Create or use an existing company Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Create or use an existing company - Term Paper Example There are some main factors that company has to deal with. As most of the soft-drink and beer bottles are liable for reuse and recycling, company gets some of its raw material from defected and used bottles that are supplied back by the beer companies. However, a number of bottles do not reverse and company has to involve glass as the raw material of new bottles. There had been a stagnant increase in the market since last three years which provides and estimation for supposed upcoming market demands. In light of those factors company has to keep a safe number of bottles that can be supplied urgently when required by buyers. On the other hand, a large number of bottles made in advance can create a burden over company’s investing strength. That would also create a lack of fluency in company’s cycle of work. Thus, company has to involve a concrete Inventory management that keeps the overall demand and supply chain in a safe and trustworthy position to provide continuous pr ofit to Volga Glasses. The supply chain and IT Factors Obviously, the purpose of Volga Glasses’ is to enhance and manage its supply chain to perform with a perfect smoothness that does not shake even in the conditions of an urgent tide in market situations. Company uses elegant IT techniques to manage that smoothness. Chiefly the bills are collected as electronic data providing an exact record of supply over a particular period. While mostly a supply chain is maintained over longer period like a year or six months, Volga Glasses is bound to use three month estimation because of the nature of its assets and frequently wavering requirements. Three years ago company has ordered a software organization to design software for their inventory management. The software had produced good results while it had been quite dependent of human inputs and mandatory analysis by the supervisors of Volga Glasses. This software ‘Smart-Task’ bases its strategy in collecting the suppl y data and comparing the overall cost of raw materials added with the labor and mechanical expenses. Over the time it also manifests the comparative graphs of market tides during various supply chain periods. Company manages to base its strategies in short term chains such as three months as well as yearly managements of supply chains. During last years it had come out that Smart-Task has been accurate and efficient in processing the data to manifest a scenario of the market. However, during the recent immediate ups and downs of market the estimations of Smart-task have failed when external situations like a temporary recession had stricken the market of soft drinks. Therefore an analysis of Company’s requirement and reliability of IT over numerous patterns of system of research is mandatory. Synchronization of IT and HR Out of the data processing methodology of Smart-Task, it has come out that it depends solely on human inputs which provide a base for calculations and estima tions. Company’s HR department is responsible for providing the supposed information for future uplifts and lowering of market because Smart-Task puts the data in various graphs that ease the methods of comparisons provide a manifestation of supply chain. The requirement of advance inventory is calculated on a

Simmons Leading changes Essay Example for Free

Simmons Leading changes Essay General Overriding Problem: The case mainly focuses on the challenges of implementing change programs at Simmons. There is resistance to change. (The sources of resistance are derived from both individuals and organization.) Besides the resistance to change, the dominant organizational culture exists within Simmons is not in consistency with the Simmons’ core organizational culture. This inconsistency further hinders the Simmons from implementing change programs smoothly. Simmons is in its toughest period of time ever in history. There are several forces (Economic shocks are the most important stimulants to change at Simmons) that require Charlie Eitel, CEO of Simmons, to implement comprehensive change program, i. e. the Great Game of Life (GGOL). However, the implementation of GGOL faces huge resistance. Individual Sources: Firstly, there is fear of the unknown among the employees and the top managers. The outcomes of GGOL are uncertain, employees feel like their safety and job securities are threatened, especially resignation of plant managers has already happened. Secondly, individuals have habits. They prefer to work in their accustomed ways. When people are confronted with the GGOL, they may think that they will shift from the environment they are habituated to. This thought will result in resistance to change. Thirdly,economic factors also trigger resistance to change. GGOL is ambiguous to most employees and managers at Simmons. They are concerned about the changes in their job tasks or established work routines. They may not be able to perform new tasks to their previous standards, especially when their pay is closely associated with productivity. Organizational Sources: Firstly, Structural inertia acts as a counterbalance to sustain stability and resist changes. The culture shared by a majority of the Simmons’ members (i.e. dominant culture) is inconsistent with the original organizational culture established by the company. The  inconsistency will further strengthen structural inertia to resist change. For example,leadership style at Simmons will be changed completely. Simmons leadership vision states that they encourage new ideas, open communication, and having fun. However, the dominant culture deviates from the core values. The actual leadership is very much motivation through intimidation. GGOL will completely revamping the company’s dictatorial form and ensure that Simmons is running on the right track. Secondly, there are resources constraints. Organizations need adequate financial resources to change. However, Simmons is not in this case. Simmons is on the brink of bankruptcy! To some extend, group inertia is also taking place. Some employees resist GGOL simply because their groups which they belong to resist the GGOL. Analysis and Evaluation: Implementation of the GGOL is controversial. It really does teach staff at Simmons how to work together and share information. The GGOL is made up by 4 phases. The first phase focuses on participation. This phase encourages employees to participate discussion. It helps improve the communication within the organization and make employees get involved. Resistance to change is positive since it leads to open discussion and debate. Change agents also take advantages of it to explain the change effort, i.e. process consultation. The second phase is aiming at establishing trust and support by using team building. The first two phases are unfreezing step inLewin’s three-step model. The last two phases are interrelated. They are usingintergroup development technique to look for the causes of disparities and try to solve them (Movement and Refreezing step in Lewin’s model). Ultimately, the staff’s full potential at work is realized. Recommendations: After Charlie Eitel is designated as CEO, he took series actions. These actions include redesigning the Beautyrest, spending $9 million on ad campaign, reorganizing management and Simmons’ structure, and implementing the GGOL. Most of them are successful. However, Eitel and the top management team still don’t come up with a plan about how to manage the company through  these tough times. Since the experiment result at Charlotte Plant is fantastic, I would like to recommend Eitel to stick on his original plan, i.e. adopt the GGOL. Creating a culture for change is the centre of this plan. I suggest the following improvements. They should pay more attention on the employees’ feedback. Feedback is incredibly essential for accessing attitudes held by employees, identifying discrepancies among employees, and solving these differences. Survey feedback also makes employees feel their opinions are valued by the company. Simmons should also adopt appreciative inquiry AI. AI focuses on an organization’s successes rather than its problem. Employees at Simmons are criticized excessively. Managers should identify the strengths of Simmons, and try to make best use of their comparative advantages and bypass the disadvantages. AI also allows managers and employees to write action plan and develop implementation strategies together. The more people engaged in, the more they are willing to implementing change. Structure of Simmons should also be reorganized. Eitel should try to de-emphasize hierarchical authority and control. This makes Simmons be more effective incommunication. Generally speaking, communication is high and effective in innovative organizations. In addition, de-emphasize hierarchical authority ensurespower equalization, which is beneficial to organizational development. â€Å"Leading Change at Simmons† shows the importance of Organizational Behavior, having a culture that respects its employees and having a transformational leader who has a clear vision for the company. Problem Statement Simmons has lost three of its most important clients due to the economic depression post the 9/11 attacks. Its products are giving off unpleasant odor because of a low quality raw material supplied by one of its suppliers. Problems As one goes through the case, one realizes that there are a lot of problems that the company is facing, right from the lack of a clear vision to the extent of one manufacturing unit competing with the other. It clearly reflects the following sources of conflict 1.Incompatible goals 2.Diversity Analysis of Problems †¢Role Conflict and No Organizational Structure One of the major problems that the company was facing was that there was no clear organizational structure for the company and role conflict existed. Most of the associates were reporting to the General Managers, who were basically Sales Managers, and who, according to Eitel, didn’t have business acumen. All the manufacturing units were running as per the General Manager’s whims. This Control vs. Commitment (Exhibit 1) situation can be clearly seen when Bob Hellyer, President and Director of Simmons, tells Eitel about the manufacturing units at Janesville and Charlotte. Lack of Implementation of Vision and Values Simmons already had four core values in place; three more were added when Eitel joined the company as its CEO. It seems that no one was following the â€Å"Simmons Code of Ethics† or the â€Å"Simmons Values.† No one was maximizing the â€Å"opportunity† to think or share and listen to others; Short Term Goals: 1.Discard the mattresses that were made up of bad foam and sue the supplier. 2.Report and communicate with partners and employees Long Term: 1.Restructure 2.Bill Wagnar should be kept in the same role.

A Detailed Essay of My Journey on the Internet :: Speakers Research Internet Papers

A Detailed Essay of My Journey on the Internet The Internet is a wonderful and exciting place to research anything. At any given time, day or night, a person can log onto the World Wide Web and become part of a global community, just behind his or her computer monitor, delving into the high speed universe of silicon and circuit boards. One large slice of this world is the plethora of consumer products always available online. I have chosen a product that many people have in their homes today and is an essential component to a consumers prized entertainment system - speakers. Speakers are an interesting topic to research, and I have been meaning to do that research for quite some time now. It is almost ironic that an earlier English assignment was to write about a journey, and this assignment turned out to be quite the journey itself. Speakers come in many shapes and sizes, as well as different brands and styles. I decided to start with the Web browser I use everyday, Microsoft Internet Explorer, to research this product. By typing the word speakers into the generic search engine, I came up with so many choices that I felt it would be better to search, instead, through the many brands and narrow my search down to just a few. I found only a number of brands that really appealed to me because they are well-known and respected. These brands were Sony, Bose, Pioneer and RCA Narrowing this large field down to only four brands made my research much easier and much more enjoyable. Name brands are all known for high end stereo equipment, and these seem the most reasonable in price for the everyday consumer looking for a good, affordable set of speakers. After further research and drawing from my past experiences with every brand being considered, I determined that Bose Speakers were an excellent buy. This was the part of the search that seemed to take the most time. After getting this far, it was time to really test the limits of the Internet. How many different types of speakers can I find that are manufactured by the Bose Company? What kind of prices can I find for these products and are they the same in every site? What kind of deal can I get on these same speakers when using different search engines likeGoogle or America Online?

Why same-sex marriage should be legal

Why same-sex marriage should be legal. BY aurore1997 Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Here we are today about to debate whether or not individuals in love with each other should be able to get married or not. Yet twelve years and 3 months is the time that has passed since the first homosexual marriage was made official in a Canadian province. Since 1996,because of the Defense of Marriage Act which prevented-and still does- homosexual couples from receiving benefits traditionally conferred by marriage ; states have scrambled to efine their own stance on the issue.The restriction of marriage to heterosexual couples should be abolished because it is discriminatory to homosexual couples. Most conservatives use Christianity as a backup for their argument. But unlike what they may all think, homosexuality is not a sin. It is a strong tendency ordered towards a moral evil, you may want to discuss this point but it was said in a Vatican letter in the year 1986. Under the papacy of his hol iness John Paul II. There's absolutely no eason of principle that emotional union should be restricted to heterosexual couples.Nor are there any constitutional reason,in fact the act that ‘defines' marriage to be the union of a man and a woman was proven unconstitutional. As it goes against the tenth amendment of the United States constitution. We believe that our society is open-minded but the issue of gay marriages proves us wrong. Homosexuals are called perverts by the majority of the world population. People that are supposed to set examples do not, in February 2004, a Belgian cardinal publicly aid that he would not open his door for any homosexuals because they are sexual perverts.They are not perverts, they are sensitive humans like you and me , they just have a different sexual orientation, in fact a recent study proved that homosexuals rate their relationship more favorably than heterosexuals do and the average homosexual relationship lasts longer than the average hete rosexual relationship. According to this study they ‘know how to love' better than heterosexuals do. Despite all these factors, people still dare to call homosexuals perverts Just because they are the minority.Is this not similar to racism ? In my opinion it sure is. Regarding the Belgian cardinal harsh words,a Vatican spokesperson said, â€Å"People with a homosexual inclination must be accepted with respect,compassion and sensitivity†. Homosexuals feel more accepted after the marriage according to a survey. They also observed that people give more credibility and less perversity to their relationship when they are officially and legally arried.We observed through bullying that what society feels about you can make you feel confident but it might as well push you to suicide. Refusing to legalize homosexual marriage gives the right to society to mock homosexuals and to exclude them because they are different. Exile leads to depression and to suicide in most cases. Do we want more unnatural deaths in this country ? I am sure we do not. The restriction of marriage to heterosexual couples should be abolished because it is discriminatory to homosexual couples.

Death of a Salesman Critical insights Essay

In a 2003 interview with his biographer, Christopher Bigsby, about the inherent structure of his plays, Arthur Miller explained, â€Å"It’s all about the language† (Bigsby, â€Å"Miller†). Miller’s declaration about the centrality of language in the creation of drama came at the end of his almost seventy-year career. He had completed his final play, Finishing the Picture, and a little more than a year later, he became ill and subsequently died in February 2005. Thus Miller’s statement can be seen as a final avowal about how language operates in dramatic dialogue, a concern that had obsessed him since the start of his career when he wrote his first play, No Villain, at the University of Michigan in 1935. Despite Miller’s proclamation, not enough critical attention has been paid to the sophisticated use of language that pervades his dialogue. Throughout his career, Miller often was subject to reviews in which critics mostly excoriated him for what they judged as a failed use of language in his plays. For example, in the Nation review of the original production of Death of a Salesman in 1949, Joseph Wood Krutch criticized the play for â€Å"its failure to go beyond literal meaning and its undistinguished dialogue. Unlike Tennessee Williams, Miller does not have a unique sensibility, new insight, fresh imagination or a gift for language† (283-84). In 1964, Richard Gilman judged that After the Fall lacks structural focus and contains vague rhetoric. He concluded that Miller’s â€Å"verbal inadequacy [has] never been more flagrantly exhibited† (6). John Simon’s New York review of the 1994 Broadway production of Broken Glass opined that â€Å"Miller†™s ultimate failure is his language: Tone-deafness in a playwright is only a shade less bad than in a composer.† In a June 2009 review of Christopher Bigsby’s authorized biography of Miller, Terry Teachout judged that Miller â€Å"too often made the mistake of using florid, pseudo-poetic language† (72). These reviews illustrate how, as a language stylist, Arthur Miller was underappreciated, too often overshadowed by his contemporary Tennessee Williams, whose major strength as a dramatist for many critics lies in the â€Å"lyricism† of his plays. As Arthur K. Oberg pointed out, â€Å"In the established image, Miller’s art is masculine and craggy; Williams’, poetic and delicate† (303). Because Miller has so often been pigeonholed as a â€Å"social† dramatist, most of the criticism of his work focuses on the cultural relevance of his plays and ignores detailed discussions of his language–especially of its poetic elements. Most critics are content to regard his dialogue as â€Å"colloquial,† judging that Miller best used what Leonard Moss described as â€Å"the common man’s language† (52) to reflect the social concerns of his characters. The assumption is often made that the manufacturers, salesmen, Puritan farmers, dockwork ers, housewives, policemen, doctors, lawyers, executives, and bankers who compose the bulk of Miller’s characters speak a realistic prose dialogue–a style that is implicitly antithetical to poetic language. This prevailing opinion of Miller as a dramatist who merely uses the common man’s language has been reinforced largely by a lack of in-depth critical analyses of how figurative language works in his canon. In his November 1998 review of the Chicago run of the fiftieth anniversary production of Death of a Salesman, Ben Brantley noted that, â€Å"as recent Miller scholarship has suggested again and again, the play’s images and rhythms have the patterns of poetry† (E3). In reality, though, relatively few critics have thoroughly examined this aspect not only of Salesman but also of Miller’s entire dramatic canon.1 Thomas M. Tammaro judges â€Å"that critical attention to Miller’s drama has been lured from textual analysis to such non-textual concerns as biography and Miller as a social dramatist† (10).2 Moreover, classroom discussions of Miller’s masterpieces Death of a Salesman and The Crucible (1953) mostly focus on these biographical an d social concerns in addition to characterization and thematic issues but rarely discuss language and dialogue. Five years after his passing, it is time to recognize that Arthur Miller created a unique dramatic idiom that undoubtedly marks him as significant language stylist within twentieth- and twenty-first-century  American and world drama. More readers and critics should see his dialogue not exclusively as prose but also as poetry, what Gordon W. Couchman has called Miller’s â€Å"rare gift for the poetic in the colloquial† (206). Although Miller seems to work mostly in a form of colloquial prose, there are many moments in his plays when the dialogue clearly elevates to poetry. Miller often takes what appear to be the colloquialisms, clichà ©s, and idioms of the common man’s language and reveals them as poetic language, especially by shifting words from their denotative to connotative meanings. Moreover, he significantly employs the figurative devices of metaphor, symbol, and imagery to give poetic significance to prose dialect. In addition, in many texts Miller embeds series of metaphors–many are extended–that possess particular connotations within the societies of the individual plays. Most important, these figurative devices significantly support the tragic conflicts and social themes that are the focus of every Miller play. By deftly mixing these figurative devices of symbolism, imagery, and metaphor with colloquial prose dialogue, Miller combines prose and poetry to create a unique d ramatic idiom. Most critics, readers, and audiences seem to overlook this aspect of Miller’s work: the poetry is in the prose and the prose is in the poetry. Indeed, poetic elements pervade most of Miller’s plays. For example, in All My Sons, religious allusions, symbols, and images place the themes of sacrifice and redemption in a Christian context. In Death of a Salesman, the extended metaphors of sports and trees convey Willy Loman’s struggle to achieve the American Dream. In The Crucible, the poetic language illustrates the conflicts that polarize the Salem community as a series of opposing images–heat and cold, white and black, light and dark, soft and hard–signify the Salemites’ dualistic view of the world. In A View from the Bridge, metaphors of purity and innocence give mythic importance to Eddie Carbone’s sexual, psychological, and moral struggles. After the Fall uses extended metaphors of childhood and religion to support Quentin’s psychological quest for redemption. The Ride Down Mt. Morgan connects metaphors of transportation and travel to Lyman Felt’s literal and figurat ive fall, and Broken Glass uses images of mirrors and glass to relate  the world of the European Jew at the beginning of the Holocaust to Sylvia and Phillip Gellburg’s shattered sexual world. That most critics continue to fail to recognize Miller’s sophisticated use of poetic elements is striking, for it is this very facility for which many other playwrights are praised, and the history of drama is intimately intertwined with the history of poetry. For most of Western dramatic history, plays were written in verse: the ancient Greek playwrights of the fifth century b.c.e. composed their tragedies in a verse frequently accompanied by music; the rhyming couplets of the Everyman dramatist were the de rigueur medieval form; and English Renaissance plays were poetic masterpieces. Shakespeare’s supremacy as a dramatist lies in his adaptation of the early modern English language into a dramatic dialogue that combines prose and poetry. For example, Hamlet’s â€Å"quintessence of dust† speech is lyrical prose. In the twentieth century, critics praised the verse plays of T. S. Eliot, Maxwell Anderson, Christopher Isherwood, and W. H. Auden. Even more baffling about this critical neglect is that Miller readily acknowledged his attraction to poetry and dramatic verse. His views on language, particularly poetic language, are evident in the prodigious number of essays he produced throughout his career. Criticism has mostly ignored this large body of nonfiction writing in which Miller frequently expounds on the nature of language and dialogue, the tension between realistic prose and poetic language in twentieth-century drama, and the complex evolution of poetic language throughout his plays.3 For example, in his 1993 essay â€Å"About Theatre Language† he writes: It was inevitable that I had to confront the problem of dramatic language. . . .I gradually came to wonder if the essential pressure toward poetic dramatic language–if not of stylization itself–came from the inclusion of society as a major element in the play’s story or vision. Manifestly, prose realism was the language of the individual and private life, poetry the language of man in crowds, in society. Put another way, prose is the language of family relations; it is the inclusion of the larger world beyond that naturally opens a play to the poetic. . . . How to find a style that would at one and the same time deeply engage an American audience, which insisted on a recognizable reality of characters, locales, and themes, while opening the stage to considerations of public morality and the mythic social fates–in short, the invisible? (82) * * * Miller’s attraction to poetic dramatic dialogue can be traced back to his development as a playwright, particularly his time as a student at the University of Michigan in the mid-1930s and the early years of his great successes in the 1940s and 1950s, when his views on dramatic form, structure, aesthetics, and language were evolving. Miller knew little about the theater when he arrived in Ann Arbor from his home in Brooklyn, but during these formative college years, he became aware of German expressionism, and he read August Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen, whom he often acknowledged as major influences on him. Christopher Bigsby has pointed out that Miller always remembered the effect that reading Greek and Elizabethan playwrights at college had on him (Critical Study 419). However, Miller was markedly affected by the social-protest work of Clifford Odets. In his autobiography, Timebends (1987), Miller describes how Odets’s 1930s plays Waiting for Lefty (1935), Awake and S ing (1935), and Golden Boy (1937) had â€Å"sprung forth a new phenomenon, a leftist challenge to the system, the poet suddenly leaping onto the stage and disposing of middle-class gentility, screaming and yelling and cursing like somebody off the Manhattan streets† (229). Most important for Miller, Odets brought to American drama a concern for language: â€Å"For the very first time in America, language itself had marked a playwright as unique† (229). To Miller, Odets was â€Å"The only poet, I thought, not only in the social protest theater, but in all of New York† (212). After Miller won his first Avery Hopwood Award at Michigan, he was sent to Professor Kenneth Rowe, whose chief contribution to Miller’s development was cultivating his interest in the dynamics of play construction. Odets and Rowe clearly were considerably strong influences on Miller as he developed  his concern with language and his form broke out of what he termed the â€Å"dusty naturalistic habit † (Timebends 228) of Broadway, but other influences would also compel him to write dramatic verse. The work of Thornton Wilder, particularly Our Town (1938), spoke to him, and in Timebends Miller acknowledges that Our Town was the nearest of the 1930s plays in â€Å"reaching for lyricism† (229). Tennessee Williams is another playwright whom Miller frequently credited with influencing his art and the craft of his language. He credited the newness of The Glass Menagerie (1944) to the play’s â€Å"poetic lift† (Timebends 244) and was particularly struck b y A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), proclaiming that Williams had given him license to speak in dramatic language â€Å"at full throat† (Timebends 182). Moreover, Miller practiced what he had learned and espoused. In fact, he reported that when he was first beginning his career he was â€Å"up to [his] neck† in writing many of his full-length and radio plays in verse (â€Å"Interview† 98). When he graduated from Michigan and started his work with the Federal Theatre Project in 1938, he wrote The Golden Years, a verse play about Montezuma. In a letter to Professor Rowe, he reported that he found writing verse much easier than writing prose: â€Å"I made the discovery that in verse you are forced to be brief and to the point. Verse squeezes out fat and you’re left with the real meaning of the language† (Bigsby, Arthur Miller 155). Also, he explained that much of Death of a Salesman and all of The Crucible were originally written in verse; the one-act version of A View from the Bridge (1955) was written in an intriguing mixture of verse and prose, and Miller regretted his failure to do the same in The America n Clock (1980) (Bigsby, Critical Introduction 136). However, Miller found an American theater hostile to the poetic form. Miller himself pointed out that the United States had no tradition of dramatic verse (â€Å"Interview† 98) as compared to Europe. In the 1930s, Maxwell Anderson was one of the few American playwrights incorporating blank verse into his plays, and the English theater witnessed some interest in poetic drama in the 1940s and 1950s, most notably with Christopher Fry and T. S. Eliot. In reality, dramatic verse had been in sharp decline since the late nineteenth century, when the realistic prose dialogue used by Henrik Ibsen in Norway  was adopted by George Bernard Shaw in England and then later employed by Eugene O’Neill in the United States. Miller also judged that American actors had difficulty speaking the verse line (â€Å"Interview† 98). Further, Miller came of age at a time when American audiences were demanding realism, the musical comedy was gaining in dominance, and commercial Broadway pr oducers were disinterested in verse drama. Christopher Bigsby has pointed out that Miller was â€Å"in his own mind, an essentially poetic, deeply metaphoric writer who had found himself in a theater resistant to such, particularly on Broadway, which he continued to think of as his natural home, despite its many deficiencies† (Critical Study 358). Struggling with how to accept this reality, Miller accommodated his natural inclination to verse by developing a dramatic idiom that reconciled his poetic urge with the realism demanded by the aesthetics of the American stage. Thus he infused poetic language into his prose dialogue. * * * Let’s examine how some of these poetic devices–symbolism, imagery, and metaphor– operate in Miller’s masterpiece, Death of a Salesman. From the outset of the play, Miller makes trees and sports into metaphors signifying Willy Loman’s struggle to achieve the American Dream within the competitive American business world. Trees symbolize Willy’s dreams, sports the competition for economic success.4 Miller sustains these metaphors throughout the entire text with images of boxing, burning, wood, nature, and fighting to make them into crucial unifying structures. In addition, Miller’s predilection for juxtaposing the literal and figurative meanings of words is particularly evident in Salesman as the abstract concepts of competition and dreaming are vivified by concrete objects and actions such as boxing, fists, lumber, and ashes. Trees are an excellent illustration of how Miller uses literal and figurative meanings. Two references in act 1, scene 1, immediately establish their importance in the play. When Willy unexpectedly arrives home, he explains that he was unable to drive to Portland for his sales call because he kept  becoming absorbed in the countryside scenery, where â€Å"the trees are so thick, and the sun is warm† (14). Although these trees merely seem to distract Willy from driving, he also indicates their connection to dreaming. He tells Linda: â€Å"I absolutely forgot I was driving. If I’d’ve gone the other way over the white line I might’ve killed somebody. So I went on again–and five minutes later I’m dreamin’ again† (14). Willy’s inability to concentrate on driving indicates an emotional conflict larger than mere daydreaming. The play reveals how Willy often exists in dreams rather than reality–dreams of being well liked , of success for his son Biff, of his â€Å"imaginings.† All of these dreams intimately connect to Willy’s confrontation with his failure to achieve the tangible aspects of the American Dream. He is a traveling salesman, and his inability to drive symbolizes his inability to sell, which guarantees that he will fail in the competition to be a â€Å"hot-shot salesman.† The action of the play depicts the last day of Willy’s life and how Willy is increasingly escaping the reality of his failure in reveries of the past, to the point where he often cannot differentiate between reality and illusion. The repetition of the mention of trees in Willy’s second speech in scene 1 cements the importance of trees in the play as a metaphor for these dreams. He complains to Linda about the apartment houses surrounding the Loman home: â€Å"They should’ve had a law against apartment houses. Remember those two beautiful elm trees out there? When Biff and I hung the swing between them?† (17). However, these trees are not the trees of the real time of the play; rather, they exist in Willy’s past and, more important, in the â€Å"imaginings† of his mind, the place where the more important dramatic action of the play takes place. Miller’s working title for Death of a Salesman was â€Å"The Inside of His Head,† and certainly Willy’s longing for the trees of the past illustrates how dreaming works in his mind. Throughout the entire play, trees–and all the other images connected to them–are complicated symbols of an idyllic past for which Willy longs in his dreams, a world where Biff and Hap are young, where Willy can believe himself a hot-shot salesman, where Brooklyn seems an unspoiled wilderness. The irony is that, in reality, the past was not as idyllic as Willy recalls, and the play gradually unfolds the reality of  Willy’s failures. The metaphor of trees also supports Willy’s unresolved struggle with his son Biff. Willy’s memory of Biff and himself hanging a hammock between the elms is ironic as the two beautiful trees’ absence in the present symbolizes Willy’s failed dreams for Biff. Throughout the play, Miller significantly expands upon the figurative meaning of trees. For example, in act 1, scene 4, Willy responds to Hap’s claims that he will retire Willy for life by remarking: You’ll retire me for life on seventy goddam dollars a week? And your women and your car and your apartment, and you’ll retire me for life! Christ’s sake I couldn’t get past Yonkers today! Where are you guys, where are you? The woods are burning! I can’t drive a car! (41) Willy’s warning that â€Å"the woods are burning† extends the tree metaphor by introducing an important sense of destruction to the trees of Willy’s idyllic world of the past. Since the trees are so identified with Willy’s dreams, the image implies that his dreams are burning too–his dreams for himself as a successful salesman and his dreams for Biff and Hap. The images of burning and destruction are crucial in the play, especially when Linda reveals Willy’s suicide attempts–his own form of destruction, which he enacts at play’s end. We realize that since Willy is so associated with his dreams, he will die when they burn. In fact, Willy repeats this same exact line in act 2 when he arrives at Frank’s Chop House and announces his firing to Hap and Biff. He says: â€Å"I’m not interested in stories about the past or any crap of that kind because the woods are burning, boys, you understand? There’s a big blaze going on all around. I was fired today† (107). This line not only repeats Willy’s warning cry from act 1 but also foreshadows Biff’s climactic plea to Willy to â€Å"take that phony dream and burn it† (133). The burning metaphor–now ironic–also appears in Willy’s imagining in the Boston hotel room. As Willy continues to ignore Biff’s knock on the door, the woman says, â€Å"Maybe the hotel’s on fire.† Willy replies, â€Å"It’s a mistake, there’s no fire† (116). Of course, nothing is threatened by a literal fire–only by the figurative blaze inside Willy’s head. Once aware of how tree images operate in the play, a reader (or keen theatergoer) can note the cacophony of other references that sustain the metaphor in other scenes. For example, Willy wants Biff to help trim the tree branch that threatens to fall on the Loman house; Biff and Hap steal lumber; Willy plaintively remembers his father carving flutes; Willy tells Ben that Biff can â€Å"fell trees†; Willy mocks Biff for wanting to be a carpenter and similarly mocks Charley and his son Bernard because they â€Å"can’t hammer a nail†; Ben buys timberland in Alaska; Biff burns his sneakers in the furnace; Willy speculates about his need for a â€Å"little lumber† (72) to build a guest house for the boys when they get married; Willy is proud of weathering a twenty-five-year mortgage with â€Å"all the cement, the lumber† (74) he has put into the house; Willy explains to Ben that â€Å"I am building something with this firm,† something â€Å"you ca n’t feel . . . with your hand like timber† (86). Finally, there are â€Å"the leaves of day appearing over everything† in the graveyard in â€Å"Requiem† (136). Miller similarly uses boxing in literal and figurative ways throughout the play. In act 1, scene 2, Biff suggests to Hap that they buy a ranch to â€Å"use our muscles. Men built like we are should be working out in the open† (24). Hap responds to Biff with the first sports reference in the text: â€Å"That’s what I dream about, Biff. Sometimes I want to just rip my clothes off in the middle of the store and outbox that goddam merchandise manager. I mean I can outbox, outrun, and outlift anybody in that store† (24). As an athlete, Biff, it seems, should introduce the sports metaphor, but, ironically, the sport with which he is identified–football–is not used in any extensive metaphoric way in the play.5 Instead, boxing becomes the extended sports metaphor of the text, and it is not introduced by Biff but rather by Hap, who reinforces it throughout the play to show how Willy has prepared him and Biff only for physical competition, not business or eco nomic competition. Thus Hap expresses his frustration at being a second-rate worker by stressing his physical superiority over his managers. Unable to win in economic competition, he longs to beat his coworkers in a physical match, and it is this contrast between economic and physical competition that intensifies the dramatic interplay between the literal and the figurative language of the play. In fact, the very competitiveness of the American economic system in which Willy and Hap work, and that Biff hates, is consistently put on physical terms in the play. A failure in the competitive workplace, Hap uses the metaphor of physical competition–boxing man to man–yet the play details how Hap was considered less physically impressive than Biff when the two were boys. As an adult, Hap competes in the only physical competition he can win–sex. He even uses the imagery of rivalry when talking about his sexual conquests of the store managers’ girlfriends: â€Å"Maybe I just have an overdeveloped sense of competition or something† (25). Perhaps knowing that they cannot win, the Lomans resort to a significant amount of cheating in competition: Willy condones Biff’s theft of a football, Biff cheats on his exams, Hap takes bribes, and Willy cheats on Linda. All of this cheating signifies the Lomans’ moral failings as well. The boxing metaphor also illustrates the contrast between Biff and Hap. Boxing as a sports metaphor is quite different from the expected football metaphor: a boxer relies completely on personal physical strength while fighting a single opponent, whereas in football, a team sport, the players rely on group effort and group tactics. Thus the difference between Biff and Hap–Hap as evoker of the boxing metaphor and Biff as a player of a team sport–is emphasized throughout the text. Moreover, the action of the play relies on the clash of dreams between Biff and Willy. Biff is Willy’s favorite son, and Willy’s own dreams and disappointments are tied to him. Yet Hap, the second-rate son, the second-rate physical specimen, the second-rate worker, is the son who is most like Willy in profession, braggadocio, and sexual swagger. Ultimately, at the play’s end, in â€Å"Requiem,† the boxing metaphor ironically points out Hap’s significance as the actual competitor for Willy’s dream, for he decides to stay in the city because Willy â€Å"fought it out here and this is where I’m gonna win it for him† (139). Biff’s boxing contrasts sharply with Hap’s. For example, Biff ironically performs a literal boxing competition with Ben, which juxtaposes with the figurative competition of the play. The boxing reinforces the emphasis that  has been placed on Biff as the most physically prepared â€Å"specimen† of the boys. Yet Biff is defeated by Ben; in reality he is ill prepared to fight a boxing match because it is a man-to-man competition, unlike football, the team sport at which he excelled. He is especially ill prepared for Uncle Ben’s kind of boxing match because it is not a fair match conducted on a level playing field. As Ben says: â€Å"Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You’ll never get out of the jungle that way† (49). Thus the literal act of boxing possesses figurative significance. Willy has not conditioned Biff (or, by extension, Hap) for any fight–fair or unfair–in the larger figurative â€Å"jungle† of the play: th e workplace of the American economic system. Willy, too, uses a significant amount of boxing imagery, much of it quite violent. In the first imagining in act 1, Biff asks Willy about his recent sales trip, â€Å"Did you knock them dead, Pop?† and Willy responds, â€Å"Knocked ’em cold in Providence, slaughtered ’em in Boston† (33); when he relates to Linda how another salesman at F. H. Stewarts insulted him, Willy claims he â€Å"cracked him right across the face† (37), the same physical threat that he will later make against Charley in act 2 on the day of the Ebbets Field game. Willy wants to box Charley, challenging him, â€Å"Put up your hands. Goddam you, put up your hands† (68). Willy also says, â€Å"I’m gonna knock Howard for a loop† (74). Willy uses these violent physical terms against men he perceives as challengers and competitors. As with the tree metaphor, this one is sustained throughout the scenes with a plethora of boxing references: a punching bag is inscribed with Gene Tunney’s name; Hap challenges Bernard to box; Willy explains to Linda that the boys gathered in the cellar obey Biff because, â€Å"Well, that’s the training, the training†; Biff feebly attempts to box with Uncle Ben; Bernard remarks to Willy that Biff â€Å"never trained himself for anything† (92); Charley cheers on his son with a â€Å"Knock ’em dead, Bernard† (95) as Bernard leaves to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court; Willy, expressing to Bernard his frustration that Biff has done nothing with his life, says, â€Å"Why did he lay down?† (93). This last boxing reference, associated with taking a dive, is a remarkably imagistic way of describing how Biff initially cut down his life out of spite after discovering Willy’s infidelity. * * * Miller also uses images, symbols, and metaphors as central or unifying devices by employing repetition and recurrence–one of the central tenets of so-called cluster criticism, which was pioneered in the 1930s and 1940s.6 In short, cluster criticism argues that the deliberate repetition of words, images, symbols, and metaphors contributes to the unity of the work just as significantly as do plot, character, and theme. These clusters of words can operate both literally and figuratively in a text–as I. A. Richards notes in The Philosophy of Rhetoric–and, therefore, contribute significantly to the overall aesthetic and thematic impact. For example, in Arthur Miller, Dramatist, Edward Murray traces word repetition in The Crucible, examining how Miller, â€Å"in a very subtle manner, uses key words to knit together the texture of action and theme.† He notes, for example, the recurrent use of the word â€Å"soft† in the text (64). My own previous work on T he Crucible has examined how the tenfold repetition of the word â€Å"weight† supports one of the play’s crucial themes: how an individual’s struggle for truth often conflicts with society. Let’s examine an intriguing example of word repetition from Death of a Salesman.7 The words â€Å"paint† and â€Å"painting† appear five significant times in the play. The first is a literal use: at the end of act 1, Willy tells Biff during their argument, â€Å"If you get tired of hanging around tomorrow, paint the ceiling I put up in the living room† (45). This line echoes Willy’s previous mockery of Charley for not knowing how to put up a ceiling: â€Å"A man who can’t handle tools is not a man† (30). In both instances, Willy is asserting his superiority on the basis of his physical prowess, a point that is consistently emphasized in the play. The second time â€Å"paint† appears is in act 2, when Biff and Hap abandon Willy in Frank’s Chop House to leave with Letta and Miss Forsythe. Hap says to Letta: â€Å"No, that’s not my father. He’s just a guy. Come on, we’ll catch Biff, and honey we’re going to paint this town!† (91). Of course in this  line Miller uses the clichà © â€Å"Paint the town red† for its well-known meaning of having a wild night of partying and dissolution–although it is notable that Miller uses a truncated form of the phrase. Nevertheless, here the clichà © takes on new significance in the context of the play. Willy defines masculinity by painting a ceiling, but Hap defines it by painting the town with sexual debauchery and revelry, lording his physical superiority and his sexual conquests over other men. The third, fourth, and fifth repetitions occur in act 2 during the imagining in the hotel room when Biff discovers Willy with the woman. When the woman comes out of the bathroom, Willy says: â€Å"Ah–you better go back to your room. They must be finished painting by now. They’re painting her room so I let her take a shower here† (119). When she leaves, Willy attempts to convince Biff that â€Å"she lives down the hall–they’re painting. You don’t imagine–† (120). Here, painting is simultaneously literal and metaphorical because of its previous usage in the play–but with a high degree of irony. Willy’s feeble explanation that Miss Francis’s room is literally being painted is a cover-up for the reality that Willy himself has painted the town in Boston. Biff discovers that Willy’s manhood is defined by sexual infidelity–ultimately defining him as a â€Å"phony little fake.† * * * Another relatively unexplored aspect of Miller’s language is the names of his characters. Miller chooses his characters’ names for their metaphorical associations in most of his dramatic canon. Justin Kaplan and Anne Bernays’s 1997 text The Language of Names revived some interest in this technique, which is known as literary onomastics and is considered a somewhat minor part of contemporary literary criticism. Kaplan and Bernays examine the connotative value of names that function in texts as â€Å"symbolic, metaphoric, or allegorical discourse† (175). Although some scholars have discussed the use of this technique in individual Miller plays, most readers familiar with the body of Miller’s work notice how consistently he chooses the names of his characters to create symbols, irony, and points of contrast. For example, readers and critics who are familiar only with Death of a Salesman among Miller’s works have long noted that Willy’s last name literally marks him as a â€Å"low man,† although Miller himself chuckled at the overemphasis placed on this pun. He actually derived the name from a movie he had seen, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, in which a completely mad character at the end of the film screams, â€Å"Lohman, Lohman, get me Lohman† (Timebends 177-79). To Miller, the man’s cry signified the hysteria he wanted to create in his salesman, Willy Loman. Many critics also have noted the significance of the name of Dave â€Å"Singleman,† the eighty-year-old salesman who stands alone as Willy’s ideal. Despite Miller’s consistent downplaying in interviews of the significance of his characters’ names, an examination of his technique reveals how extensively he connects his characters’ names to the larger social issues at the core of every play. For example, the last name of All My Sons’ Joe Keller, who manufactures faulty airplane parts and is indirectly responsible for the deaths of twenty-one pilots, resembles â€Å"killer.† In previous work on the play, I have noted the comparison of the Kellers to the Holy Family, and how, therefore, the names of Joe and his son, Chris, take on religious significance. Susan C. W. Abbotson has noted how the first name of The Ride Down Mt. Morgan’s Lyman Felt suggests the lying he has lived out. She also has analyzed the similarities between Loman and Lyman, and has argued that Lyman is a kind of alter ego to Willy some forty years later. Frank Ardolino has also examined how Miller employs Egyptian mytholog y in naming and depicting Hap (â€Å"Mythological†). An intriguing feature of Miller’s use of names is his repetition of the same name, or form of the same name, in his plays. It is striking how in Salesman Miller uses the name â€Å"Frank,† or variations of it, five times for five different characters, a highly unusual occurrence.8 In act 1, during Willy’s first imagining, when Linda complains to Biff that there is a cellar full of boys in the Loman house who do not know what to do with themselves, Frank is one of the boys whom Biff gets to clean up the furnace room. Not long after, at the end of the imagining, Frank is the name of the mechanic who fixes the carburetor of Willy’s Chevrolet. In act 2, in the moving scene in which  Howard effectively fires Willy and Willy is left alone in the office, Willy cries out three times for â€Å"Frank,† apparently Howard’s father and the original owner of the company, who, Willy claims, asked Willy to â€Å"name† Howard. Willy also meets the bo ys in Frank’s Chop House and, in the crucial discovery scene in the Boston hotel room, Willy introduces the woman to Biff as Miss Francis, â€Å"Frank† often being a nickname for Francis. There are significant figurative uses of â€Å"Frank† too, for, although the word means â€Å"honest† or â€Å"candid,† all of the Franks in Salesman are clearly associated with work that is not completely honest. Biff uses the boy Frank and his companions to clean the furnace room and hang up the wash–chores that he should be doing himself. Willy somewhat questions the repair job that the mechanic Frank does on â€Å"that goddam Chevrolet.† Despite Willy’s idolizing of his boss, Frank Wagner, Linda indicates that Frank, perhaps, promised Willy a partnership as a member of the firm, a promise that kept Willy from joining Ben in Alaska and that was never made good on by either Frank or his son, Howard. Miss Francis promises to put Willy through to the buyers in exchange for stockings and her sexual favors, but it is uncertain whether she holds up her end of the deal, since Willy certainly has never been a â€Å"hot-shot† salesman. And, of course, Frank’s Chop House is the place where Stanley tells Hap that the boss, presumably Frank, is going crazy over the â€Å"leak in the cash register.† Thus Miller clearly uses the name Frank with a high degree of irony, an important aspect of his use of figurative language in his canon. Of course, all this business dishonesty emphasizes how Salesman challenges the integrity of the American work ethic. Miller’s careful selection of names shows that he perhaps considered the names of his characters as part of each play’s network of figurative language. As Kaplan and Bernays note, â€Å"Names of characters . . . convey what their creators may already know and feel about them and how they want their readers to respond† (174). Thus, in his choice of names, Arthur Miller may very well be manipulating his audience before the curtain rises, as they sit and read the cast of characters in their playbills. Finally, being aware of Miller’s use of poetic language is crucial for  however we encounter his plays–as readers who analyze drama as text or as audience members in tune with the sound of the dialogue. It is, indeed, â€Å"all about the language†Ã¢â‚¬â€œthe language we read in the text and the language we hear on the stage. Notes 1. Although some critics have examined Miller’s colloquial prose, only a few have conducted studies of how poetic devices work in his dialogue. Leonard Moss, in his book-length study Arthur Miller, analyzes Miller’s language in a chapter on Death of a Salesman, a section of which is titled â€Å"Verbal and Symbolic Technique.† In an article titled â€Å"Death of a Salesman and Arthur Miller’s Search for Style,† Arthur K. Oberg considers Miller’s struggle with establishing a dramatic idiom. Oberg judges that Miller ultimately â€Å"arrives at something that approaches an American idiom to the extent that it exposes a colloquialism characterized by unusual image, spurious lyricism, and close-ended clichà ©Ã¢â‚¬  (305). He concludes that â€Å"the play’s text, although far from `bad poetry,’ tellingly moves toward the status of poetry without ever getting there† (310-11). My 2002 work A Language Study of Arthur Millerâ₠¬â„¢s Plays: The Poetic in the Colloquial traces Miller’s consistent use of figurative language from All My Sons to Broken Glass. In other studies discussing individual plays, some critics have noted poetic nuances in Miller’s language. In â€Å"Setting, Language, and the Force of Evil in The Crucible,† Penelope Curtis maintains that the language of the play is marked by what she calls â€Å"half-metaphor† (69), which Miller employs to suggest the play’s themes. In an article published in Notes on Contemporary Literature, John D. Engle explains the metaphor of law used by the lawyer Quentin in After the Fall. Lawrence Rosinger, in a brief Explicator article, traces the metaphors of royalty that appear in Death of a Salesman. 2. Thomas M. Tammaro also points out that the diminished prestige of language studies since the height of New Criticism may account for the lack of a sustained examination of imagery and symbolism in Miller’s work. Moreover, Tammaro notes that Miller’s plays were not subjected to New Critical theory  even when language studies were prominent (10). In his new authorized biography Arthur Miller: 1915-1962, Christopher Bigsby clearly recognizes Miller’s attempts to write verse drama, but this work is largely a critical biography and cultural study, not a close textual analysis. 3. Most notable among these works are the following: â€Å"The Family in Modern Drama,† which first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in 1956; â€Å"On Social Plays,† which appeared as the original introduction to the one-act edition of A View from the Bridge and A Memory of Two Mondays; the introduction to his 1957 Collected Plays; â€Å"The American Writer: The American Theater,† first published in the Michigan Quarterly Review in 1982; â€Å"On Screenwriting and Language: Introduction to Everybody Wins,† first published in 1990; his 1993 essay â€Å"About Theatre Language,† which first appeared as an afterword to the published edition of The Last Yankee; and his March 1999 Harper’s article â€Å"On Broadway: Notes on the Past and Future of American Theater.† 4. For a more detailed discussion of these metaphors, see â€Å"Death of a Salesman: Unlocking the Rhetoric of Poetic Power† in my 2002 volume A Language Study of Arthur Miller’s Plays. Also, in â€Å"Figuring Our Past and Present in Wood: Wood Imagery in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and The Crucible,† Will Smith traces what he describes as a â€Å"wood trope† in the plays. 5. When Biff discovers Willy with the woman in the hotel room in act 2, she refers to herself as a football (119-20) to indicate her humiliating treatment by Willy and, perhaps, all men. 6. Frederick Charles Kolbe, Caroline F. E. Spurgeon, and Kenneth Burke pioneered much of this criticism. For example, Spurgeon did groundbreaking work in discovering the clothes imagery and the image of the babe in Macbeth. Kenneth Burke, in The Philosophy of Literary Form, examines Clifford Odets’s Golden Boy as a play that uses language clusters, particularly the images of the â€Å"prizefight† and the â€Å"violin,† that operate both literally and symbolically in the text (33-35). 7. In his work Arthur Miller, Leonard Moss details the frequent repetitions of words in the text, such as â€Å"man,† â€Å"boy,† and â€Å"kid.† He notes that forms of the verb â€Å"make† occur forty-five times in thirty-three different usages, ranging from Standard English to slang expressions, among them â€Å"make mountains out of molehills,† â€Å"makin a hit,† â€Å"makin my future,† â€Å"make me laugh,† and â€Å"make a train.† He also notes the nine-time repetition of â€Å"make money† (48). Moss connects these expressions to Miller’s thematic intention: illustrating how the American work ethic dominates Willy’s life. 8. In â€Å"`I’m Not a Dime a Dozen! I Am Willy Loman!’: The Significance of Names and Numbers in Death of a Salesman,† Frank Ardolino takes a mainly psychological approach to the language of the play. He maintains that â€Å"Miller’s system of onomastic and numerical images and echoes forms a complex network which delineates Willy’s insanity and its effects on his family and job† (174). Ardolino explains that the name imagery reveals Biff’s and Willy’s failures. He sees the repetition of â€Å"Frank† as part of Miller’s use of geographical, personal, and business names that often begin with B, F, P, or S. Thus the names beginning with F â€Å"convey a conflict between benevolence and protection on the one hand and dismissal and degradation on the other† (177). Benevolent Franks are Willy’s boss, the boy Frank who cleans up, and the repairman Frank. Degrading Franks are Miss Francis and Frank’s Chop House, which contains the literal and psychological toilet where Willy has his climactic imagining of the hotel room in Boston. Works Cited Abbotson, Susan C. W. â€Å"From Loman to Lyman: The Salesman Forty Years On.† â€Å"The Salesman Has a Birthday†: Essays Celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of Arthur Miller’s â€Å"Death of a Salesman.† Ed. Stephen A. Marino. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2000. Ardolino, Frank. â€Å"`I’m Not a Dime a Dozen! I Am Willy Loman!’: The Significance of Names and Numbers in Death of a Salesman.† Journal of Evolutionary Psychology (August 2002): 174-84. ____________. â€Å"The Mythological Significance of Happy in Death of a Salesman.† The Arthur Miller Journal 4.1 (Spring 2009): 29-33. Bigsby, Christopher. Arthur Miller: A Critical Study. New York: Cambridge UP, 2005. ____________. Arthur Miller: 1915-1962. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008. ____________. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Drama, Volume Two: Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee. New York: Cambridge UP, 1984. ____________. â€Å"Miller and Middle America.† Keynote address, Eighth International Arthur Miller Society Conference, Nicolet College, Rhinelander, WI, 3 Oct. 2003. Brantley, Ben. â€Å"A Dark New Production Illuminates Salesman.† New York Times 3 Nov. 1998: E1. Burke, Kenneth. The Philosophy of Literary Form. 2d ed. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1967. Couchman, Gordon W. â€Å"Arthur Miller’s Tragedy of Babbit.† Educational Theatre Journal 7 (1955): 206-11. Curtis, Penelope. â€Å"Setting, Language, and the Force of Evil in The Crucible.† Twentieth Century Interpretations of â€Å"The Crucible.† Ed. John H. Ferres. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972. Engle, John D. â€Å"The Metaphor of Law in After the Fall.† Notes on Contemporary Literature 9 (1979): 11-12. Gilman, Richard. â€Å"Getting It Off His Chest, But Is It Art?† Chicago Sun Book Week 8 Mar. 1964: 6, 13. Kaplan, Justin, and Anne Bernays. The Language of Names. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. Krutch, Joseph Wood. â€Å"Drama.† Nation 163 (1949): 283-84. Marino, Stephen. â€Å"Arthur Miller’s `Weight of Truth’ in The Crucible.† Modern Drama 38 (1995): 488-95. ____________. A Language Study of Arthur Miller’s Plays: The Poetic in the Colloquial. New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002. ____________. â€Å"Religious Language in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons.† Journal of Imagism 3 (1998): 9-28. Miller, Arthur. â€Å"About Theatre Language.† The Last Yankee. New York: Penguin, 1993. ____________. â€Å"The American Writer: The American Theater.† The Theatre Essays of Arthur Miller. Ed. Robert A. Martin and Steven R. Centola. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996. ____________. â€Å"Arthur Miller: An Interview.† Interview with Olga Carlisle and Rose Styron. 1966. Conversations with Arthur Miller. Ed. Matthew C. Roudanà ©. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1987. 85-111. ____________. â€Å"Death of a Salesman†: Text and Criticism. Ed. Gerald Weales. New York: Penguin Books, 1967. ____________. â€Å"The Family in Modern Drama.† The Theatre Essays of Arthur Miller. Ed. Robert A. Martin. New York: Viking Press, 1978. ____________. â€Å"Introduction to the Collected Plays.† The Theatre Essays of Arthur Miller. Ed. Robert A. Martin. New York: Viking Press, 1978. ____________. â€Å"On Broadway: Notes on the Past and Future of American Theater.† Harper’s Mar. 1999: 37-47. ____________. â€Å"On Screenwriting and Language: Introduction to Everybody Wins.† The Theatre Essays of Arthur Miller. Ed. Robert A. Martin and Steven R. Centola. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996. ____________. â€Å"On Social Plays.† The Theatre Essays of Arthur Miller. Ed. Robert A. Martin. New York: Viking Press, 1978. ____________. Timebends: A Life. New York: Grove Press, 1987. Moss, Leonard. Arthur Miller. New Haven, CT: College and University Press, 1967. ____________. â€Å"Arthur Miller and the Common Man’s Language.† Modern Drama 7 (1964): 52-59. Murray, Edward. Arthur Miller, Dramatist. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1967. Oberg, Arthur K. â€Å"Death of a Salesman and Arthur Miller’s Search for Style.† Criticism 9 (1967): 303-11. Otten, Terry. The Temptation of Innocence in the Dramas of Arthur Miller. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 2002. Richards, I. A. Richards on Rhetoric: I. A. Richards–Selected Essays, 1929-1974. Ed. Ann E. Berthoff. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. Rosinger, Lawrence. â€Å"Miller’s Death of a Salesman.† Explicator 45.2 (Winter 1987): 55-56. Simon, John. â€Å"Whose Paralysis Is It, Anyway?† New York 9 May 1994. Smith, Will. â€Å"Figuring Our Past and Present in Wood: Wood Imagery in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and The Crucible.† Miller and Middle America: Essays on Arthur Miller and the American Experience. Ed. Paula T. Langteau. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2007. Spurgeon, Caroline F. E. Leading Motives in the Imagery of Shakespeare’s Tragedies. 1930. New York: Haskell House, 1970. Tammaro, Thomas M. â€Å"Introduction.† Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams: Research Opportunities and Dissertation Abstracts. Ed. Tetsumaro Hayashi. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1983. Teachout, Terry. â€Å"Concurring with Arthur Miller.† Commentary 127.6 (June 2009): 71-73.

Consequences of war driving and insecure home networks Essay Example

Consequences of war driving and insecure home networks Essay Example Consequences of war driving and insecure home networks Paper Consequences of war driving and insecure home networks Paper War driving compromises wi-fi networks by allowing hackers to disrupt the operations of wi-fi networks as well as free access to sensitive, private data from legitimate wi-fi network users. Al Potter (manager, ICSA Network Security Lab manager) demonstrated how war drivers can relatively tap into private wi-fi networks. Tests done by Potter and his group revealed that they detected a significant number of unsecured LANs while driving at a constant speed of 65 mph going between Leesburg, Va. , and Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C. Potter was bewildered by the findings of their tests concluding that most individuals and companies are not even aware that their wi-fi servers are under constant threat from hackers that do war driving. Potter’s findings also coincide with Wysopal’s statements that war driving can be easily done, and it is believed that hackers now have a sort of compilation or â€Å"phone book† of some sort which lists unsecured and secured wireless networks that they can tap into using their GPS systems and wireless NIC’s (Miller, 2001). Insecure home networks A home network pertains to a small computer network (wi-fi systems included) limited within a private residence. Home networks are commonly established to facilitate digital domestic applications like home internet access, cable television and other functions. Home wi-fi networks are now very popular due to their advantages (such as faster internet connection) and are fairly cheap and easy to install due to widely available consumer technologies such as 802.11, Bluetooth and HomeRF. A larger home network is relatively feasible now using Wide Area Network technologies, which consequently calls for standardization of middleware/common technologies such as UPnP, HAVi, Jini and OSGi. As implied earlier, home networks are prone to unauthorized access and hacking and most home consumers are unaware that most of their private data can be stolen or be tampered with if they are not careful of if they do not erect the necessary security features. If home user continues to disregard their digital security, then hackers will have a good time tampering and hacking their precious data to their liking (Sengodan et al, n. d. ). Home networks are definitely easier for hackers and other cyber criminals to tamper with. Hackers can then freely do as they please to an unprotected home network, resulting to cyber-theft (of data, money and other valuables), breach of user privacy, damage to hardware and other such consequences. Apprehension and persecution of cyber criminals are rare because crimes like these are fairly new and there are only a few laws in existence that pertain to cyber crimes and because of these reasons most cyber criminals run free and remain relatively anonymous. In order to prevent cyber crimes, new laws and acts must be made in order to counter the activities of cyber criminals. If not, hackers and cyber-criminals will continue to run rampant to do as they please. The use of computer and other similar devices have been so much integrated in everyday modern life that probably each home and corporation has their own network of units. Common users may not consider their data as highly classified as with corporate files but the very idea of privacy certainly implies that the common user is also concerned about security. Hackers on the other hand do not generally care about the identity of their victims as all they want is control and access f their desired system or network. The damage that they can do to corporate networks can also be applied to home systems, so private users should still be aware of the importance of a security system for their computer systems (â€Å"Home Network Security†, 2001). Information security is divided into three areas: first is confidentiality, which only properly means that the owner of the data should only be the sole person that has access to it. The second is integrity, which reserves the right of the owner to modify the data whenever he or she wills it. The third is availability or the accessibility of the data when and where the owner wills it. These three concepts are very much applicable to home and corporate users alike. Security risks that are derived from these three concepts may occur when the user is online (hacking via the internet) or offline thru theft and other unscrupulous deeds (â€Å"Home Network Security†, 2001). Therefore, the need for an efficient and effective security system applies to all types of users and must include common security methods such as authentication, confidentiality, integrity, access control and non-repudiation (Sengodan et al, n. d. ).

How to Take Good News Interview Notes

How to Take Good News Interview Notes Even in an age of digital voice recorders, a reporter’s notebook and pen are still necessary tools for print and online journalists. Voice recorders are great for capturing every quote accurately, but transcribing interviews from them can often take too long, especially when you’re on a tight deadline. (Read more about voice recorders vs. notebooks here.) Still, many beginning reporters complain that with a notepad and pen they can never take down everything a source says in an interview, and they worry about writing fast enough in order to get quotes exactly right. So here are five tips for taking good notes. 1. Be Thorough – But Not Stenographic You always want to take the most thorough notes possible. But remember, you’re not a stenographer. You don’t have to take down absolutely everything a source says. Keep in mind that you’re probably not going to use everything they say in your story. So don’t worry if you miss a few things here and there. 2. Jot Down the ‘Good’ Quotes Watch an experienced reporter doing an interview, and you’ll probably notice that she isn’t constantly scribbling notes. That’s because seasoned reporters learn to listen for the â€Å"good quotes† – the ones they’re likely to use - and not worry about the rest. The more interviews you do, the better you’ll get at writing down the best quotes, and at filtering out the rest. 3. Be Accurate - But Don’t Sweat Every Word You always want to be as accurate as possible when taking notes. But don’t worry if you miss a â€Å"the,† â€Å"and,† â€Å"but† or â€Å"also† here and there. No one expects you to get every quote exactly right, word-for-word, especially when you’re on a tight deadline, doing interviews at the scene of a breaking news event. It IS important to be accurate get the meaning of what someone says. So if they say, â€Å"I hate the new law,† you certainly don’t want to quote them as saying they love it. Also, when writing your story, don’t be afraid to paraphrase (put in your own words) something a source says if you’re not sure you got the quote exactly right. 4. Repeat That, Please If an interview subject talks fast or if you think you misheard something they said, don’t be afraid to ask them to repeat it. This can also be a good rule of thumb if a source says something especially provocative or controversial. â€Å"Let me get this straight – are you saying that†¦Ã¢â‚¬  is something reporters are often heard to say during interviews. Asking a source to repeat something is also a good idea if youre not sure you understand what theyve said, or if theyve said something in a really jargony, overly complicated way. For instance, if a police officer tells you a suspect made egress from the domicile and was apprehended following a foot chase, ask him to put that into plain English, which will probably be something to the effect of, the suspect ran out of the house. We ran after him and caught him. Thats a better quote for your story and one thats easier to take down in your notes. 5. Highlight the Good Stuff Once the interview is done, go back over your notes and use a checkmark to highlight the main points and quotes that you’re most likely to use. Do this right after the interview when your notes are still fresh.

Main Information on Students Leisure Time

Main Information on Students Leisure Time Main Information on Student’s Leisure Time When it comes to hiring a writing company, most of the students (who don’t use professional writing services) think that only a lazy or a stupid scholar can pay for an assignment. However, our clients just don’t have time and we can prove it by multiple researches, conducted across the country! Free time It is difficult to believe that students spend all their time at the library or sitting with books in their hands instead of partying. So how many students lack free time? According to statistics, the numbers are as follows: 30% of students of the first year have no free time; 45% of second year students also don’t have leisure because of studying; Almost 40% of third year students can’t spend their free time the way they want, because they combine studies with work and chores. 20% of all the respondents claimed that they don’t have free time because they sleep more than eight hours a day. The way students spend their leisure First year students: 20% partying with friends or entertaining; 60% at home; 20% other. Second year: 15% visiting various places; 39% spending time with friends; 40% at home. Third year: 52% hanging out with friends and entertaining; 48% spending at home. Gender peculiarities While 42% of girls like spending time with their friends and family, 24% watch TV and 3% do sports. When it comes to boys, 18% spend time in a company and 18% watch TV, while 30% do sports. Combining work with studies Usually students work 30 hours per week, while studying. Moreover, 70% of all the students have worked during their high school years. Â  25% of working students have a full-time employment.

Marketing - Public Relationship Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Marketing - Public Relationship - Assignment Example There are just too many and varied implications which need to be taken care of, and which shall be solved in an amicable way if proper addressing of the needs and requirements are ascertained. The times have changed and so have the values which have engulfed the global consumers as these retailers have ruled the roost for way too long now. Now is the time to make a difference – as this change will eventually bring in the much-needed sanity that has been missing in action for a long time. This paper discusses the basis of public relationships that have come up with the passage of time and how these have played their due roles in aligning responsibilities and debates of ethical marketing, and so on. One must understand that the world of today has not been based on a fair trade principle. Even though there is a good amount of talk on this subject, the fact of the matter is that there still are many shortcomings that one can witness within the related ranks. In essence, promulgation of the ethical debate has been marred by profits which are being usurped by the investors, agents of global capitalism regimes, stakeholders and top management concerns of these organizations. In order to produce goods, the role of labour is indeed very essential (Peterson 2007). This is because the labours have a definitive role to play within the work manifestations, no matter which avenue of the trade they are involved within. This has called for a better understanding of the subject of public relations when one discusses the tangent of growth and development within the business of global retailing, which has been widespread for all the right reasons. Much emphasis has been placed on the fact that t hings should be done the right way because employing slave labour does not do justice with the global retailers and their mage is also affected in a very negative way.  Ã‚  

Abraham Lincoln View of slavery Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Abraham Lincoln View of slavery - Essay Example Lincoln in his speech in Illinois termed slavery as unjust and morally wrong. He confessed both privately and in public that he hated slavery, even though he was quiet about it for a long time. Lincoln also believed that all people were against slavery, insisted and maintained a view against it. Besides, he never regretted his words either did he take them back because slavery was not right. He also came out clear giving his view that he was not an abolitionist. His problem was the current constitution that never factored in the term slavery all the clauses that gave protection to the institution. He alluded that there was a need to abolish slavery and consider slaves as equal members of the United States. Abraham argued that both the black and white were equal. Therefore, they were entitled to equal opportunities and benefit to improve their lives making slavery was unfair.Therefore, the debate on the issue of slavery was among one of the questions that triggered the civil war both in the Western and Northern states as they fought to protect the union. However, at the same time the South states struggled to gain its independence under its constitution. Conversely, the South agrarian protected their slaves to take care of their large plantations and help in other tasks that they required. During the civil war, more Africans worked in the south offering labor. They contributed significantly to the South economy because they worked and at the same time, they were sold to pay debts.

Belbin's Team Roles Inventory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Belbin's Team Roles Inventory - Essay Example The deliberate combination ensures smooth running of affairs with little hiccups on the way. Ostensibly, this is to enhance efficiency coupled with specialization and division of labor. According to Belbin’s definition of what a team is (1993), he gave an insightful opinion about what a team is in this sense; he said that a team is not just a collection of individuals that are given specific job titles in an organization. Instead, he defined it as a deliberate conglomeration of persons who best understand one another in the sense that they work in tandem in areas they are best proficient in with the sole aim of achieving a specific objective. With regard to these, a team is fragmented into simpler units of individuals who are charged with different responsibilities and all these coalesce at a point to further a single interest. In his journal ‘understanding groups at work’, Alcorn (1989) stressed the need of applying the Belbin model in work place. He argues that in putting it in practice, the management of an organization is able to come to terms with its employees strengths and weaknesses and use these in strengthening the performance of the organization by utilizing the strengths of the persons and ignoring their weaknesses. I.e. duties will be assigned to the most appropriate person who will execute them skillfully and with little efforts. Application of this model is also aimed at not bringing confusion and multiple assignment of duties to the employees as these may result into absconding of duties. The information accrued from the Belbin’s model can be extensively used in a work place to help undertake to some duties that are equally helpful. It helps identify and nurture a highly skilled and work-oriented persons to keep in the work place, it enhances a sense of belonging and an attitude of can do to the employees in the work place. Not enough, Belbin’s model also inculcate high-level trust and understanding that brings about coherency in the work place besides instituting a productive and efficient working relationship. Lastly, it can also help in recruitment of employees such that only the best are engaged (Hayes, 1997). In relation to the fact that in an organization group work is necessary, the groups are composed of the different people who work hand in hand to achieve a specified objective. All the members of the group are assigned specific duties that they can best perform in and these are called team roles, Benders and Hootegem (2000) defines team roles as the tendency to demonstrate and manifest proper conduct that are ethical and rational to fellow team members in pursuit of the certain benchmarks in the organization. It also warns that the aim of teamwork is not to gauge personality but to establish the correct behavior that can be tolerant others in a work place. Though the number of team roles might be different from one organization to the next, Belnin in his perception proposed the e xistence of nine different team roles. Of all the team roles, each had a peculiar role to play given on grounds that it is his/her best performing area. This is according to the evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses- the strengths prevail upon weaknesses. The nine team roles advanced by Belbin Belbin advanced nine possible team roles that are necessary in teamwork, these roles are all-important and are peculiar, and each seems to be the driving force of the other. All are

Analyze the BP Oil Spell Case Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Analyze the BP Oil Spell Case - Essay Example Transparency From a transparency point of view, the response of BP was insufficient because it did not accord the relevant authorities, the information that would help them counter the problem effectively. The slow nature of the BP Company, in giving response to the spill indicated inadequacies in transparency, which was among the causes that made the spill continue for three months, without being effectively addressed. According to CEG, the BP Company hindered the response offered to the oil spin, which was likely to affect the management of further oil spills (1). According to the CEG, the response to the spill was affected by the restrictions imposed on media access to the site, the delay of the disclosure of information from the company – regarding dispersants, and the overall lack of cooperation by the company and the government agencies responsible (1). Further, the BP Company and respective government agencies were very slow in releasing information to the public, regar ding the extent of damage caused, the effects of the spill and the level of transparency offered in the case, by the parties responsible. Lack of transparencies was evident from the reports offered by the BP Company and the company, regarding the volumes spilled on a daily basis. The company and the government reported that the spill was releasing 1,000 barrels a day, but the reports were discredited later after it was estimated by a specialist agency, that the spill was releasing between 11,000 and 25,000 barrels each day (CEG 1). Lack of transparencies was evident from BP’s delays, in providing high-definition video footage, which would facilitate computer analysis. BP wrote, on the 21st of May 2010, most likely after realizing that its lack of transparency was affecting the deployment of corrective measures to address the oil spill. In the account, the company noted that it would offer transparency and openness about the disaster, and its cooperation with organizations to respond to the oil spill. Rationality From a rationality perspective, the BP oil spill exposed a lack of disaster mitigation preparedness and carelessness on the part of the BP Company and the agencies that were supposed to respond to the issue. These agencies include the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and the DHS (Department of Homeland Security). The oil spill exposed the careless of the company because – knowing well, the impacts of leaving the spill open – they left it open, for more than three months. From a rational point of view, it is clear that BP, as well as the government, did not engage the resources they required to mitigate the spill, in the short time they could (Walsh 1). Among the reasons cited as causes for the explosion, include that the BP Company had failed to administer effective risk management, including that they did not inspect the facility, prior to the time of the explosion. Therefore, the nature and the extent of the disaster display ed the company’s ineffective risk mitigation and non-preparedness to address disasters (Walsh 1). Avoiding Extremes From a point of view of avoiding extremes, the BP oil spill was evidently a demonstration of disregard for the extreme effects of disaster. This is evident from the fact that, after the explosion of April 20th the company and

Ideology of Advertising Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Ideology of Advertising - Essay Example We live in the age of conspicuous consumption. We are proud of having an opportunity to buy more and more goods and products. We do not realize why do we really need all this stuff, but we DO realize that we really want it! A greedy worm lives inside of our minds and hearts and it eats out our moral principles, while filling the gaps in our minds and hearts with the ideas of greediness. It is better to talk about these related phenomena, i.e. advertising and ideology and explain the way they are related and what this relation means to us. Ideals in Ads "Advertising, as the mouthpiece for capitalism, presents values and assumptions that color consumers" perceptions of reality (Cunnigham 2003, p. 229). It is true, as we have already mentioned, because the pace of our world's development determines the principles of our performance in the real world though we look at reality through a prism of artificially created world of ads. Cunnigham (2003) develops the following argument: "Advertisers’ common defense – if you don’t like the advertising, don’t watch it or don’t buy the products it promotes. But do we have a choice?" We can talk about a specific nature of advertising ideology. Very often not the interests of an individual, which lead to positive results, are taken into account, but a promotion of bad habits is usually adopted by the audience after consuming ads. The advertisement on TV promotes the images of slim women. Vice versa, ads promoting tobacco and alcohol are focused on the audience, which can easily consume these harmful goods. If we talk about ideology of advertising, we should pay attention to the very notion of the concept 'ideology'. This word is derived from the world 'ideal'. Still, this ideal is created by advertising campaigns of different companies. It is evident that attractive butts, appealing eyes, tempting lips and rosy cheeks with high cheekbones are ideal in the modern context for women. They want men to want them†¦ This happened in a different way many years ago. We can see that the modern society is changing and the ideals it promotes are changing too. Unfortunate ly, every individual can hardly differentiate his idealistic allusions from hard realities of the factual world. There is no fire without smoke. Therefore, women appeal for clinical surgery, they are easily driven into temptation while having a strong desire to be slimmer and become anorectic women. The global limits of the world are spreading by means of products, goods and services. We live in the world of colors and dynamism, so we have to get used to rapid changes and paths of current developments. In previous years the companies were interested in the brand's name development, improvement and support. Currently we can see different paths of development. The strategies of advertising are usually reflected in different means of printed media, TV or radio. Nowadays we are absorbed into a picturesque world of billboards, Tweet and Facebook and instant ads have totally grasped our attention! Different means of interactivity and transparency, as well as strategies of innovations impl ementation and creative performance updates are high on the agenda. This fact can be described in the following way: the main idea of the modern ad is focused at the

Analyze the BP Oil Spell Case Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Analyze the BP Oil Spell Case - Essay Example Transparency From a transparency point of view, the response of BP was insufficient because it did not accord the relevant authorities, the information that would help them counter the problem effectively. The slow nature of the BP Company, in giving response to the spill indicated inadequacies in transparency, which was among the causes that made the spill continue for three months, without being effectively addressed. According to CEG, the BP Company hindered the response offered to the oil spin, which was likely to affect the management of further oil spills (1). According to the CEG, the response to the spill was affected by the restrictions imposed on media access to the site, the delay of the disclosure of information from the company – regarding dispersants, and the overall lack of cooperation by the company and the government agencies responsible (1). Further, the BP Company and respective government agencies were very slow in releasing information to the public, regar ding the extent of damage caused, the effects of the spill and the level of transparency offered in the case, by the parties responsible. Lack of transparencies was evident from the reports offered by the BP Company and the company, regarding the volumes spilled on a daily basis. The company and the government reported that the spill was releasing 1,000 barrels a day, but the reports were discredited later after it was estimated by a specialist agency, that the spill was releasing between 11,000 and 25,000 barrels each day (CEG 1). Lack of transparencies was evident from BP’s delays, in providing high-definition video footage, which would facilitate computer analysis. BP wrote, on the 21st of May 2010, most likely after realizing that its lack of transparency was affecting the deployment of corrective measures to address the oil spill. In the account, the company noted that it would offer transparency and openness about the disaster, and its cooperation with organizations to respond to the oil spill. Rationality From a rationality perspective, the BP oil spill exposed a lack of disaster mitigation preparedness and carelessness on the part of the BP Company and the agencies that were supposed to respond to the issue. These agencies include the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and the DHS (Department of Homeland Security). The oil spill exposed the careless of the company because – knowing well, the impacts of leaving the spill open – they left it open, for more than three months. From a rational point of view, it is clear that BP, as well as the government, did not engage the resources they required to mitigate the spill, in the short time they could (Walsh 1). Among the reasons cited as causes for the explosion, include that the BP Company had failed to administer effective risk management, including that they did not inspect the facility, prior to the time of the explosion. Therefore, the nature and the extent of the disaster display ed the company’s ineffective risk mitigation and non-preparedness to address disasters (Walsh 1). Avoiding Extremes From a point of view of avoiding extremes, the BP oil spill was evidently a demonstration of disregard for the extreme effects of disaster. This is evident from the fact that, after the explosion of April 20th the company and

Water for Elephants Novel Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Water for Elephants Novel Project - Essay Example For those wanting background information about the book and the author, this article highlights Gruen’s writing process as well as how the success of this novel has changed her life. By analyzing the eight key differences between the book Water for Elephants and its film adaptation, this article pinpoints the alterations in plot between the two versions of the tale. The importance of knowing these variations is that movie viewers who have read the book will be aware of the changes in the film. Another benefit of this article is that readers and viewers can determine which adaptation of the story they prefer. While this web site does not carry the prestige of the New York Times, this reference is useful as it is in the form of a blog. By allowing the opportunity for a regular viewer to voice their opinions on the differences between the book and the film, this web site is much more approachable versus the staunch New York Times. With a more user friendly nature, this article may resonate with more readers. In Elizabeth Judd’s review of Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, the New York Times writer both summarizes the plot as well as offers insight into the author’s writing characteristics and talents. The benefit of reading this article before reading Water for Elephants is that readers can get both a brief view into the plot but, more importantly, they can gain information about Gruen’s subtle writing techniques and look for them throughout the text. Having this option can help readers get the most out of the story text. Upon analysis, this article is worth recommending to anyone who is going to read Water for Elephants. With some background on the plot of the story, a reader could focus more on the character development for both the human and animal characters in the story. This opportunity allows the reader to get entranced with Gruen’s ability to give animals

Coles Sales Promotion Essay Example for Free

Coles Sales Promotion Essay Pacific managing director of Nielsen Consumer Group, said â€Å"It’s no surprise that consumers are increasingly concerned about their household budgets in response to such fluctuating economic conditions, and the cost-saving strategies currently being employed by consumers are likely to continue well into the year. †(Jessica Kennedy,2011) Due to the rising concern of the current unstable economic condition in Australia, the people have developed a tendency to save or spend only what is necessary. There is also a concern for the rising food and fuel prices and more and more people are looking for good deals and bargains for the basic necessities required to run a household. If this holds true to the working population then this will hold true even more to the student population in Australia who perhaps only have a part time job and live on a fixed budget. Market analysis: The student population contributes a lot to the economy of Australia. In 2008, the total tertiary student community in Melbourne was around 208,800 people and international tertiary student population numbering was at least 28,150 (Melbourne City Research, 2010). These numbers have steadily risen in the past years and will continue to do so. From this situation analysis, it can be derived that it would be a successful venture if fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables were offered at a discounted price by Coles to students in Melbourne for a limited period of time. And if the response is successful in Melbourne it can be an option to expand to other cities as well. Sales promotion pitch: Offering a 15% discount to students from the 1s of July to the 31st of July on all of Coles’ fresh and frozen fruits and vegetable line. SWOT analysis : Strengths: The current economic condition will help the response to a sale if it is held. It will attract the customers and increase revenue. It is also a healthy campaign as fruits and vegetables are being offered at a discount to students to encourage them to eat healthier and will boost the image of Coles. Weaknesses: The risk that the response may not be as enthusiastic as predicted from the target audience. Also that it is targeting a very specific segment of the market and that can be risky to the campaign if the response is not as predicted. Opportunities: The option to hold this sale every half year or more frequently if response is good and also in a larger number of cities. Threats: Competitors like Woolworths and Aldi may also put their items on sale to compete with Coles. Target Segment Demographics: Treating the market as heterogeneous, as all the people of Melbourne are not being targeted and they don’t have similar wants, the target profile for the campaign would look like the following : * Age| * Late teens and above| * Gender| * Male and female| Geographic area| * Melbourne| * Occupation| * Students| * Household size| * Living alone or with housemates| * Lifestyle and Habits| * Lives on a budget, tends to look for the most reasonable prices, prioritizes saving and has a slightly more healthy lifestyle. | The typical profile of the segment being targeted would be a College student who Lives alone or with housemates or in a dorm and who purchases their own groceries. Within th e target audience there will be different views and attitudes about fruits and vegetables. The types of opinions are usually four in kind. They are: * The appreciators: will be the portion of the target market that like eating healthy and enjoy eating lots of fruits and vegetables. These people may be more health conscious and aware of the fact that fruits and vegetables are a very important part of the diet. â€Å" I love fruits and vegetables! They are a part of almost all of my meals for the day† * The acceptors: are the segment of students that eat a moderate amount of fruits and vegetables but also prefer meats and other food items. I like fruits and vegetables but I don’t like including them in all my meals, I prefer meat† * The resistors: this segment is not very fond of fruits and vegetables but eat them on occasion. â€Å"fruits and vegetables are ok but I would rather eat something else† * The rejecters: This portion of students is strongly against adding fruits or vegetables to their daily meals and would most definitely eat other foods instead. Insert refrence pg. 206 One of the purposes of the campaign is to try and get the percentage of the resistors and the rejecters to convert to either the acceptors or the appreciators. Time frame: The promotion will last for one month. Starting July 1st and ending July 31st. The duration chosen is during the offseason period where there are no big sales held otherwise. This will make it easier to persuade the target market to purchase their groceries at Coles as it will be cheaper to do so. It gives them an incentive to buy. 20 specimen subjects from Chisholm College that fit the target profile completed a survey about why they picked a particular store over another. Four fixed options were asked and the results were as follows: More than half, i. e 11 people out of 20, said that the main reason they choose a store was because of its low prices. 6 people said they choose a store according to how conveniently it’s located, 2 said it was because of loyalty to the store and 1 said because of good customer service. This further emphasizes the fact that if a sales promotion was held, the response would be enthusiastic and the campaign would be successful. Main Objective: * Increasing the sales of fresh, frozen and canned fruits and vegetables by 5 to 10 percent in the month of July. Initially only in Melbourne with an option to expand to other cities if the response is positive. Additional objectives: * Enhance customer loyalty * Create new customers * To reinforce brand advertising * Encouraging students to eat healthier Perception – achieve at least a 65% increase in awareness of the sales promotion in the first week Cognition – Achieve recall of discount period at Coles by at least 80% of the students in Melbourne Persuasion – Make the target audience want to go to Coles for their groceries rather than its competitors Emotion – Induce humor and fun through the advertisement Association – Associate Coles with the most reasonable prices and quality goods Behavior – Persuade at least 3% of the customers that shop at Woolworths, Aldi and other competitors to switch over to Coles Approach: The type of approach to be used for this promotion is the emotional approach and a soft sell strategy. Humor will be used a medium in the advertisement to allow students to relate to the campaign easily and for retention of the message to create the need to buy fruits and vegetables at Coles. An anonymous survey was conducted using 20 students in Chisholm College that fit the target audience. They were asked to state what kinds of advertisements they remembered the easiest out of a given three choices. Out of 20 students, 15 said humorous advertisements were the easiest to remember, 2 said informative and 3 said shock advertising. Pull promotional strategy: ‘ In a pull strategy, the manufacturer directs the majority of its promotional effort towards the ultimate consumer in an attempt to get them to pull the products through the marketing channel. ’ (McColl Kennedy, JR, 1994) A pull promotional strategy creates a high degree of awareness amongst consumers and implants a desire and an interest for the product. This makes the customers to go to the retail store with the determination to find the product to purchase it and if it is not available they urge the retailer to stock up on it. This is the strategy that Coles is aiming at following as the message will be sent directly to the ultimate consumers who are in this case the students, urging them to purchase frozen, fresh and canned fruits and vegetables. And when the demand exceeds the supply, it will cause the Coles retail stores to urge the wholesalers and other links in the product chain to acquire the product causing a pulling effect through the marketing channel. Communication: In order to inform the potential customers about the promotion, effective and efficient advertising must be carried out. The use of Television, the internet, newspapers and magazines help in doing so. Since the target market is only students, it would also be productive to display the advertisements on social networking sites on the internet. To further reach students fliers can be put up on the notice boards and in the college magazines. Point of purchase displays also helps as it improves in store branding and keeps the customer informed. Having sales signs near the product also can lead to impulse buying. The key message sent out here would be that it is cheaper to buy your groceries at Coles than at any other supermarket. Eliciting the desired response: The main reason for fierce advertising and promotions is due to the reason that the sales promotion will be carried out for one month only. During this time period, Coles seeks to attract as many customers as possible to their stores in Melbourne. It is true that the potential customers go through a behavioral or psychological process before purchasing a product called a response hierarchy. The Coles advertisements and promotions seek to fulfill all the steps in this hierarchy chain.