill Them If you're like most students, you're better at some areas on SAT Writing than you are at others. You might know pronouns really well, for instance, but you're not very strong at sentence constructions and fragments. Or maybe you're really good atparallel constructionbut have no idea what afaulty modifieris. You also don't have an unlimited amount of time to study. You have a lot of schoolwork, you might be an athlete or have intense extracurriculars, and you've got friends to hang out with.This means that for every hour you study for the SAT, it needs to be the most effective hour possible. In concrete terms,you need to find your greatest areas of improvement and work on those. Too many students study the "dumb" way. They just buy a prep book and read it cover to cover. When they don't improve their SAT scores, they're shocked. I'm not. Studying effectively for the SAT isn't like painting a house. You're not trying to cover your bases with a thin layer of understanding. What these students did wrong was that they wasted time on subjects they already knew well- and didn't spend enough time improving their weak spots. Studying effectively for the SAT is like plugging up the holes of a leaky boat. You need to find the biggest hole and fill it. Then you find the next biggest hole and fix that. Soon you'll find that your boat isn't sinking at all. How does this relate to SAT Writing? You need to pinpoint the grammar rules you're having most trouble with and then do enough practice questions until they're no longer a weakness. Fixing up the biggest holes. For every Writing question you miss, you have to identify the type of question it is and why you missed it. Onceyou notice patterns to the questions you miss, you can find extra practice for particular grammar rules that are difficult for you. Say you miss a lot of questions related to commas (a very common SAT Writing mistake). You need to find a way to get lesson material to teach yourself the main concepts you're forgetting. You then need to find more practice questions for this skill so you can drill your mistakes.This is by far the best way to improve your SAT Writing score. Bonus: If all of this is making sense to you, you'd love our SAT prep program, PrepScholar. We designed our program around the concepts in this article because they actually work.When you start with PrepScholar, you’ll take a diagnostic that will determine your weaknesses in over forty SAT skills, including individual grammar rules. PrepScholar then creates a study program specifically customized for you. To improve each skill, you’ll take focused lessons dedicated to each skill, with over 20 practice questions per skill. This will train you for your specific area weaknesses, so your time is always spent most effectively to raise your score. For example, if you're weak in Subject/Verb Agreement, we'll give you a dedicated quiz focused on that skill so that you master your weakness. There’s no other prep system out there that does it this way, which is why we get better score results than any other program on the market. Check it out today with a 5-day free trial: Learn how to eliminate answer choices systematically. Strategy 5: Don't Pick Answer Choices Based on "Sounding Weird"- Don't Guess Randomly The SAT tests proper English grammar very strictly. Imagine that it's a 60-year-old English professor who speaks like he came from 1850.A lot of the language on the test will sound strange to you because it's never how you would phrase sentences yourself in real life. Here's an example: The students for whom the scholarships were designed left the school voluntarily for health reasons. This sentence is 100% grammatically correct. But you probably wouldn't talk like this with your friends or teachers. Students often fall for weird-sounding language because it seems as if there must be an error. But the SAT (sneaky like it always is) knows this about you. And it designs traps for students to fall into. Here's what you should do instead. For every wrong answer choice you eliminate, you should justify to yourself clearly why you are eliminating that answer choice. For most grammar type questions, you're looking for the best replacement for the underlined section. Here's an example: (Note that SAT questions only have four answer choices, but I'm just using this for illustration.) Here's my thinking as I go through the question for the first time: I'm getting from this question that nitrogen can kill plants and animals, so researchers want to prevent accumulation of nitrogen. This makes logical sense to me. A: This sounds plausible to me. I don't see any errors. I'm keeping this answer choice as a possibility. B: This is strictly grammatically correct, but "plants and animals can be killed" is now in its own clause as it's been separated by the semicolon. As a result, this sentence is not communicating that nitrogen is killing plants and animals; it's just saying that "plants and animals can be killed." But by what? I'm feeling negative about this as the answer choice. C: This is a comma splice grammar error. "That is what can kill plants and animals" is an independent clause, and in order to join two independent clauses, I know that you need a comma and a conjunction, such as "and." D: This is also a comma splice error. Plus, "they" isn't the right pronoun to use. Nitrogen is singular, so you would need to use "it." E: This fixes the comma splice error in D since now it uses a comma andthe conjunction "and." But it still has the "they" pronoun error. "They" needs to be "it" because nitrogen is singular. Based on all of this, I've eliminated every answer choice except A. Therefore, A is the correct answer. I'm not literally thinking all these words in my head. I'm eliminating quickly as I read because I'm detecting the grammar errors. It's like if I told you, "The bee fly to the hive." You'll instantly know this is wrong if you say it aloud because it feels wrong. After a few more seconds, you'd be able to point out that "bee" is singular and "fly" is plural, so we have a subject-verb agreement error. By learning more grammar rules and practicing them, you'll be able to do this elimination more quickly and naturally. You'll pinpoint exact reasons that a phrase has a grammar error and then use that to eliminate incorrect answer choices. This is a lot better than guessing based on things simply "sounding weird," and you'll get many more questions right with this strategy. Strategy 6: Be Careful About Choosing NO CHANGEToo Much On SAT Writing, most questions have a NO CHANGE option. This is the answer choice that doesn't change the underlined section and leaves the sentence as is. The SAT loves tricking students using these answer choices because it knows that students who don't know grammar rules won't see anything wrong with the sentence. NO CHANGE is a really easy answer to choose when a question doesn't set off any grammar alarms in your ear. But you need to be very careful whenever you choose NO CHANGE. Typically, this answer choice is correct only around 25% of the time. If you find that you're choosing NO CHANGE 40% or more of the time, you're definitely not detecting grammar errors well enough. Every time you choose NO CHANGE, try to double-check the other answer choices to ensure you're not accidentally missing a grammar error. Also, take note of grammar rules you tend to ignore by mistake. As I mentioned in Strategy 2 above, if you study your weaknesses, you'll be able to learn which grammar rules you're weak at and need to pay special attention to. Here's an example problem for which many students would choose NO CHANGE: Try to solve this question. If NO CHANGE was your first thought, try to review the other answer choices before finalizing your answer. Here's a look at what your general thought process should be: A:The sentence sounds OK as is- let's look at the other answers, though. B: "One's" lifetime- OK, so it's changing from "our" to "one's." I do know from English that I shouldn't be using "I" in my essays, so maybe this is better. C: "His or her"- this is similar to "one's" and it allows for multiple genders. Not sure whether this or answer choice B is better ... D: "Their"- wait a minute, this is different from the other answer choices because it's plural form, whereas "one's" and "his or her" are both singular. Also, what's "lifetime" referring to? It must be to "students" at the beginning of the sentence, which is plural and in the third person, so I definitely need "their" here! Let me review the other answer choices. Nope- they're definitely incorrect, since they are either singular or first person. By reviewing the answer choices one last time and using Strategy 4 to eliminate choices only based on sound reasoning or grammar rules, we find that D is the right answer. Side Note: You'll see how the same grammar rules come up over and over again- you just have to learn the patterns to do well on SAT Writing. These are the strategies we teach you in our SAT prep programso you, too, can become a grammar expert. Finally, be especially careful about choosing NO CHANGEat the end of a question set. These are the hardest questions on Writing, and the SAT is trying extra hard to trick you by disguising the grammar rules. Strategy 7: Don't Spend More Than 30 Seconds per Question Of all sections, SAT Writing has the least amount of time per question. You get 35 minutes to answer 44 questions, which means only 48 seconds per question!Even worse, you have to read passages to be able to answer these questions. If you find yourself spending more than 30 seconds on a single question, skip it for nowand try to give yourselfenough time to come back to it later. The most important thing is that you get all the points you can. Having the timer end before you can get to the last question is one of the worst mistakes you can make on the SAT because it means thatyou weren't able to give all questions a chance. This is especially important on Writing since the questions are not arranged by order of difficulty. So you might have a really easy question at the end! You definitely want to avoid sucking up two minutes on a single SAT Writing question. This is taking up way more time than one question deserves. You'll be better off spending all that time on other questions to get more points. Once you've answered all the questions you can answer without spending too long on them, go back through the section and try to answer the ones you left blank.Since there is no point penalty on the SAT, it's worth it to answer every single question, even if you have to guess! All of this requires discipline during the test, and many students ignore the clock until it's too late. Don't run out of time. Strategy 8: Understand All Your SAT Writing Mistakes Every mistake you make on a test happens for a reason.If you don't understand exactly why you missed a certain question, you'll make that mistake over and over again. Too many students scoring at the 400-600 level on SAT Writing refuse to study their mistakes. It's harsh. I get it. It sucks to stare your mistakes in the face. It's draining to learn difficult concepts you don't already understand. So the average student will breeze past their mistakes and instead zero in on areas they're already comfortable with. It's like a warm blanket. Their thinking goes something like this: "So I'm good at subject-verb agreement? I should do more subject-verb agreement problems! They make me feel good about myself." The result? No score improvement. You don't want to be like these students. So here'swhat you need to do: On every SAT practice test or question set you take, mark every question you're even 20% unsure about. When you grade your practice test, review every question you marked and every wrong answer,even the hard ones. This way, even if you guessed a question correctly, you'll make sure to review it. In a notebook, write down the gist of the question, why you missed it, and what you'll do to avoid making that mistake again.I recommend organizing your notes by grammar rule (subject-verb agreement, pronoun reference, faulty modifier, etc.). It's not enough to just think about a wrong answer and move on. It's not enough to just read the answer explanation. You have to think hard about why you failed on this specific question. By taking this structured approach to your mistakes,you'll now have a running log of every Writing question you missed, and your reflection on why you missed it. No excuses when it comes to your mistakes. Strategy 9: Go Deeper- Why Did You Miss a Writing Question? Now, what are some common reasons you might've missed a question on SAT Writing? Don't just say, "I didn't know this material." That's a cop-out. Always take it one step further:what specifically did you miss, and what do you have to improve in the future? Here are some examples of common reasons students miss SAT questions, and how you can take your analysis of your errors one step further: Content:I didn't learn the knowledge or grammar rule needed to answer this question. One step further:What specific knowledge do I need to learn, and how will I learn this skill? Incorrect Approach:I knew the content or grammar rule, but I didn't know how to approach the question. One step further:How do I solve this question? How will I solve questions like this in the future? Careless Error:I misread what the question was asking for or I missed a grammar rule I already knew One step further:Why did I misread the question? Why did I miss this grammar error? What trick did the SAT play on me? What should I do in the future to avoid this? Get the idea? You're really digging into understanding why you're missing Writing questions. Yes, this is hard. It's draining, and it takes work. That's why most students who study ineffectively don't improve their scores. But you're different. Just by reading this guide, you're already proving that you care more about your SAT scores than other students do about theirs. And if you apply these principles and analyze your mistakes, you'll improve much more than other students will. In my PrepScholar program, we force students to review every single question they miss so that each question becomes a chance to learn something new. In Overview: How to Raise Your Low SAT Writing Score These are the main strategies I have for you to improve your SAT Writing score. If you're scoring a 350, you can improve it to a 500. If you're scoring a 440, you can boost it to a 600. I guarantee this, as long as you put in the right amount of work and study in the ways I've suggested above. Notice that I didn't actually teach you that many grammar rules. I didn't point out any tricks you need to know or specific grammar rules that will instantly raise your SAT score. That's because these one-size-fits-all, guaranteed strategies don't really exist.(And anyone who tells you this is deceiving you.) Every student is different. Instead, you need to understand where you're falling short and then drill those weaknesses continuously.You also need to be thoughtful about your mistakes and leave no mistake ignored. This is really important for your future. Make sure to give SAT prep the attention it deserves before it's too late and you get a rejection letter you didn't want. If you want to go back and review any of the strategies, here's a quick listing of them: Strategy 1: Get Used to the SAT Writing Passage Format Strategy 2: Know What's Being Tested on SAT Writing Strategy 3: Learn the Most Important Grammar Rules and Ignore the Others Strategy 4: Find Your Grammar Weaknesses and Drill Them Strategy 5: Don't Pick Answer Choices Based on "Sounding Weird"- Don't Guess Randomly Strategy 6: Be Careful About Choosing NO CHANGE Too Much Strategy 7: Don't Spend More Than 30 Seconds per Question Strategy 8: Understand All Your SAT Writing Mistakes Strategy 9: Go Deeper- Why Did You Miss a Writing Question? Good luck on your SAT Writing prep! What's Next? We have even more useful guides you can use to raise your SAT score.Learn how to improve your Math and Reading scores. Also,read our top 15 tips to improving your SAT Essay score. What's a good SAT score for you? Read our detailed guide on figuring out your SAT target score. Want a bunch of free SAT practice tests to practice with? Here's our comprehensive list of every free SAT practice test. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points? Check out our best-in-class online SAT prep classes. We guarantee your money back if you don't improve your SAT score by 160 points or more. Our classes are entirely online, and they're taught by SAT experts. If you liked this article, you'll love our classes. Along with expert-led classes, you'll get personalized homework with thousands of practice problems organized by individual skills so you learn most effectively. We'll also give you a step-by-step, custom program to follow so you'll never be confused about what to study next. Try it risk-free today: Have friends who also need help with test prep? Share this article! Tweet Allen Cheng About the Author As co-founder and head of product design at PrepScholar, Allen has guided thousands of students to success in SAT/ACT prep and college admissions. He's committed to providing the highest quality resources to help you succeed. Allen graduated from Harvard University summa cum laude and earned two perfect scores on the SAT (1600 in 2004, and 2400 in 2014) and a perfect score on the ACT. You can also find Allen on his personal website, Shortform, or the Shortform blog. Get Free Guides to Boost Your SAT/ACT Get FREE EXCLUSIVE insider tips on how to ACE THE SAT/ACT. 100% Privacy. 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