5 Ways to Evaluate Your Writing Group

5 Ways to Evaluate Your Writing Group 5 Ways to Evaluate Your Writing Group 5 Ways to Evaluate Your Writing Group By Mark Nichol The writing group you started three or six months ago is still going, but there’s something not quite right about it. It’s time to step back and evaluate it: 1. Attendance Are the charter members all still attending? Or, if one or more people have dropped out, was it mutually beneficial for them to do so, or do you wish they had continued to participate? If the latter is true, and you haven’t already done so, send them a note asking for their frank appraisal, assuring them that you want the truth so that you can apply their response to improving the group. They might have simply found they lacked the time or the motivation, or they might have had a personality clash with someone else in the group or a problem with the meeting format. If one or more people is regularly tardy or absent, ask them why. You won’t know whether you can help them if you don’t know the reason they aren’t on time or present all the time. It might be as simple as needing more time at home after work before heading to the meeting, or they might just be hesitating about quitting. 2. Skill Are the skill levels of the members basically on par? Not everyone needs at exactly the same place in terms of facility with writing, but it helps to have an only slightly divergent range. An especially skilled group member might make others feel inadequate, and someone who is noticeably deficient in talent may be dragging the group down. You will likely feel uncomfortable about approaching either type of outlier, but the more skilled writer will probably take it as a compliment if you suggest that they seek a writing group with higher collective abilities and may be glad to have â€Å"permission† to do so. For the person not quite up to the group’s level, it may take no-punches-pulled criticism respectful but candid to prompt them to look for a group more suited to their level of development. 3. Workload Are group members keeping up with the workload? If members routinely come to group meetings unprepared lacking either a writing sample for others to critique or completed evaluations of others’ passages perhaps the amount of preparation required is excessive. Consider reducing the frequency of meetings or the length of submissions, or mix up the way submissions are presented: If group members usually email their pieces for others to review and critique before the next meeting, alternate this approach with cold critiques (responses to writing samples that have just been distributed at that meeting). Alternatively, have members submit samples at every other meeting rather than each time, or skip critique meetings in place of tutorials (everybody presents a fifteen-minute lesson about character, plot, narrative structure, or some other element). 4. Development Do group members feel that the writing group is helping them develop as writers? Set aside part or all of a meeting to discuss how everyone feels about their progress. Are other members too timid about providing feedback, so that one or more people feel that they aren’t getting anything out of the critiquing sessions? Is criticism writer centered rather than writing centered? Critiques that focus on the author rather than on the writing samples not only hinder development but may also make members feel uncomfortable, which may also be the cause of absentees or dropouts. If you haven’t yet done so, model constructive comments that are specific and that respond to the piece, not the person. 5. Feedback External feedback, that is. At three months after the group’s launch, this step will likely be premature, but for a group that’s met for six months or more, it might be time to step up to the plate. Talk everyone in the group to committing to submitting: With a given period, everyone must send an article or poem or short story to a certain number of publications or writing competitions for consideration. That’s certainly one way to evaluate a writing group. If one or more people get a prize or get published, also-rans might feel resentment, but try to forestall any bad feelings by suggesting ahead of time that if anyone hits the jackpot, it means everybody has the potential to do so. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Writing Basics category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:15 Terms for Those Who Tell the FutureTen Yiddish Expressions You Should KnowEach vs. Both

Chinas Qing Dynasty

Chinas Qing Dynasty China’s modern geographical boundaries resemble the geographical boundaries during the Qing dynasty (1644-1912). The Qing dynasty was formed after the military conquest of the chinese empire by the Manchu. The Manchu started by conquering lands outside the Chinese empire. They finally captured the political capital of China, Beijing, in 1644. The capture of Beijing by the Manchurian people signified the beginning of the Qing dynasty (Cummins 298).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on China’s Qing Dynasty specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The military captured Beijing at the time of uprising by peasants. Li Zicheng lewas at the head of this uprising which led to the fall of Beijing. The Qing army convinced Wu Sangui, general of the Zicheng’s army, to rebel against the Zicheng’s leadership. Sangui facilitated Beijing’s capture by the Qing army. However, even after Beijing’s capture, several parts of the empire had strong opposition to the Manchus. The south of China was the most resistant to new rulers. Peace came to the empire in 1683, during the reign of Kangxi (Cummins 298). China’s new rulers established a Manchu banner system in northern China. This led to the creation of administrative colonies that had several military colonies. Each colony supplied a certain number of soldiers to the government when the need arose. During the early periods of the dynasty, there were only eight banners. Members of the banners were only Manchus (Hansen, Curtis and Curtis 571). However, the dynasty incorporated other ethnic groups later. The banners helped in military control of the empire. The Manchu strengthened the centralized system of government. In addition, they helped in solving various social issues. During the early periods of the dynasty, there were several lawsuits. The rulers discouraged litigation as they thought it was a sign of social disharmony (Ng 58). In addition, the rulers of the Qing dynasty introduced several laws. Some of the laws were good, whereas others were contentious. One of the contentious laws was the law requiring men to shave their heads according to the Manchurian culture. Refusal to shave the hair in the prescribed manner was punishable by death. During the eighteenth century, the Qings dynasty culture and science have greatly prosperited. After ousting rulers of the Ming dynasty, the Manchus presented themselves as guardians of Chen-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, which was the main ideology of the Ming dynasty. This helped them gain the support of the literati. The literati were very influential. Therefore, it was vital for the Manchu to gain their support. Advertising Looking for essay on asian? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More One of the major ideologies of this form of Neo-Confucianism was the chastity of women. Therefore, the Manchus ensured tha t the society upheld this virtue (Ng 59). Most women who were victims of rape committed suicide. This was the only way in which they could clear their name and that of their family. The society expected women to maintain their chastity even after death of their husbands. In addition, Neo-Confucian moralists opposed the marriage of widowed women. The society considered remarrying of women to be shameful. The state honored widowed women who lived according to the expectations of the society. This forced widowed women to live in self-denial. Many women could not pay this price. Therefore, suicides of widowed women were common (Ng 60). In the beginning of the twentieth century, mass civil disorder in the Qing dynasty increased. This forced the rulers of the dynasty to introduce social reforms. However, the reforms did not reduce the unrest. In 1911, Sun Yatsen was the head of an anti-Qing rebellion that led to the collapse of the dynasty (Li xviii). The Qing dynasty governed China for more than 200 years. Cummins, Joseph. The war chronicles: From chariots to flintlocks. Beverly, MA: Fair Winds, 2008. Print. Hansen, Valerie, Curtis, Kenneth and Curtis, Kenneth R. Voyages in world history, Volume 2. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning, 2008. Print. Li, Xiaobing. Civil liberties in China. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2010. Print. Ng, Vivien W. â€Å"Ideology and sexuality: Rape laws in Qing China.† The Journal of Asian Studies, 46.1(1987): 57-70. Print.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on China’s Qing Dynasty specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More

Ethical Principles In The Journalism Profession Assignment

Ethical Principles In The Journalism Profession - Assignment Example Journalism serves as one of the most important and noble professions, which is determined to provide the people with the latest information regarding the political, social, economic, cultural and strategic incidents and events taking place in various areas and regions of the globe at large (Macionis 130-31). One of the most important tasks before the journalists includes communicating of the swift and comprehensive updates about the news associated with the rulers, nations, public and cultures that may capture the consideration of the masses belonging to the pole-apart regions of the world. Hence, keeping the people updated with the fast-changing geopolitical and socioeconomic scenarios serves as the most fundamental objective in the eyes of the journalists. In simple terms, communicating the news of regional, social, national and international concerns, based on truth and validity as well as without having any fears of being persecuted, could rightly be stated to be the first and fo remost obligation of the journalist community. Consequently, unveiling the criminal activities, social injustices, the prejudiced behavior of the influential groups and communities, and pointing out the social evils prevailing in a culture come under the list of the duties attributed to the profession of journalism. Part II—Strive for: Although the journalists are bound to render their services free from coercion and fear on the one side, and impartial from the ethnic, racial, regional, religious, gender-based and all other kinds of biased and prejudiced behavior; however, the same is not practiced in the real sense of the term in any area of the world (Harcup 138-39). Nevertheless, there always appear some selfless and dauntless people in every society, who unconditionally strive for social justice, equality and individual freedom with the ambitions of setting the masses free from the clutches of cruelties, slavery, and unfairness at any cost.

Dose spirituality have a place in the organisation when a manager is Research Paper

Dose spirituality have a place in the organisation when a manager is tackling issue such as sustainability - Research Paper Example also involves the psychological contract that exists between the employee and the organization for acknowledging the connectivity to the humanity, ecology, community, selfless work, integrity, and care. Fornaciari and Dean (2001) argue that, it has facilitated the linkage to ethics and values in order to allow for the alignment of the organization values in accordance to their philosophical or religious roots. Through this, the managers are able to understand spiritual yearnings of the employees in order to help them in establishing ways for addressing the work of the organization. Mohamed, Wisnieski, Askar and Syed (2004) explains that, it also provides with a deeper allegiance that increases the discretionally effort that in turn fosters the organization sustainability. In the instances of the employee motivation being low, the engagement of the employee to the flourishing of the organizational leads to the profits that are targeted also for the sustainability of the organization. The spirituality in the organization encourages employees to flourish thus leading to a good organizational performance improvement, thus the spiritual initiatives tend to have the influence on the financial return. Foundation for workplace spirituality. (2006). Resources: Organizational spirituality – away with the fairies. Retrieved on 9 march 2012 from

The Cuban Missile Crisis Essay Example for Free

The Cuban Missile Crisis Essay The Cuban Missile Crisis on October 14, 1962, marked one of the highpoints of the Kennedy administration.   The scandal caused widespread panic and indignation to the American people due to the surrounding environmental factors brought about by the cold war.   It revolved around the building of Russian bases on Cuban soil and the staging of nuclear weapons from these said structures.   One such depiction of this event is the movie Thirteen Days which is a most ample goldmine of organizational communications beautifully recreated on the silver screen. The crisis is viewed from the eyes of one Kenny O’Donnell, a Special Assistant to the President, who begs, barters and steals the information he needs to keep his friend and superior abreast of the volatile situation while not selling out his own ethics in the process.   This film depicts an excellent display of organizational communications in one of the most important and influential social groups during a time of trial and tribulation which brings out the best and worst in people. Organizational communications stems from the fact that large companies need to coordinate efficiently in order to achieve the goals set out.   For example, if a firm with 10,000 employees had to go to the president for each of their issues with work, he or she would never be able to do the tasks set out on the institution of the company.   The president’s plate would always be full and it would keep piling up with the new problems which spring up during operations.   The key to solving this problem is delegation.   The leader gets people he can trust to get the job done and specifies which fields to focus on.   This paper will show examples as based on the movie Thirteen Days and will provide an example in today’s modern setting. Communications can be defined as the meaningful interaction of people exchanging knowledge.   Good communications in business is the flow of information from the lowest employee to the person with the highest position in order to achieve objectives and vice versa.   The head can address the company as a whole but not all the information from each worker goes straight to the top otherwise there would be an information overload. Information gathering techniques can be in the form of feedback or focused group discussions.   The movie showed this as a U2 spy plane flying over Cuba taking reconnaissance photos as part of America’s regular monitoring of the region. In the film, when Russian rockets are discovered in Cuba, the information is sent up the pipeline because it was deemed important enough.   If the intelligence was about how the Russian prime minister drank his tea or whether he lights a cigar the proper way, it would be filed under miscellaneous information which would be pulled up only when the need arose.   The CIA analysts forwarded the pictures and interpretations to their section chiefs who make the decision whether the buck stops with them or not who then forwards it to the Director of the CIA who makes the call if it should be sent up the chain of command.   This signifies efficient leader-member exchanges. To find a solution, both cognitive and affective conflicts often come into play.   Cognitive conflict focuses attention on assumptions that may underlie a particular issue and which are often ignored.1   It was done by Adlai Stevenson, ambassador to the United Nations, when he voiced an option to the president which all of them as advisors were thinking but would not voice out since it would be political suicide.   This type of conflict allows the decision makers to weigh all their options before coming to a decision.   Affective conflict on the other hand deals with input which is detrimental to the solution process.   It lowers effectiveness with the input of distrust and controversy. The joint chiefs of the military acted as such towards the president since he would not give permission to execute the action they deemed to be the â€Å"only† option.   Even when the generals knew that the commander-in-chief would never agree with them, they tried to box him in by aggravating the situation.   For example, they ordered a low level intelligence gathering mission which would attract an armed response from the Russians.   JFK could not hinder them without a valid reason but he did work around them by getting in contact with the pilot who was flying the mission and asking him to not do anything or report instances which would force America to a nuclear war. The contradiction to this crisis was that the US stationed Jupiter missiles in Turkey near the Soviet border.   If this had not been done, they could have prevented the predicament they were in.   There was also a lot of bargaining going on from the president asking his advisors for other options to the ultimate solution which was the compromise reached by both superpowers to end the escalating conflict. In my opinion this movie is a goldmine of organizational communications reference.   It concretely depicts what to do and what not to do when decisions need to be made during â€Å"crunch time†.   It might not characterize every scenario but with a little stretch of the imagination, we can get and expound new ideas which we can utilize in our daily operations. We can learn a lot from this movie and apply it to any organization especially an engineering services firm.   As an example let’s use the solid waste disposal department and that the dump trucks did not come on time.   The men loading the trucks or the foreman even notices this and decides to kick it to upper management since the whole timetable for the project was delayed.   Now the manager has to decide where to get the trucks.   He or she could either, call another company then penalize the contractors with the cost of hiring another firm plus damages and never work with them again or be lenient with the firm and just deduct the penalty from what was supposed to be paid out for the usage of the vehicles. Advisors are called in to weigh options before a decision can be made.   Now if the trucks were delayed within an allowable amount of time, this information can be sent up the ladder depending on the foreman’s judgment.   If it is still within his scope of responsibility, he can give a warning to the trucking company that tardiness would not be tolerated or send it to one of the manager’s advisors or his corresponding supervisor. The chain of command ideally should work this way to achieve goals but other factors come into play.   In some cases the information does not go to the right person or nothing is being done.   We may not have the perfect structure for organizational communications but we can strive and learn from past errors in order to make decisions which the organization can count every time. References: 1 http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/1650/htmlcognitiveconflict.html last checked 08 March 2008

The Beard Makes the Man :: Ancient Greece Greek Essays

The Beard Makes the Man For the ancient Athenians, the beard was a common sign of manhood. The coming of a beard signaled a male’s transition from boyhood into manhood. Men who lost their beards did not suffer loss of political rights or loss of privileges, but they were mocked and shamed. The beard, not height or body shape, interestingly, was considered the initial marker of manhood in the plays of Aristophanes. A beard is an easily recognizable and observable, and the lack or presence of a beard is easily changed for the stage by covering the actor’s beard with a mask or giving him a fake beard. The beard was clearly a particularly meaningful secondary characteristic for the Greeks. For the ancient Greeks, the beard was incredibly closely tied to the idea of manhood. In some cases, the word for beard could even be interchanged with the word for man. Men grow hair on their faces, women do not, but a man’s facial hair is easily removed by shaving. For this culture, the removal of the beard was a removal of a crucial element of manhood. Without a beard, a man was woman-like, despite any other characteristics that might distinguish him as a man. To become like a woman, a man merely had to remove his beard, but to become like a man, a woman had to disguise herself in many more ways. The beard, as a cultural way to distinguish men, is based on the biological phenomenon that males begin to grow hair on their faces during puberty. Despite seemingly being an easy way to separate men from women and children, the presence of a beard is not an all or none situation. A pubescent male will not go to bed bare-cheeked and wake up the next morning with a full beard. Puberty is a gradual process occurring over many years, and some men may never grow a completely full beard, even in maturity. As today, some women of ancient Athens must have themselves been quite hairy around the hair line, jaw, and upper lip. The beard is not as clear a man/boy or man/woman differentiation as it may initially seem. The beard is not a completely clear physical or biological trait, but it was clearly a significant characteristic for the ancient Athenians. In Aristophanes’s play Women at the Thesmophoria, the kinsman of Euripides tries to pass for a woman by shaving his beard and singeing his pubic hair.

Thought and Hi Rachel

Rachel: Good evening Tom. It's nice to meet you. Please call me Rachel. Tom: Hi Rachel†¦ It is good to meet you too. Rachel: To start off why don't you tell me a little bit about why you think you are here today and what has been going on for you in your life. Tom: I think I am here because my friend thinks I am a drunk. Maybe I am, but I have a good reason. Rachel: What is your reason? Tom: Because my wife left me. We were married for 25 years, and she cheated. Rachel: I am very sorry to hear that Tom. I can understand how that would be hard to deal with. Tom: it is horrible!When I am up, I am thinking of her, thinking of her with someone else, and then drinking to make it go away. I am alone! Rachel: So would you say your drinking has increased since this relationship ended? Tom: ummm†¦. I guess it has†¦ probably more than a little. I mean the guys and I always had a few on sunday for football, you know. But sometimes I drink and I don't know why? Rachel: Would you s ay your alcohol use has affected your job at all, or other family or social commitments? Tom: Well I know I am sick and tired of being hungover in the morning and operating the crane.My family was my wife†¦. we ran from family and our love was all we had. It made us strong†¦ but not strong enough apparently. Rachel: Well we definately need to find you some better ways to cope with this. How would you describe your mood and how you have been feeling since this has happened? Tom: My mood has been getting worse. It's like the worst has happened but I have this nagging feeling that something unbelievably horrible will follow it. My body also has these pains and aches and I have no idea where they came from†¦Rachel: Well it is definately normal to feel this way after such a stressful occurence in your life. Although it is hard to remain postive, it is important. Do you have any other support in your life besides your wife? Anyone that you could talk to? Tom: Well Jim. He i s the one who said I needed to see a counsellor. He said I looked dissheveled. I trust him but I feeling like I am letting him down. Rachel: Well that is good that you took Jim's advice to come in and talk to someone. It can be very difficult to deal with something like this on your own.It is good to have social support in your life and someone who can be honest with you. Do you see yourself getting into a new relationship in the future? Tom: I can see that maybe I can move on but I am hurting. I have been too drunk to grieve! Rachel: Why do you think your wife cheated on you? Do you blame this on yourself? Tom: I never could give her brains and a body. I didn't have brains and my body is getting too old. She took off to the carribean with this lawyer. I wasn't good enough. Rachel: Im sure there are plenty of great things about yourself. This is not something you should blame on yourself.I think once you put yourself out there you will see that many people will find you attractive i nside and out. Challenging your negative thoughts in ways such as this is the first step to feeling better. You will prove your own negative thoughts wrong and will begin to build a new more positive self-concept. I know right now it may be too early to start dating but you should focus on other things you are good at or that you once enjoyed. Rachel: I wanted to ask you a little about your family history. Is there anyone in your family that has suffered from depression or alcohol abuse? Tom: My father drank alot.He was an angry drunk. His mother was sad alot of the time. She killed herself when my dad was 11 Rachel: Im sorry to hear about that Tom. I want to make sure you know that it is normal to feel the way you do right now. I would however suggest talking to your family doctor about taking an antidepressant to help you get back on your feet. It is not something you have to take forever but it can really help to get your life back in perspective. Unfortunately we are out of time for today but I would really like to continue talking to you about this another time. Tom: ok, thank you Rachel