gadamer essays

gadamer essays Herder claimed that human nature and understanding are not essentially the same in all times and places and so by this he introduced the idea of perspectivism in to literary thought. Gadamer expands upon this idea and uses the terminology and claims of phenomenology/existentialism, in his theory of interpretation. He reminds us that ones own perspective is the view from within ones own horizon, that is, we are all wedged in a particular time and space, a culture and a history, so all that we can conceive, perceive and understand is done so though this view. The same is also true in regard to texts from the past and different cultures, their authors and their meanings exists in their own particular horizons, so their view-points Gadamer claims are rendered utterly different from our own. So how then in light of this, are we to be able to carry out interpretations of texts? How do we avoid misunderstanding the meaning because of our temporal and cultural bias and yet still be able to comprehend them in their persuasive force? Gadamer suggests that we do this by fusion of horizons, but before looking at this idea, I feel we need to look at his ideas about understanding and how they apply to the interpretation of literature. For Gadamer understanding is active, like Heidegger, he believes that we (our consciousness) are in the world and inseparable from it. So because of this, our consciousness is all ways directed at something. So as we are involved in the world, we understand things in terms of their relation of to us, and the context they have in general, like Heidegger example of a hammer. We can see if our understanding is directed a literature, it means we have to participate in it, we have to see it relation to us, and the world around it. This is why Gadamer claims that, what would not be an adequate understanding of a text is, the basic r ...

9 Technical Writing Tips Every Writer Needs to Know

9 Technical Writing Tips Every Writer Needs to Know Technical writing takes high-level details and explains them clearly and concisely to an audience. While the result of technical writing is clear, succinct and simple, the process can be the opposite. The technical writer’s challenge is to transform complicated information into an accessible document. To meet this challenge, technical writers use different strategies. This article will provide you with a selection these distinct, action-oriented strategies to improve your technical writing. hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(41482, '2355e67d-04bb-46d6-b8a7-b271b3acdfe9', {}); 1) Create a Persona The crux of good technical writing is writing for your audience. The audience needs to be defined in the document planning process and then considered at each step of the writing process. Technical writers know that a tech-savvy boss needs different information about a product than a 73-year-old grandmother. After identifying your audience, refine it further by creating a persona. Imagine the exact person who will be reading your document. The persona will be obvious if you are writing for a known person, such as your department supervisor. For other documents, the persona can be fictional. Assign your reader a specific age, gender, educational background, career, a story for why they are reading the document, even a hobby. Instead of writing for a theoretical audience, write for a specific, albeit fictional, person. The more accurately you can imagine your reader, the more accessible your writing will be for them. Instead of wondering if the wording is right for the audience, write and review the wording with this persona in mind. It will be obvious whether or not the text is right for your reader. 2) Beware of Scope Creep Good technical writers keep in mind the document’s goal at each writing stage. The goal and scope should be clearly outlined in the initial document planning. During the planning and even the writing process, document content can grow. Technical details are not isolated. They are built on previous developments, and you may want to include supplemental information or additional user instructions. Colleagues may suggest valuable background information or data. Some extra details are useful. Too many details will cause the scope to creep. As technical writing strives to be succinct, scope creep creates unnecessary work that ultimately produces a less valuable document for the reader. If you feel the scope needs to broaden, return to the goal. Evaluate if that content is really necessary. Cut it or if necessary, consider separation through appendices and even an additional document. 3) Writing Should Be Easy If you’re thinking ‘writing is always difficult for me,’ writing is probably not your real problem. Writing should be easy because the planning process was thorough. The planning process should take up to 50% of overall document preparation time. All key materials, relevant details, and the audience will be captured and organized. The result is your complete document in a condensed format. Writing simply fleshes out this compact version. If you’re unclear of how to phrase an idea while writing, reflect on your audience and how they would want to read it. If you’re not sure if a data set should be included, refer to your mind map to see if it fits within it. Any writing question can be answered by a complete planning process. If the writing is difficult, stop typing and return to your plan. There is at least one aspect of the planning process that needs more development. Once you have a thorough plan, only then should you start to write. And it will be easy. You may be interested in our other article: 87 Business Writing Tips 4) Be Timeless A technical document is your contribution to posterity. That’s right, you are passing on technical knowledge for readers now and in the future. Most technical writers focus on today’s audience. While very important, these documents often serve future readers, too. A site assessment may not be read again for 30 years until the property comes up for sale. Software instructions act as the basis for the future manual of an updated version. To write timelessly, always include dates and timelines where relevant. Avoid including time-dependent or temporary information. If you must, explain its current context for future readers. For example, a health and safety report references current legislation. The act is carefully identified so that it can be differentiated from future revised codes. Your document should be clear and comprehensible now and 20 years from now. hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(41482, '2355e67d-04bb-46d6-b8a7-b271b3acdfe9', {}); 5) Use Attributions Good attributions are efficient. They allow the reader to reference relevant details without including the information directly. The readers who need that additional information can easily find it, while others can continue on in the document without being buried in background information. See references as a tool for maintaining a concise and valuable document for your audience. 6) Use Global English English is an international language. Writing technical documents in English allows them to be broadly read and shared. However, many readers will be non-native speakers. In order to accommodate all readers, use Global English. This style of English is logical and literal which makes it more easily understood. It has a strong overlap with the technical writing principles of precision and clarity. In addition, writing globally means being aware of content that can difficult to understand or simply misunderstood. For example, avoiding idioms and the subjunctive, as well as being careful with words that can be both a noun and verb (e.g. display or guide).edX supports learners across the world and follows a very useful guide to Global English. 7) Forget the Word Count Some writers race to a word count, seeing it as the goal marker. In technical writing, word count is a poor judge of completion. Technical writing should be concise. The same instructions can be conveyed in 500 words or 5000 words. The better instructions are the ones that are most effective for the reader, regardless of the word count. Use word count as a general guide, not a rule. Never force words onto a page meet a word count. If you can write the same idea in fewer words, it’s better for the reader. 8) Be Humble Writing is an iterative process. Through good planning, thoughtful writing, and constructive feedback, you will grow and improve your technical writing skills. Each review offers its own lessons. Be welcoming of feedback from supervisors, peers, and experts. Learn from mistakes, confusions, and comments. Each review session offers an opportunity to grow as a writer. Be humble and accept these educational opportunities. 9) Use Graphics to Illustrate Graphics can help illustrate your message. In technical writing, the goal of graphics is to help convey information not act as decoration. In our online technical writing course, we teach that graphics should be focused on the reader. Poorly designed graphics can confuse readers and do more harm than good. To learn more about adding graphics to your documents see our article on the topic. Conclusion Technical writing is centered on good planning and audience focus. The above tips provide different perspectives and practical methods to accomplish these goals.

Outlawing the Ownership of Handguns Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Outlawing the Ownership of Handguns - Essay Example For Americans, any firearm represents equality and individualism. The Second Amendment to the US Constitution provides that ‘A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed’ (Rights of the People). All fifty of the United States have laws recognizing the right to bear arms as contained in the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. By virtue of the Second Amendment and the Constitutions of at least 44 US states recognize ‘the right to use arms for defense’ (The War Against Handguns). Moreover, a survey conducted by Lawrence Research in 1998 reveals that ‘by an 8:1 margin, Americans believe you have the right to use a handgun to defend yourself in your own home. By a 3:1 margin, people believe that to fight crime, getting tough with criminals is more effective than banning guns’. This trend and ideology within the American legal culture to recognize a right to armed self-defense has been criticized for many reasons. The most obvious relates to the incidents of handgun related crimes and the potential for accidental death and serious injury Professor Friedland of the University of Toronto does not feel that the protection of life, liberty or property is sufficient to justify possession of a handgun or any type of firearm. He maintains that ‘Citizens should rely on the police, security guards, and alarm systems for protection.’

Nano-Thermal Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Nano-Thermal Analysis - Essay Example hydrate & solvent 4) Assay development UV, HPLC, TLC 5) Stability      Ã‚  Ã‚   In Solution Thermal, hydrolysis, pH   Ã‚  Ã‚   In solid state Oxidation, proteolysis metal ion Derived properties    6) Microscopy Particle size and morphology 7) Bulk density Tablet and capsule formation 8) Flow properties Tablet and capsule formation 9) Compression properties Acid / excipient choice 10) Excipient compatibility Preliminary screen by DSC, Conformation by TLC POLYMORPHIC COMPOUNDS There are certain compounds that exist in more then one crystalline forms, this property is called polymorphism. Its evaluation is desirable during pre-formulation studies if the drug constitutes the major portion of the dosage form. Only one form of the polymorphic compound is thermodynamically active at a given temperature and pressure. Techniques for investigation for the stable form of polymorphs are microscopy (hot stage microscopy, X-ray diffraction, IR spectrophotometer, thermal analysis and dilalo metry.(Brittain,2009) THERMAL ANALYSIS It is the branch of science that deals with the properties of material that change with temperature. For the measurement of such properties various methods are used. the techniques all follow the change of specific physical property by the change of temperature or time in the specifically controlled environment, since moisture and temperature are the basic factors effecting the stability of the pharmaceutical compounds thus we take temperature to measure various parameters.(Menczel,2009) Thermal analysis Instrumental technique for describing various properties General method Acronym Property measured Application Differential scanning calorimetry DSC ?T, differential power input Measurement of kinetics Differential thermal analysis DTA ?T chemistry, pharmaceuticals, polymers Thermo- gravimetric Analysis TGA Mass composition, extent of cure, stability Thermo-mechanical Analysis TMA Length or volume Shear and torsion modulus of films, fibers, lami nates adhesives Dynamic mechanical Analysis DMA Viscoelastic properties rheological properties Dielectric Analysis DEA Dielectric properties isothermal crystallization Nano/micro-thermal Analysis n-TA Penetration, ?T Surface properties of solid dosage form THERMAL ANALYSIS OF PHARMACEUTICAL MATERIALS AND POLYMERS Techniques such as DSC, TG can investigate the transformation during polymorphic conversion.TGA is often used to measure residual solvents and moisture and solubility of the active materials in solvents. Polymers represent another large are for the application of thermal analysis, analysis of composite material such as glass or epoxy composites, analysis of raw material of packaging, effects of additives used in packaging material determined.TGA can also be used for fiber content determination of the composite. NANO-THERMAL ANALYSIS it is the local thermal analysis technique that allows obtaining understanding of thermal behavior of the materials combined with high spatial resolution imaging capabilities of the Atomic Force Microscopy with a spatial resolution

Effective support for information users Essay Example for Free

Effective support for information users Essay Customers are an asset for any organization and to satisfy and retain them is every organization’s goal. The only way to achieve this goal is to build proper relationships with your customer through providing them appropriate customer service when ever they require. Customer gives you business because it is a cycle, if you fulfill your customer need then he will spread a good word of mouth for your organization otherwise they will give you a real hard time. Information technology has great importance in the business world today because the environment is very uncertain therefore innovation needs to be implemented rapidly. Every day we see something or the other coming up with new technology and to survive in this competent world we all have to cope with technological advancements, therefore customers tend to purchase technologically advanced products easily but the difficulty is in understanding the ways to operate these products. This is where they need help and it is a chance for the organizations to retain customers because customer will only stick to the brand which is providing him proper customer service. For this purpose IT organizations have customer service centers so that they can provide their customers with appropriate assistance. The bottleneck is faced when the employees on desk at the customer service center are not able to entertain the customers with what they want. This is usually due to the lack of information employees hold regarding the product and this leads the organization towards losing their customers. (Hoffman). Therefore in order to remove this bottle neck, the organizations should provide their customers with best service, for which they need to consider following strategies: Strategies to ensure that your customers are getting adequate technical support 1) Hire the right people with excellent communication skills. 2) Train your employees so that they are well aware of the product specifications and can easily deliver the information to the customer 3) Employee people with calm and good attitude because customers may be very frustrated or harsh at times still the employee has to remain very tranquil with him in order to avoid any further dilemma. 4) A company should make sure that on desk personnel are well aware of their goals, that is, they believe that it is their duty to entertain more and more customers, understand their needs and interact with them to provide more and more information so that they are satisfied. (Bayan) 5) Customers should be provided with a detailed guide book as well so that they can better understand the product and do not face any hurdles. 6) Customer should be provided with a very comfortable and friendly environment and he should be given great importance so that he can feel that the company really cares for his needs. (Anonymous) Socio-Technical Structure Socio technical structure is an organizational design which consists of a combination of people and technology. It includes the habits and attitudes of people; the way they interact and behave. The technical aspect of this structure includes the machinery processes and physical management. This structure includes hardware, software, people, surroundings data and data structure, law and regulations and procedures. According to this system all the needs of an employee should be identified and met which they bring along to the workplace. This system helps in motivating employees and raises their performance level by taking care of the characteristics that comprises social system. These characteristics involve their communication, involvement, performance, and team work, attitudes, behavior and job satisfaction. This system is emerged overtime through the employees of the organization and thus represents the culture of an organization and its social setup. (Whitworth) As socio technical system includes face to face work, which includes customer service therefore ensuring that your customers are getting adequate technical support and thus it is related to the socio technical structure because it fulfills the requirements, social as well as technical. Providing appropriate customer service by understanding customer needs and communicating positively with them satisfies the social requirement where as giving them technical assistance, that is, to provide information regarding the technical aspects of the product satisfies technical requirements. Any technological advancement cannot be successful if the technology does not take into account the human component because ultimately humans have to interact with the technological design therefore it is important to treat people and technology together within a system. This gives rise to social and technical subsystem in which social subsystem takes into account human needs and attitudes and technical subsystem relates to the devices, procedures and technical know how. The technological and social subsystem needs to be interdependent so that the organization can deliver the best to the customers. In this way the technology offered by the organization will be according to the needs of the customers and thus it would be a perfect fit. (Whitworth) Thus the most important strategy for any company to provide adequate technical support to customers is that it should develop a socio technical structure so that the technical assistance provided to the customers are in accordance to the social needs of the customers. REFERENCES Hoffman, R. (1996) Help is Only a Phone Call Away! How to get good service. The Real World. Retrieved October 15, 2009, from http://www. animatedsoftware. com/misc/stories/jobs/dbmscntr. htm Kay, D. (2004) Show, Don’t Tell: Remote Support Best Practices and Benefits. DB Kay and Associates. Retrieved October 15, 2009, from http://www. webbuyersguide. com/bguide/Whitepaper/Wpdetails. asp? frmCQ=Ywpid=NzU3Mwcategory=723sitename= webbuyersguidekc=newstech101607src=newstech101607 Setting up a successful help deskphysical considerations (http://articles. techrepublic. com. com/5100-10878_11-5112459. html) and Try these efficiency strategies when setting up a successful help desk (http://articles. techrepublic. com. com/5100-10878_11-5112468. html). Setting up a successful help desk (http://techrepublic. com. com/5208-6230-0. html? forumID=14threadID=146337 messageID=1623851). Whitworth,B. Socio-Technical Systems. Retrieved on 23rd July 2010 from http://brianwhitworth. com/hci-sts. pdf

Suzuki Samurai :: Car Automobile Marketing Market

Suzuki Samurai In 1985, automobile company Suzuki was entering the American automobile market with the Suzuki Samurai, a lightweight off-road four-wheel drive vehicle. A dilemma that the American Suzuki Motor Corporation (ASMC) was faced with was exactly how to position the Samurai in the American market. There were several options for them to do this, each of which had unique advantages and disadvantages, however only one that would effectively maximize the sales potential for the Samurai. The first option was to position the Samurai as a sport utility vehicle (SUV). The Samurai already had the look of a "mini-jeep", and already had four-wheel drive capabilities. Standing out from all other SUVs, the Samurai was smaller, lighter, and less expensive; suggested retail was about half the price of the average SUV. Leanord Pearstein, CEO of a competing advertising agency, preferred to portray the Samurai as a "tough little cheap Jeep." Those who had already purchased the automobile had also considered buying a Jeep or other sport utility vehicles. In 1985, the sport utility vehicle market was very small. Less than 3% of automobile sales in the United States in 1985 came from SUV sales. Douglas Mazza, who headed the Samurai operation in the US, had a goal to sell 30,000 units within two years, which would exceed all SUV sales in 1984. The second option was to position the Samurai as a compact pickup truck. The market share was two and a half times the compact SUV market. This would make it easier for Suzuki to enter is they positioned the vehicle in this way. In the pickup truck market itself, Japanese trucks sold very well; they accounted for 54% of total compact pickup truck sales. If they wanted to introduce the Samurai as a truck it would be more versatile and less expensive than a subcompact car. Since custom regulations for compact pickup trucks state that there must be a 25% tariff on all trucks imported in to the US, this is ten times the amount the tariff would be for a car. Pearlstein believed that even with the high tariff it would be worth paying in the long run, however this is still a significant cost. Another positioning strategy was to sell the Samurai as a subcompact car. This market was considerably larger than the previously stated markets. Pearlstein suggested that they should market this as an alternative to the "dull" automobile, a compact car with a "cuter" look.

CVS stops selling tobacco products Essay

Reason, declared Kant, is the source and ultimate basis for morality. Morality wholly rests in pure, innate reason and not in intuition, conscience, law, or utility. The standard of morality, therefore, is inherent in the human mind; it is definable only in terms of the mind; and it is derived from one’s innerself by direct perception (Cavico & Mujtaba, 2013). According to Kant, in order to be moral, one has to be rational. â€Å"The right use of reason is directed to moral ends† (Cavico & Mujtaba, 2009). A person has to think rationally, he or she does not have think only about self-interest. As a result of that, there is no place for such thing as Ethical Egoism. People should be treated with dignity and respect. Kant presumes that human beings are rational and can utilize reason (Cavico & Mujtaba, 2009). Kant called the supreme ethical principles the Categorical Imperative. This principle is necessary element of human reason and foundation upon which rest all moral judgments (Cavico & Mujtaba, 2013). Kant’s method has three parts of testing, which are used for identification whether or not an action is moral. No matter in what kind of situation a person can be, a rational individual performs an action because he or she has a moral obligation and duty. Application of Kantian Ethical Analysis The categorical Imperative is not a principle of action itself; instead, it ethically lays down the form a moral maxim must take. Thus, said Kant, reason indicates that a moral action must have a certain form. The ethics â€Å"test† is a formal test (Cavico & Mujtaba, 2013). Literally, a person has to indicate whether his/her actions would be successful or would be considered as a self-destruction. In this case, the test will determine that situation with the company such CVS will be most likely successful. One of the main reasons that the company is doing this, is to show the public and competitors that it really cares about the health and well-being of its customers and the nation. By taking out all tobacco products from all CVS stores in the United States, the administration of the company who have main input in the way how the firm works, would really benefit. In general public might be surprised that CVS are going to aim on people’s health. In this kind of situatio n many things will change and increase in the business, things as trust and confidence would be maintained. So, action passes the  first test. The second test states that every person should be treated with dignity, respect and as a valuable and worthwhile entity (Cavico & Mujtaba, 2009).This test involves by itself shareholders, employee, employer, consumers, and society as well. In this case some people have different point of view, some of them firmly believe that they have the right to buy any products they like or to do whatever they chose to do. There is an argument, which explains that it might be unethical for the company like CVS to make people uncomfortable for purchasing tobacco products. CVS does not show any respect for smokers. They feel themselves not welcomed. According to Kantian theory CVS should need to make sure that their clients feel comfortable and welcome in the drugstores, no matter what kind of products are sold. CVS has to analyze and think about customers themselves, not only about profits, even though that basically, the idea of having business is for income purpose. To conform with the Kantian views, the company like CVS which is one of the largest drugstore chains in the United States, should pay more attention for its prosperity, rather than a little aspect of the firm to have some profits. Kant assumes that people cannot take advantage of another person. Additionally, it also explains that people cannot act and do anything without full comprehension and permission of the person. An individual needs someone’s logical, intellectual, complete agreement for this to happen. In this situation, people can think differently. Some of them can support CVS for the idea of removing tobacco products from pharmacy place, because it is ethical and some of them firmly argue with this statement. Even though that the people deeply understand that the products they were purchasing have the risks for their health and very harmful for their organisms. According to this information, the second test will definitely fail. The third test is the agent-receiver test which asks whether a rational person would accept the action or rule regardless of whether he or she was the agent or the receiver of the action (Cavico & Mujtaba, 2009). So, the main cost of this change would be a major loss in income. But people can lose their jobs, the managers and executives will feel decrease in salaries. Many employees may be in danger of losing a job. Moreover, the prices of shares of stocks will decrease, then shareholders  could be in danger of losing earnings. These are all the possible ways of banning all packs of cigarettes from CVS stores. Nevertheless, analytics of the company predicts that the benefits that CVS would get of trust and confidence would be worth the danger of losing profit. By stop selling tobacco products and removing all sweets from the drugstores as well, the firm would have to reassess how and in what kind of ways it can have its income. It will be very difficult to survive for the company, especially in the beginning of this change. It has a worse outcome than just minor loss in sales. The company would have a very negative effect from this and many people would not have a benefit as well. In this case, customers and employees would lose. Because of CVS stops selling cigarettes, as we mentioned above, many people will lose their potential jobs, therefore , the third test certainly will not pass. Only if the company will help their employees by giving them recommendation letters and providing with rà ©sumà ©/interview training, the third test might be considered as passed. But as long as, the action of CVS is going to be presented in October of this year. We still do not know whether they will help their employer or not. So, at this moment of time, this action is considered as not passed. Moral Conclusion Pursuant to Kantian Ethical Model An action is morally right if it has a certain form, and morally wrong if it does not have that form. The Form, the Categorical Imperative, is the first, supreme, fundamental principle in ethics. It is the form a moral action must have; it provides the ultimate standard by which one test can test action, rules, beliefs, and standards to determine if they are moral (Cavico & Mujtaba, 2013). Based on Kant’s ethics, the action of CVS pharmacy about removing tobacco products from the stores can be considered moral, only if it passes the Categorical Imperative tests. Some type of questions must be considered such as, is this action only benefiting the company or others as well? How would CVS feel if others performed this action? If the firm rationalized its actions, they would be moral. First of all, if everyone takes the same action that took CVS, the world will become healthy. We will not see any more death as a result of tobacco products. CVS has always functioned very well with good ratings in customers service and with high earnings. Even with a ban of tobacco in October, the company is still  one of the leading pharmacies in the country. Nevertheless, this new plan may not make everyone in society happy. Some people, most likely smokers think that this ban is unfair and unethical, but managers and executives thought that it was the right step for the healthy future and for the business. As a result of this decision, the company will gain trust from its consumers, which will result in a more successful firm. In other words, smokers will not be treated equally with other people with respect and dignity, therefore the second test will fail. Overall, if CVS will take care of people who probably will lose their jobs, the third test can be considered as passed. Despite the problems with Kantian ethics, Kant’s very important accomplishment was to underscore, and to appreciate, people as free, rational, moral beings, with individuals rights and self-im posed duties to respect others (Cavico & Mujtaba, 2013). In conclusion, CVS’s incredible decision involves long term perspective and sacrifices. The administration of the company has a solid strategy of how to operate the company and all of the stores. With a great plan on operations, they are able to have a successful business. As long as, it is such a large company, these changes will be beneficial, even with some people against the stores, unless there is another major change to products in the near future.