Taking a ook at Teen Pregnancy - 744 Words

The social problem I have chosen to write about is teen pregnancy. My family has experienced teen pregnancy with my cousins as well as myself. With all my cousins who became teenage mothers they all failed to either graduate from high school or once they did graduate or earn their GED’s they failed to go to college. Every single one them was also on welfare. In my particular situation I was not on welfare and did complete high school on time, although I did attend college for only one semester, I did not complete obtaining a degree. I am currently trying to complete my degree however it has taken me to the age of 33 to successfully go back. Having a child at the age of 16 was extremely tough for me. I had attended private school up until the end of my sophomore year as that is when I became pregnant. I had hoped to attend college out of state and had a steady grade point average of about 3.5. I lost contact with all my friends as I was either working or staying home with my son. I had to work two jobs in order to avoid being on welfare and yet still continue to go to high school as I was determined to finish. I can proudly say that my son is now graduating from high school and he has grown up to be a very respectful young man. I had seen my cousins’ struggle with their teen pregnancies as well but no one had actually ever sat me down to talk to me about it. Although teen pregnancy has since been on the decline about 3 in 10 teen girls will still get pregnant in the United

Symbolism in William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’ Free Essays

Symbolism in William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’ Definition: A symbol is something that is itself as well as something else. In literature it means literal or objective sense coupled with abstract meaning. Symbolism refers to serious and extensive use of symbols in a work of literature. We will write a custom essay sample on Symbolism in William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’ or any similar topic only for you Order Now Symbolism in Lord of the Flies: The novel is rich in symbolism. A host of different interpretations of the novel’s symbolism – political, psychological and religious – exists. We will look at some of the prominent symbols employed by Golding and try harmonizing the different interpretations. Since symbolism is an evocative device to communicate the theme of a literary piece, we must first agree on the theme of Lord of the Flies. Theme: Evil inherent in man seems to be the central idea of the novel. It may recall the Christian notion of the ‘original sin’ or the idea of the failure of civilization as seen during the Nazi Holocaust or a general pessimistic view of human nature. It may be all the three combined. A group of boys aged 6 to 12 find themselves alone on an island, without adult supervision. At first they try to organize themselves on the pattern of the civilized world they have known. The attempt fails and most of them regress into savagery and animal existence. The novel was deliberately patterned on the children’s classic ‘The Coral Island’ by R. M. Ballantyne. Only, it turns Ballantyne’s theme on its head. Whereas Ballantyne made the children’s isolation on the island a pleasant interlude in a continued life of civilized existence, Golding shows how thin the veneer of civilization really is and how the animal nature of man breaks through in just a few weeks. It is not so much moral judgment as recognition of the essential tragedy of mankind – its intellectual and spiritual nature losing out to its animal nature again and again. Important Symbols: 1. The Scar: The novel starts with the mention of a scar in the jungle. We learn (or rather, surmise) later that it is a swath cut by the falling ‘passenger tube’ in which the children were travelling. The word scar appears in the text without this preliminary information and serves to create atmosphere. The metaphor prepares us for the horrible things to come. In itself it is also the symbol of man’s disruptive influence on his world. 2. The Conch: It makes its appearance as an accidental find of Ralph and Piggy on the beach. It soon assumes importance as Ralph, on Piggy’s advice, blows it to gather the survivors. Ralph is elected leader of the group mainly because he was the one in possession of the conch. From here onwards the conch becomes a symbol of law and order. At meetings the speaker has to hold it in his hands. It gives him the privilege of being heard uninterrupted. Order starts breaking down in the fifth chapter when Jack speaks without holding it. Later, breakdown of order is signalled by Jack snatching it from Ralph in the eighth chapter. In the tenth chapter Jack raids the shelter occupied by Ralph and Piggy to rob Piggy of his glasses. But he does not bother to take the conch away. It is no longer important. In the eleventh chapter the conch is destroyed, symbolizing the complete rout of order at the hands of chaos. 3. The Man with the Megaphone (Grown-ups): When Piggy meets Ralph, his first question is, â€Å"Where is the man with the megaphone? A few pages later the question is repeated by Jack, â€Å"Where is the man with the trumpet? † This, we can assume, was the man in charge of the boys in the aeroplane He stands for authority and control which has suddenly been removed by the crash. A grown-up appears again only at the end in the form of the naval officer who saves the life of Ralph without realizing the fact and brings an e nd to the chaos. But conversely, the adult is the cause of the boys being there in the first place. The war raging outside is nothing but the conflict on the island on a much grander scale. The appearance of the naval officer at close suggests that civilization has been given another chance, despite the bleak outlook. 4. Beast from Air: In the sixth chapter another adult appears on the scene – a dead parachutist. He has apparently evacuated himself from a warplane that has been hit. The man crashes to his death at the top of the hill on the island. He, with his parachute, is taken to be a mysterious supernatural beast by the boys among whom the talk of a snake-like beast of the jungle is already rampant. The dead parachutist is not, however, just an extension of the ghost metaphor. He also represents the historical past intruding on the scene and influencing it in a profound manner. For the boys the historical past is the war they left behind. For humanity it would be the past of man as an insidious influence in his present. 5. The Beast – Lord of the Flies: The title of the novel is itself symbolic. The phrase is a literal translation of the Hebrew ‘Beelzebub’, one of the demons named after a philistine god. Later the term was often used in Christianity as a name for the Devil. The metaphor is one of regression (in its original sense of paganism) and evil (in its later meaning of the Devil). In the novel one of the younger boys, who is referred to as ‘the boy with the birthmark on his face’, tells the others about having seen a snake-like beast on the trees. Though Ralph tries to allay their fears as unfounded, the belief in the beast persists. It is strengthened by the unexplained disappearance of the boy with the birthmark. It is reinforced by the ‘beast from air’ mentioned above, so mush so that even Ralph and Piggy start entertaining the possibility of a beast. Jack, half believing himself, uses the fear cleverly to keep his followers under control. He makes the ritual sacrifice of a wild sow to the beast and lets the head of the animal hang on a stick, ostensibly to appease the beast. Only Simon does not believe in the existence of a beast. In his wanderings in the forest he comes across the head of the sow and the entrails of the animal which have attracted a lot of flies by now. He has a hallucination in which the head appears to him as lord of the flies and speaks to him. The symbolism of the beast is also stated in this imaginary conversation in so many words, as follows: â€Å"You knew, didn’t you? I am part of you?†¦ I am the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are? † The beast is within man, not without. It is the darkness in men’s hearts. It is their primitive nature, hidden behind a thin layer of civilization. 6. The Signal Fire and the Shelters on the Beach: The signal fire and the shelters symbolize ordered society, civilization and hope. They are contrasted with the barbaric and blood-thirsty hunts. The signal fire is Ralph’s idea. He believes that the children will be rescued soon and therefore there should be a smoke signal going all the time for a passing ship to spot. Piggy, who is more of a realist, realizes that those who were expected to know about the children are all dead and it may be a long time before rescue comes. So he suggests the building of shelters. Though both symbols together stand for civilization against barbarism, there is this subtle difference between them, arising as they do from their originators’ differing perceptions of the situation. 7. The Hunts and Mock Hunts: Together with painted faces and long hair the hunts and mock hunts symbolize regression into primitive savagery. The hunters not only seem to have lost all hope of returning to civilization, but they seem to actually enjoy the prospect and neglect to keep the signal fire burning. The hunts can be interpreted as symbolizing the boys’ primal urges or even anarchy. Soon after the hunts start, they cease to be a necessary activity aimed at gathering food. The lust for blood becomes more important. Ceremonies and chants invented by the hunters similarly denote regression. The mock hunts of Chapters 4 and 7 are manifestations of regression too. The mock hunts serve another purpose. In Chapter 4 the mock hunt is a mild affair, performed largely for fun. In the seventh chapter it turns into a violent affair in which the boy playing the hunted animal suffers injuries. Thus the mock hunts define the regression of the hunters as civilized humans. The scene in Chapter 7 also shows the good and sensible Ralph feeling the excitement of the mock hunt, thus showing how evil can take hold of any human, unless resisted. 8. Painted Faces and Long Hair: This is the heading of Chapter 4. The degeneration of the boys’ way of life is symbolized by clay-and- charcoal masks and long hair. When concealed by masks, the hunters, especially Ralph, seem to have new personalities as they forget the taboos of society that once restrained them from giving in to their natural urges. When Jack first paints his face to his satisfaction, he suddenly becomes a new, savage person. â€Å"He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. He capered toward Bill, and the mask was a thing of its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness†. The feeling of liberation that results from wearing the masks allows many of the boys to participate in the barbaric pig hunts, the savage ceremonies and the mock hunts. 9. The Island: Those who incline towards a religious interpretation of the novel’s symbolism maintain that the island is the symbol for the Garden of Eden, which is touched by original sin on contact with the human race. This interpretation may have some merit. But the symbolism can be equally validly interpreted as the state of nature to which the civilized children have been returned. It provides the setting for the opening up of their fundamental urges. 10. The Characters: The principal characters – Ralph, Piggy, Simon, Jack and Roger – symbolize certain attitudes and qualities. Ralph and Piggy are on the side pf law and order. Jack and Roger represent primitive urges and tyranny. Simon is a mystic who has clearer view of reality than the intellectual Piggy, the sensible Jack or the manipulative Jack. But we have to be careful not to over-emphasize the point. Otherwise the realistic and believable quality of the characters will be compromised. The symbolism lies more in how the characters grow or regress rather than in their basic make-up. Jack’s character is the most significant from this point of view. From the leader of a choir group he regresses into the leader of a violent and primitive group which calls itself a ‘tribe’. The above list of symbols is by no means exhaustive. The novel is replete with metaphors and symbols. Lord of the Flies is called a twentieth century allegory. It is also one of the most carefully crafted novels of the century. In consequence the careful reader can find a symbol on almost every page. s How to cite Symbolism in William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’, Papers

Plagiarism and its Prevention for Writings †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about thePlagiarism and its Prevention for Writings. Answer: Introduction: Plagiarism initially refers to the materials duplicated from others or stealing from another persons work and naming it own work. Plagiarism has a specific definition, that is; plagiarism is literally a committed theft of existing ideas, denying the source and not disclosing the truth about the source. Plagiarism is infringement of the copyright law. The copyright law states that every person has a copyright on the activities, writings, blogs, songs, films or any other expressions for a certain span and copying or stealing it within that time without the permission of the owner is infringing the law (Lea Street, 2014). There is also a clause of the law, which states that if the owner complains about the stolen material then the person will have to suffer imprisonment along with ransom. Plagiarism in education is a growing issue that decreases the level of integrity in education. To avoid plagiarism, training the students to render their own ideas is referred. This report discusses the use of plagiarism in education and recommends methods of how to prevent plagiarism. Discussion: There are some values in the academic way of integrity. Those values include honesty, own ideas, trust, responsibility to provide own thesis using own words. The students of the present generation have forgotten to write anything using their words. Studies say that a post-graduate student writes an essay with a large amount of plagiarism in it. The plagiarism in the students work in every form is present in the research part of the assignments (Newton, 2016). The students doing plagiarism are suffering from a lack of confidence of disclosing their own ideas because they have the fear of being insulted. The breaching of the academic uprightness includes plagiarism at a great extent and some includes collusion and cheating in assignment and downloading the full assignments from the internet. Among all these issues, plagiarism is the most strongly mocked violation of the academic morality as it sabotages the proposition of the contribution of knowledge. Inscribing Plagiarism: The role of knowledge and research always has the focus of neglecting academic uprightness and having research on plagiarism on the undergraduate elevation. This includes targeted initiation, assistance and instruction on all commended students particularly from the background of an accord to tradition. Plagiarism is a manifestation of academic honesty that possibly places substantial rewards to the students for the value of their work or assignment. There are many strategies to dissuade plagiarism includes instructions regarding the development of the assessment, modules of the designs and educational skills (Gmez-Espinosa, Francisco Moreno-Ger, 2016). Plagiarism by Orthodox Inquisitor: The rates of the plagiarism by students indicate that there is a problem of receiving appropriate information and knowledge both at the undergraduate and postgraduate level of education. The disaffection of integrity by the investigators is common. Plagiarism has negative results such as cancellation of the project, decrease in the credibility of the author and losing reputation. It is a very deep problem in academic uprightness. The researchers need to increase their perception about the plagiarism issues. The researchers need to have the ability to keep against plagiarism. The digital age is at a juncture where plagiarism is increasing daily with the increase of the pressure of studies on the students. The researchers need to deal with the students ideas and encourage them to complete the task themselves and not copying it from others (Glendinning, 2014). The Complications of Plagiarism: Many students are seen having problem regarding paraphrasing of texts and providing the exact citations as required. The students struggle to achieve the goal of good academic writing and fulfil the integrity of academic education. There are three aspects where plagiarism is the most determining; firstly, when the student has an intention to cheat with the thought of presenting work taken from some other sources and marks it as their own. Secondly, downloading the assignment and paraphrasing it by themselves causes the expansion of plagiarism. Thirdly, the possibility for the response regarding plagiarism requires the consideration of both the first and second aspects, which takes a disciplinary approach (Sutherland-Smith, 2014). Self-plagiarism is an issue that rotates around the apparent acceptance. Self-plagiarism is mainly submitting the previous work in a reprocessing way without assigning the resource of the original work and without consent of the teachers. The plagiarism crea tes many problems in submission of the assignment and at times, the students need to do rework on the topic, which can harm their studies (Foltnek Glendinning, 2015). Impact of Plagiarism in Education: Students of the present generation intend to gain the qualification through assignments and dissertations. Fulfilling the qualification needs submitting of different specific topic with broad discussions and they either have an intention to assign a third party in doing the work or plagiarises the work themselves and submits to the teachers. These results in lowering the value of education and the third party involvement and the plagiarised assignments are discourage-able for the students performing well. The institutions are taking severe actions to stop plagiarism as is treated as a serious offence in most of the countries. The institutions lack in consistency of removing plagiarism. The growing amount of plagiarism is because of the increase in access of the internet, which helps the students to gather information and modify those to present them to the teachers. The students are very familiar in taking the work of another person and marking it as their own without even acknowledg ing the owner of the task (Eret Ok, 2014). Preventive Measures: The work assigned to the student is need to be done by themselves with the help of references from others work. There is always a secret war in the inner mind of assorting where the ideas of the references end and where the ideas of the student begin. For maintaining the academic honesty, few measures are applicable. The students have to increase the level of the interaction with the teachers and ask for their guidelines for an answer and check citations for references regarding their answer (Heckler Forde, 2015). The first thing done before asking for guidelines is to plan the paper in a definite way to avoid plagiarism. The other sources required for the research paper is in need of planning. There should be a balance between the planned work and the references. Having an outline of the idea on the concerned topic helps the planning to get better (Lannelongue, Matas-Pereda Gonzlez-Benito, 2016). Another way to avoid plagiarism is to keep notes of the topic and records of the sour ces in a large number so that it helps the person to write more on their own and avoid using the access of the internet. The person can also avoid plagiarism by citing their own ideas with the help of the references can bring more authentications to the assignment and prevent the teachers from thinking that the information is a duplicate of the original. The names of the sites or the owners will give the assignment more reality than lying about the resource. One must have a clear thought of what to say through the assignment and in what way to say. The message or the discussion the assignment covers must be clear in every aspect because without a clear view of their own works they need to adapt plagiarism to explain the related issues and complete the assignments (Imrie, Cox Miller, 2014). Paraphrasing is not the direct way of putting others ideas as own but it also needs references at the end. While paraphrasing, changing the words is not acceptable (Howard, 2016). The meaning of the sentence should remain the same after paraphrasing the sentence. The analysing and evaluation of the resources in the assignment will result in reality and authentication. One needs to mention the sources according to the help they got from it. The credibility of the source will make the teachers feel the participation of the student, support the works and appreciate the quality of writing. Conclusion: Plagiarism is a serious infringement of academic probity. Plagiarism diminishes the value of the honest work. The detonation of plagiarism focuses mainly on the undergraduate students as records say that those students rely a lot on the plagiarism. Plagiarism is a issue with lots of complications in it. To avoid plagiarism more interaction, involvement and training will ensure the improvement in skills and responsibilities of the students. The educational institute needs to acknowledge that the plagiarism requires focus a usual approach that promotes an academic community that adheres on the capability and performance of the academic honesty. The plagiarism issue diminishes the creative power of the student and this puts a negative impact on the students by limiting their thoughts. The students also determinate the name of their pursuing institution and develop less original relations with the instructors. The main consequence of the plagiarism is that they violate the school policie s. The students may flank penalties due to plagiarism if they duplicate a major part of the work. Plagiarism affects a lot on the well-being of the student and the institution taking into considerations the violation of the copyright law. Plagiarism can help the students complete their project but due to plagiarism, the students can face many problems. References: Eret, E., Ok, A. (2014). Internet plagiarism in higher education: tendencies, triggering factors and reasons among teacher candidates.Assessment Evaluation in Higher Education,39(8), 1002-1016. Foltnek, T., Glendinning, I. (2015). Impact of Policies for Plagiarism in Higher Education Across Europe: Results of the Project.Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis,63(1), 207-216. Glendinning, I. (2014). Responses to student plagiarism in higher education across Europe.International Journal for Educational Integrity,10(1). Gmez-Espinosa, M., Francisco, V., Moreno-Ger, P. (2016). The Impact of Activity Design in Internet Plagiarism in Higher Education.Comunicar, (48), 39-47. Heckler, N. C., Forde, D. R. (2015). The role of cultural values in plagiarism in higher education.Journal of Academic Ethics,13(1), 61-75. Howard, R. M. (2016). Plagiarism in Higher Education: An Academic Literacies Issue?Introduction. InHandbook of Academic Integrity(pp. 499-501). Springer Singapore. Imrie, B. W., Cox, K., Miller, A. (2014).Student assessment in higher education: a handbook for assessing performance. Routledge. Lannelongue, G., Matas-Pereda, J., Gonzlez-Benito, J. (2016). The Antecedents of Plagiarism in Higher Education: Support Tools for Teaching Staff.Arabian J Bus Manag Review,6(227), 2. Lea, M. R., Street, B. (2014). understanding textual practices in higher education.Writing: Texts, processes and practices, 62. Newton, P. (2016). Academic integrity: a quantitative study of confidence and understanding in students at the start of their higher education.Assessment Evaluation in Higher Education,41(3), 482-497. Ocholla, D. N., Ocholla, L. (2016). Does Open Access Prevent Plagiarism in Higher Education?.AFRICAN JOURNAL OF LIBRARY ARCHIVES AND INFORMATION SCIENCE,26(2), 187-200. Sutherland-Smith, W. (2014). Legality, quality assurance and learning: competing discourses of plagiarism management in higher education.Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management,36(1), 29-42.