Purpose of correctly receiving Essay

1.  Conference calls This function allow us to have a conversation with more then one person. This would be use when managers want to talk about important subject with other brunches. Transfer This function allow to transfer caller to another department. It can be used when we the caller want to speak with the manager or person from different department. 2. Prepare a brief report advising people on: How to follow organisational procedures when making and receiving telephone calls The purpose of giving a positive image of yourself and your organisation when making and receiving telephone calls. If possible, use specific information from procedures in your own organisation (or one that you are familiar with). Almost every business have procedures how to answer or receive telephone calls. When the person is answering the phone is automatically responsible for positive or negative reputation of the business, that’s why is very to follow those procedures promptly to achieve a professional standards. Answering a call from my customer I always answering after one or two rings, I have pen and paper ready just in case I need to make a note or take a message. Then I politely greeting a caller giving my name and company, then  asking how can I help, if the call is not for me I am taking message, writing the caller name and message. I always ending the conversation with a summary just in case I understand correctly every part of the conversation, then politely thanks for call with good bye and hang up. Giving positive image is also important, because this depends weather customer will stay or go somewhere else. We can create a positive image if we will deal with callers efficiently, which means we have to know exactly what we are doing and how to use phone system. I would create a positive image with positive attitude towards all customers. I would answer the phone with a smile and kindly greeting. I would also try to identify the callers and his needs, the I would deal with it with polite manners and I would try my best to help. Secondly I would speak naturally with sensible speed to make sure the caller understand properly, then I would repeat information if necessary and summarise all the points from the conversation with the caller. Lastly I would thank the caller for his call and his time then end the conversation appropriately. If we fail to give a positive image during a phone conversation this can be very harmful for the business even more the business cane loose lots of money which could effect employees as well. The business can have a bad reputation which means that the customer will not consider cooperation with the business in the future. Section 2 – Understand how to handle mail 1. Explain the purpose of correctly receiving, checking and sorting mail and packages (both incoming and outgoing). Mail is important for successful business. It is used to transfer material, equipment and invoices from suppliers to business by post, secondly is used to provide important documents, invoices or products to the customers. One or more people could be responsible fro receiving, checking and sorting mail and packages. It must be done very carefully, otherwise the mail could not reach the recipient on time and the consequence could be that the recipient will not pay the outstanding invoice on time and could be charged for late payment. Poor mail handling could lead to loss of important documents/invoices, delays in mails, delivered mail to wrong person, additionally payment could be lost and materials or parts not being delivered on time. Finally poor mail handling could lead to dissatisfied customers (they could leave), to loss of money and sometime to business closure. 2. Complete the table below with the following information: At least two examples of internal mail services that are available to organisations At least two examples of external mail services that are available to organisations Internal mail services External mail services 1. Internal post – it is used to deliver mail between departments and branches, is sent in unsealed A4 envelopes. Confidential letters are labelled. 1. Royal Mail. This is most popular mail service in Uk. It offer wide range of mailing option to suit customers needs. 2. Intranet – mail is circulate electronically. 2. P4D is a private courier service. It help find a right courier service for urgent, big and heavy items. Sometimes is cheaper then Royal Mail.

Bite Me: A Love Story Chapter 15

15. Head in the Clouds and Vice Versa TOMMY It was the words that brought Tommy back. For a week with the clutter of vampire cats, and for several weeks before, while trapped inside the bronze statue, the words had left Tommy. His mind had gone feral, as had his body after he escaped. For the first time since Jody had turned him, he turned to his instincts, and they had led him to the huge, shaved vampire cat Chet and his vampire progeny. Running with them he learned to use his vampire senses, had learned to be a hunter, and with them, he took blood prey for the first time: mice, rats, cats, dogs, and, yes, people. Chet was the alpha animal of the pack, Tommy the beta male, but Tommy was quickly reaching a level of where he would be a challenge to Chet's position. Ironically, it was Chet who led him back to the words, which led him back to his sanity. In the cloud, merged with the other animals, he felt what they felt, knew what they knew, and Chet knew words, put words to concepts and experiences the way a human did, the very thing that had kept Tommy from being able to turn to mist in the first place. As a human, with grammar hardwired into his brain, he put a word to everything, and as a writer, if he couldn't put a word to an experience it had no value for him. But to become mist, you simply had to BE. Words got in the way. They separated you from the condition. Feline Chet had not been a creature of words, as his kitty brain was not wired to file that kind of information, but as a vampire, a vampire sired by the prime vampire, his brain had changed, and concepts carried words for him now. As the cloud of hunters was streaming under the door to attack the Emperor (toward the smell of dog and recognition, for Chet had known the Emperor in life) the word â€Å"dog† fired across Chet's kitty mind, and in turn across the minds of all of the hunters, but for Tommy, it was transformational, as words, meaningless to the cats, cascaded across his mind, bringing with them memories, personality, identity. He materialized out of the cloud in the dark storeroom, where he could see the Emperor in heat signature, huddled in a corner, holding his knife at the ready. Even if the room had been light, Tommy moved so quickly it would have been hard for the Emperor to see what was happening. The vampire scooped up the old man, stuffed him into the barrel, crimped on the lid with a grip that crushed the metal edges, then placed the barrel so the weight would rest on the lid. Instinct and experience told Tommy that the hunters wouldn't find enough space inside to materialize as a whole, so even though the barrel was not air tight, the Emperor would be safe as long as the lid remained intact. There wasn't enough room in there, literally, to swing a cat, and that would save the old man. Tommy melted back into the cloud and moved out of the room, trying to will the concept of danger to the rest of the hunters, putting an image to Chet's word â€Å"dog† that the kitty minds would recognize, and slowly, the vampire cloud, its various tendrils having tested the room for prey and finding none accessible, snaked back under the door and away to look for blood that wasn't sealed so tight or smelled quite so dangerous. They streamed up the elevator shaft, through the building, and out onto the street, where a few cats and Tommy solidified and dropped out of the cloud. Tommy, self-conscious now, looked around, realizing that he was naked. Everything he'd experienced from the time he'd been released from the bronze shell was a sensory blur in his memory, now that he was thinking in words again. But he remembered the Emperor, who had been one of the first people he'd met in the City, and who had been kind to him; had in fact gotten him his job at the Safeway, where he'd met Jody. Jody. Both words and instinct overwhelmed him at the thought of her, memories of joy and pain as pure as the hunter state of mind. He searched in a whirlwind of words and images for a way to contain her. Jody. Need. That was the word. He'd need clothes and language to move in the world where he'd find Jody. He didn't know why he knew that, but he knew it. But first he needed to feed. He loped down the sidewalk after the hunter-cloud, tuned again for prey, and for the first time in weeks, the word blood lit up in his brain. The words brought him back. THE NOTORIOUS FOO DOG â€Å"Your car's all fucked up,† explained Cavuto. â€Å"I know,† said Stephen â€Å"Foo Dog† Wong. He stood aside and the two policemen walked by him into the loft. â€Å"Your jackets are done.† â€Å"Your apartment's all fucked up, too,† observed Cavuto, looking at the plywood fastened across the front of the loft where the windows used to be. â€Å"And full of rats,† added Rivera. â€Å"Dead rats,† said Cavuto, shaking one of the plastic boxes with the lid taped on. The rat inside rolled around like-well-like a dead rat. â€Å"They're not dead,† said Jared. â€Å"It's daytime. They're undead.† Jared wore a SCULL-FUCK SYMPHONY band T-shirt, over skin-tight black girl's jeans, with flesh-colored ACE elastic bandages running from midcalf to the midsole of his black Chuck Taylors. His Mohawk had been lacquered into magenta Statue of Liberty spikes. Cavuto looked at him and shook his head. â€Å"Kid, even in the gay community there are limits to tolerance.† â€Å"I hurt my ankles,† whined Jared. Foo nodded. â€Å"We've had a few rough days.† â€Å"I gathered,† said Rivera. â€Å"Where's your creepy girlfriend?† â€Å"She's not creepy,† said Jared. â€Å"She's complex.† â€Å"Home,† said Foo. â€Å"As was agreed in her black covenant with you,† said Jared, as ominously as he could manage. â€Å"Did you get an English accent all of a sudden?† asked Cavuto. â€Å"He does that when he wants to sound more Gothic,† said Foo. He was trying to stand in front of the ruins of the bronze statue of Jody and Tommy, but since it was twice his size, he only drew attention to it. Rivera pulled a pen from his jacket and ran it over the sawed edges of the bronze shell and pulled it back with the red-brown clot on it. â€Å"Mr. Wong, what the hell happened here?† â€Å"Nothing,† said Jared, without an English accent. Foo looked from one inspector to the other, hoping they would see how hopelessly smarter he was than them, and give up, but they wouldn't look away. They just kept looking at him like he was in trouble. He went to the futon that served as their couch, pushed a bunch of boxes of undead rats to the floor, sat down, and cradled his face in his hands. â€Å"I thought I'd found some kind of scientific bonanza, a new species, a new way for a species to reproduce-hell, maybe I have, but everything's so out of control. The fucking magic!† Rivera and Cavuto moved to the middle of the room, and stood over Foo. Rivera reached down and squeezed his shoulder. â€Å"Focus, Stephen. What happened here? Why is there blood all over that statue?† â€Å"They were in there. Tommy and Jody. Abby and I had them bronzed when they were out during the day.† â€Å"Then they never left town like you said?† asked Cavuto. â€Å"No, they had been in there all the time. Abby said that it wouldn't be bad for them, that when they were in mist form it was like they were dreaming. Mist form! What the hell is that? It's not possible.† â€Å"And you felt bad so you cut them out?† said Rivera. â€Å"No, Jared let Jody out.† â€Å"Totally by accident,† said Jared. â€Å"She was kind of a bitch about it, too.† Foo explained about Jared releasing Jody, Abby and Jody releasing Tommy, Jody throwing Tommy through the windows, and Tommy running off into the night, naked. â€Å"So he's out there,† Foo said. â€Å"They're both out there.† â€Å"We know,† said Cavuto. â€Å"You do?† Foo looked up for the first time. â€Å"You knew?† â€Å"She was seen at the Fairmont Hotel, and we found bags of blood in a room there. We'll find her. But the Emperor saw Tommy Flood, naked, sleeping with all the vampire cats. He said that the one cat, Chet, isn't really a cat anymore. Explain that, science boy.† Foo nodded. â€Å"I figured something like that might happen. The rats are smarter.† â€Å"That helps,† said Cavuto. â€Å"No, what I've found is that the vampire blood carries characteristics of the host species. The further from the prime vampire, the old vampire that turned Jody, or that's who we think is the prime vampire, the less change takes place. Abby said that Chet was turned by the prime vampire, so he's picking up human characteristics. He's going to be stronger, bigger, smarter than any of the cat vampires. He's turning into something new.† â€Å"Something new?† â€Å"Yeah. We found it with the rats. The first ones I turned from Jody's blood are smarter than the ones I turned from those rats' blood. Each generation away from her is less and less intelligent. I mean, we haven't had time to really test them, but in just the amount of time it takes them to learn the mazes, it's clear that the innate intelligence is higher in those closer to the human vampire sire. And they're stronger, because Jody was only one generation from the prime vampire. I thought I'd figured an algorithm that described it, but then they all turned to mist and merged and fucked up everything.† â€Å"Sure,† said Cavuto, â€Å"we'll nod and act like we have some idea of what you're talking about until you tell us what the hell you're actually talking about.† Foo got up and waved for them to follow him into the bedroom. There was a plywood maze that covered the entire bed, with small blue LEDs dimly lighting every intersection. A sheet of Plexiglas covered the top. â€Å"The UV LEDs are to keep them from turning to mist and escaping the maze,† Foo said. â€Å"It's not enough to hurt them, just keep them solid.† â€Å"Oh good, a toy city,† said Cavuto. â€Å"We have time for this.† Foo ignored him. â€Å"The rats who were turned from Jody's blood learned the maze more quickly, and remembered it faster than the ones turned from rat blood. It was consistent, until they all got loose and merged into a single cloud. After that, they all knew the maze, even if we had never put them in it.† Rivera bent down and pretended to be examining the maze. â€Å"What are you saying, Stephen?† â€Å"I think that they share a consciousness when they are together in mist form. What one knows, the others know. After they had merged, they all knew the maze.† Rivera looked at Cavuto and raised his eyebrows. â€Å"The Emperor thought that Tommy Flood was in the same cloud as the vampire cats.† â€Å"We're fucked,† said Cavuto. Rivera looked at Foo for confirmation. â€Å"Are we fucked?† Foo shrugged, â€Å"Well, from what I could tell, Tommy wasn't really that bright.† Rivera nodded. â€Å"Uh-huh, and if your girlfriend didn't have a crush on him, would we be fucked?† Foo flinched a little, then recovered. â€Å"I think they'd be limited by the brain capacity of the species, so the vampire cats would be still be cats, but they'd be very smart. Chet, on the other hand-â€Å" â€Å"We're fucked,† said Cavuto. â€Å"Say it.† â€Å"Scientifically speaking, yes,† said Jared, who stood in the doorway of the bedroom. â€Å"How do we stop them?† asked Rivera. â€Å"Sunlight. UV light will do it,† said Foo. â€Å"You have to find them while they're dormant or they'll just run away. They're not invulnerable to physical damage. If they're dismembered or decapitated it will kill them.† â€Å"You did experiments on that?† asked Cavuto. Foo shook his head. â€Å"We had some accidents when we were trying to get them back in their cages, but I'm basing that hypothesis on Abby's description of the swordsman who showed up in the street.† â€Å"He sounds badass,† said Jared. â€Å"Did you find him?† Cavuto took Jared by a hair spike, steered him into the corner, faced him there, then turned back to Foo. â€Å"So, these jackets you made us, they'll take them out?† â€Å"If you're close enough. I'd say they're lethal to about twelve feet. I suppose I can rig something higher intensity, like a high-capacity UV laser flashlight. You could cut them down from a distance with something like that.† â€Å"Light sabers!† said Jared, his voice going up. He hopped around in excitement, then winced at the pain in his ankles. â€Å"Ouch.† â€Å"That's it,† said Cavuto. â€Å"You're too much of a nerd to be gay. I'm contacting the committee. They'll revoke your rainbow flag and you will not be permitted anywhere near the parade.† â€Å"There's a committee?† â€Å"No,† said Rivera. â€Å"He's fucking with you.† Rivera turned back to Foo. â€Å"What about something that will work on a wider basis-like a vaccine or something?† Foo thought for a second. â€Å"Sure, what is it, Tuesday? I'm curing Ebola in the morning, but I can work on your vampire vaccine after lunch.† Rivera smiled. â€Å"People are dying, Steve. Lots of people. And the only people who have a chance to stop it are in this room.† â€Å"Not you,† Cavuto said to Jared. â€Å"Bitch,† Jared replied. â€Å"I'll work on it,† said Foo. â€Å"But it's not as bad as you think it is.† â€Å"Brighten our day, kid,† said Cavuto. â€Å"They can't all handle it. Four out of every ten animals that are turned vampire don't survive to the second night. They either just break down on the spot-sort of decay from the inside, or they go crazy-it's like the heightened senses overwhelm them and they just have sort of a seizure that scrambles their brains and they end up with no survival instincts. They don't feed or hide from the light. The first sunrise after they're turned burns them up. It's like accelerated evolution, taking out the weak the very first day.† â€Å"So you're telling me what?† â€Å"The cat cloud won't grow exponentially. And the only way it will pass to other species is if they bite their attacker during the attack and ingest vampire blood-that's why you haven't had any more human vampires.† â€Å"Then why no dog vampires?† asked Cavuto. â€Å"I'm guessing the cats tear them apart before they change,† said Foo. â€Å"I'm not a behavioral guy, but I'd guess there's no brotherhood among vampires. If you're a vampire cat, you're essentially still a cat. If you're a vampire dog, you're still a dog.† â€Å"Except for Chet,† said Rivera. â€Å"Who is kind of a cat plus something else.† â€Å"Well, there are anomalies,† said Foo. â€Å"I told you, this is very fuzzy science. I don't like it.† Rivera's phone chirped and he flipped it open and looked at the screen. â€Å"The Animals,† he said. â€Å"And?† asked Cavuto. â€Å"They're at a butcher shop in Chinatown. They say they have a way to kill the vampires but they can't find them.† â€Å"We can take them Marvin. Tell them we're on the way.† Rivera held the phone like it was a foul dead thing. â€Å"I don't know how.† Foo snatched the phone out of Rivera's hand, nine-keyed a message, hit SEND, and handed it back. â€Å"There, you're on the way. I thought you said the only people who could fix this were in this room.† â€Å"They are, and now they're leaving.† â€Å"Don't forget your sun jackets,† said Jared. â€Å"We charged the batteries and everything. Do you think you'll be able to turn them on, or should I come along to help?† â€Å"He's a kid.† Rivera grabbed Cavuto's arm. â€Å"You can't hit him.† â€Å"That's it, kid. You're out of the tribe. If I hear you've touched a penis, even your own, I'm sending you to butch lesbian jail.† â€Å"They have that?† Rivera looked past his partner at Jared and nodded, slowly, seriously. KATUSUMI OKATA The burned-up white girl was not healing very quickly and Okata was running out of blood. All he seemed to do was watch her, sketch her, and squeeze his blood into her mouth. While her red hair had returned, and most of the ash had flaked away to reveal white skin underneath, she was still wraith-thin, and she only seemed to breathe two or three times an hour. During the day, she didn't breathe at all, and he thought that she might be dead forever. She had not opened her eyes, and had made no sound except a low moan when he was feeding her, which subsided as soon as he stopped. He was not feeling well himself, and on the second day he became light-headed and passed out on the mat beside her. If she did come alive as a demon, he'd be too weak to defend himself and she would drain the last drops of his life. Strangely, he was not okay with that. He needed to eat and recover and she needed more blood. â€Å"We will have to find a balance,† he said to the white girl in Japanese. He had been talking to her more lately, and found that he no longer flinched at the sound of his voice inside the little apartment that had been without a human voice for so long. A balance. When it was light and she had been still for an hour, he locked up his little apartment, took his sword, and walked into Chinatown, feeling ashamed of the little, old-man steps he was taking because he had become so weak. Perhaps he would actually go into a restaurant and have some tea and noodles, sit until his strength returned. Then he would find a better way to feed the burned-up white girl. He only spoke a dozen words of Cantonese, despite having lived near Chinatown for forty years. They were the same dozen words he spoke in English. He told his students at the dojo it was because Bushido and the Japanese language were inseparable, but in fact, it was because he was stubborn and didn't really like talking to people. His words were: hello, good-bye, yes, no, please, thank you, okay, sorry, and suck my dick. He made it a rule, however, to only say the last three in junction with please and/or thank you, and had only broken that rule once, when a thug in the Tenderloin tried to take his sword and Okata forgot to say please before fracturing the man's skull with the sheathed katana. Sorry, he'd said. It had been over a week since Okata had been to the dojo in Japantown. His students would think he was testing them, and when the time came to face them, he would say through his translator that they should learn to sit. Should learn patience. Should anticipate nothing. Anticipation was desire and didn't the Buddha teach that desire was the cause of all suffering? Then he would proceed to trounce each and every one of them with the bamboo shinai as an object lesson in suffering. Thank you. He didn't care much for prepared Chinese food, but Japantown was too far to walk, and Japanese food in his neighborhood was too expensive. But noodles are noodles. He'd eat just enough to get his strength back, then he would buy a fish, maybe some beef to help replace his blood, and take them home and prepare them. After he slurped down three bowls of soba and drank a pot of green tea at a restaurant named Soup, he made his way to the butcher. Near the old man who sat on a milk crate playing a Gaohu, a two-string, upright fiddle that approximated the sound of someone hurting a cat, the swordsman passed two policemen, who had paused as if considering whether they should give money to the old fiddler or whether it might not be better for everyone if they just Tased him. They smiled and nodded to Okata and he smiled back. They were mildly amused by the little man in the too-short plaid slacks, fluorescent orange socks, and an orange porkpie hat, who they had seen walking the City since they were boys. It never occurred to them that he was anything but an eccentric street person, or that the walking stick with which he measured his easy strolls, wasn't a walking stick at all. It took considerable pointing and pantomime to get the Chinese butcher to understand that he wanted to buy blood, but once he did, Okata was surprised to find out not only was it available, but it was available in flavors: pig, chicken, cow, and turtle. Turtle? Not for his burned-up white girl. How dare the butcher even suggest such a thing? She would have beef, and maybe a quart or two of pig, because Okata remembered reading once that human flesh was called â€Å"long pig† by Pacific island cannibals, so pig blood might be more to her liking. The butcher taped the lids on eight, one-quart plastic containers containing all the nonturtle blood he had, then carefully stacked them in a shopping bag and handed them to a woman at the cash register. Okata paid her the amount on the register, picked up the bag, and was pocketing the change when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned. No one there. Then he looked down: a tiny Chinese grandmother dressed in thug-wear that made her look vaguely like a hip-hop Yoda. She said something to him in Cantonese, then said something to the butcher, then to the woman behind the counter, who pointed at the shopping bag, then she said something else to Okata. Then she put a hand on his shopping bag. â€Å"Thank you,† Okata said in Cantonese. He bowed slightly. She didn't move. Being confronted by a Chinese grandmother while shopping in Chinatown was not unusual. In fact, more than once he'd had to push through a dog pile of Sino-matrons to simply buy a decent cabbage, but this one seemed to want what Okata had clearly already purchased. He smiled, bowed again, just slightly, said, â€Å"Good-bye,† and tried to push past her. She stepped in front of him, and he noticed, as he should have before, that a whole group of young men stepped in behind her; seven of them, Anglo, Hispanic, black, and Chinese, they all looked slightly stoned, but no less determined. The old lady barked something at him in Cantonese and tried to grab his bag. Then the young men behind her stepped up. THE ANIMALS â€Å"Have you been washed in the blood?† said Clint, the born-again ex-heroin addict to the detectives as they entered the butcher shop. He grinned over his shoulder. Clint was splattered head to toe with blood. Everyone in the shop was splattered with blood except the two uniform cops, who were trying to keep the three groups-the customers, the butchers, and the Animals-separated. They had the Animals lined up opposite the counter, facing the wall, their hands restrained with zip ties. â€Å"Inspector, these guys say they're supposed to meet you here,† said the younger of the uniforms, a gaunt, Hispanic guy named Muà ±ez. Rivera shook his head. â€Å"He started it,† said Lash Jefferson. â€Å"We were just minding our own business, and he rolled up on us all badass.† Rivera looked at the Asian officer, John Tan, who he'd worked with before when investigating a murder in Chinatown and had needed a translator. â€Å"What happened?† Tan shook his head and pushed his hat back on his head with the end of his riot baton. â€Å"Nobody's hurt. It's beef and pig blood. The butcher says these guys attacked a little old Japanese man, a regular customer, because he had bought the last of the beef blood.† â€Å"We needed it for bait,† said Lash. â€Å"You know, Inspector, like beer for slugs.† He winked. â€Å"You attacked an old man because he bought the last cow blood?† asked Cavuto. â€Å"He attacked us,† said Troy Lee. â€Å"We were just defending ourselves.† â€Å"He had a sword,† said Drew, who turned back around quickly. Officer Tan rolled his eyes at Rivera. â€Å"The butcher says the old man had a stick of some kind. He used it to defend himself.† â€Å"Just because he didn't draw it out of the scabbard doesn't meant it wasn't a sword,† said Jeff, the tall, blond jock. â€Å"It was a battle of honor,† said Troy Lee. â€Å"One little old guy with a stick, seven of you?† said Rivera. â€Å"Honor?† â€Å"He told my grandma to suck his dick,† said Troy. â€Å"Still,† said Cavuto. â€Å"But she said okay,† Troy said. â€Å"That shit is just wrong,† said Lash. Grandma, who was standing with the other outraged, blood-splattered customers across the butcher shop, fired off a volley of Cantonese at the policemen. Rivera looked to Officer Tan for translation. â€Å"She says she misunderstood what he was saying because his accent was so bad.† â€Å"Don't care,† said Rivera. â€Å"Where's the guy with the alleged stick?† â€Å"He ran out before we got here,† said Tan. â€Å"We called in backup, but we put the responding unit on finding the victim, when these guys didn't resist.† â€Å"Resistance is futile,† said Clint in a robot voice. â€Å"I thought you were Christian,† said Cavuto. â€Å"What, I can't love Jesus and Star Trek?† â€Å"Oh for fuck's sake. Rivera, let's just arrest these morons and-â€Å" Rivera held up his hand for silence. â€Å"Officer Tan, I'm afraid I do need them. You have their names if the stick guy shows up and wants to press charges. Have all those people leave their names with the butcher. These guys will pay for their dry cleaning.† â€Å"Yes, sir,† said Tan. â€Å"They're all yours. You want me to clip the restraints?† â€Å"Nope,† said Rivera. â€Å"Come along, boys.† He led the Animals, their hands cuffed behind their backs, out of the butcher shop and into the flow of the Stockton Street sidewalk-a river of people. â€Å"You'd better bring Troy Lee's grandma,† said Lash, rolling to the side as a vendor with a handtruck full of crates bumped by. â€Å"Yeah, Grandma has a secret weapon,† blurted out Troy Lee. â€Å"I heard,† said Cavuto. Jeff, the tall jock, said, â€Å"Hey, did anyone wonder why a little old Japanese guy would need eight quarts of animal blood?†

Andrew Jackson as President

Jackson was the 7th president of the United States. From South Carolina, he was a bold man, fighting in the U. S Revolutionary War at age 12. His ambition later led him to politics, where he eventually became the president of the United States. As president, Jackson did many controversial things, but was admired by many of the common citizens of the country. While his morals are questionable, overall Jackson was an effective president, and benefited the country with his ideas of the Union and his expansion of democracy. One reason Jackson was an effective president is because he had the support of the people. When Andrew Jackson lost the election in 1824 he was furious. Jackson had won the popular vote, but Congress had decided John Quincy Adams would be president. After this election Jackson went on the first campaign in the history of the presidency. He travelled around the states and appealed to the common man. Jackson quickly became very popular. He was so popular that when he was elected, a riot broke out at his inauguration. The way that Jackson appealed to the common man was that he expanded the idea of democracy. Previously, the rich, white and educated were the only people voting in the United States. Power was held by a select few. Jackson expanded this system, calling on every white citizen to vote, from the rich and educated to poor farmers. Jacksonian democracy took power away from a select few and distributed it to the whole white population. It is a step towards the countries modern system, where the ability to vote is given to every citizen. While a supporter of states rights, Jackson is known for his loyalty to the union. He did not support the idea of states rights to nullification, even while he was a slave owner and would benefit from the law. At a dinner party, Jackson announced his views on the union, surprising everyone present by toasting it and stating that it must be preserved. When South Carolina announced it was prepared to break away from the union, Jackson wrote to its people and calmed them, averting war. Much of what Jackson wrote on the union was used thirty years later by Abraham Lincoln during the civil war. His opinion about the union helped keep the country together, even after he was out of office. While Andrew Jackson had questionable morals at times, his contribution to the country through his expansion of democracy and his opinion on the union makes him an effective president. The rich white members of congress thought he was unfit for the job, but he had the support of the people. Because had to make a name for himself instead of being born into a political family, he understood and grew popular with the common people. He also must be credited with protecting the union, as his words helped bring peace to the nation in two important situations. Andrew Jackson was the first president of his kind. He made radical decisions in the way the country was run during his terms in office. While many of these contribute poorly to his reputation, he helped the United States grow as a nation.

Poet Gwendolyn Brooks Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Poet Gwendolyn Brooks - Research Paper Example (Bigsby 23) At the age of seventeen, she started to publish poem regularly. As a first black woman, she served the position of â€Å"poetry consultant to the Library of Congress† and â€Å"poet laureate of the State of Illinois† (Gates 2). Among the Brookss works, lots of are written regarding to the â€Å"civil rights activism† of contemporary society. George E. Kent, the provider of Dictionary of Literary Biography, says that she holds an exceptional place in American literature (30). In Modern Black Poets: A Collection of Critical Essays, Richard K. Barksdale mentioned that the poems in A Street in Bronzeville and Annie Allen that won Pulitzer Prize, are loyal to miniature and abrupt representation â€Å"of the black urban poor† (Kufrin 67). Maud Martha, the detail about black woman’s existence in a short form and the first and only novel by Brooks, published in the 1950. Another remark about Maud Martha by David Littlejohn, in his Black on White : A Critical Survey of Writing by American Negroes, reflects that it is an outstanding human research (Littlejohn 78). In the â€Å"New York Times Book Review†, Toni Cade Bambara stated that when she was fifty years old â€Å"something happened to Brooks† and readers can get the evidence of that in â€Å"In the Mecca† and later works (Poetry Foundation). While Brooks’ poems â€Å"The Mother†, â€Å"The Crazy†, â€Å"Sadie and Maud†, and â€Å"To be In Love† comparatively work out the theme of a woman’s awkward, restricted and subservient situation in the society, in contrast, the poem â€Å"the Independent Man† upholds a man’s freedom (Evans 38). But all these five poems together highlight the inferiority of woman and the awkwardness and the inertia that a woman feels in the male dominated society. Though Gwendolyn Brooks’s poetry shows a strong commitment to her racial identity her poetic bent plays out a tone of universality through common daily

The Human Body in Renaissance Art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Human Body in Renaissance Art - Essay Example As the paper stresses  the Ancient Greek and Roman arts prompted fantasy amongst the renaissance arts leading to the preoccupation with the body offered a stark in comparison to the medieval tradition. The Renaissance arts also exhibited high levels of the value of spirit as compared to flesh thus medieval artists had intensively worked in terms of abstract and two-dimensional linear model that elaborated a deemphasized corporeality.This study highlights that there had been huge dissatisfactions amongst the earlier approach thus the fifteenth-century artists borrowed intensively from the body-conscious excellence undertaken by the ancient Greek and Roman sculpture that drew intensive inspiration from the predominant portrayal of nudity and application of massive drapery that showing articulation of the body. The renaissance arts exhibited strong inclinations towards the revelation and concealing of the limbs and torso parts.  Renaissance sculptures hugely recognised the perfected classification of mathematical ratios that aided in the process of presenting beauty to the ideal beauty of ancient art. The idea created increased levels of fascination amongst the Renaissance artists. They majorly unlocked the process through the adoption of the intense analysis of the ancient texts and also creating intensive propping of survival works of art.  There are an outlined indication that Mantegna borrowed critical insights from Greek and Roman sculptures and the beauty of the ancient art.

The Acid Rain Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Acid Rain - Research Paper Example Looking back in the history, the rate of emission of these harmful substances has increased to a very dangerous level leading to a severely polluted environment. The depletion of the ozone layer, noise pollution, global warming and acid rain are some of the dangerous affects of the increased pollution that are concerning the scientists nowadays. Acid rain has been a major concern for the scientists throughout the world after global warming. Acid rain is called as excessive quantities of acidic gases such as carbon dioxide, nitric oxide in the air. These gasses accumulate in the air increasing its ph to less than 5.6 and fall on the earth in either solid or wet forms. The wet form could be rain, fog or snow while the dry form could be the in the form of dust settling on the surface (Bubenick 1984). The effects of this falling rain and the dust settling on the surface of earth are detrimental. The causes of acid rain are mainly the excessive smoke generated by the burning of fossil fuels in the factories and the smoke emitted by the increased number of vehicles sunning on the roads. Although the fumes emitted by the volcanoes also add to this acidity but the human factor is considered more important and contributing to the increased acidity. The major gasses to contribute in the formation of acid rain are sulphur dioxide, nitric oxide and carbon dioxide. These gasses combine with the water droplets in the air and form acids such as sulphuric and nitric acid. The acids formed as a result come down on the earth in the form of rain, snow or fog (Bubenick 1984). The detrimental effects of acid rain are observed on all the aspects of human life and the environment. The major effects observed are on the water life of earth. The water that is falling on the earth follows down in the form of streams and channels to the seas and increased the acidity of all these water channels kill the aquatic life including the frogs, the fish and other small animals. These dead

Walt Disney Hall Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Walt Disney Hall - Essay Example Later that year after enough sourcing for resources, the construction took off again. What lead after that proved a disaster for the dedication of the Walt Disney himself. However, there was a complete turn of events where when the budget far exceeded the available resources. Nevertheless, there was a move to use cheaper material rather than using the originally planned bricks, but it later proved to be a blessing in disguise which prompted to the reputation of the Los Angeles’ marvel. This was because the stainless steel move was a better match for Ghery’s architectural plan for the hall. This move saw the completion of the project in the latter months of 2003. There were substantial costs accredited mainly to the parking garage itself which cost $110 million, escalating the total cost including the floors of the entire construction to $274 million. Materials and Description of Architectural and Construction Form Gehry adopts to his childhood experiences to make differ ent architectural designs for the building, using 12500 unique pieces of steel each having sole characteristics. He also uses a variety of standard bricks to go along the regular formed parts of the architectural design. For the main auditorium he uses a type of fir wood to make the floors, walls and the ceilings. This is the same type of wood used in making violas, making them appropriate for making the site for presenting such performances. For the restaurant he uses mostly clear glass to allow enough lighting to bring in the warm and accommodating qualities of a restaurant. Through this he tries to make the transition to psychological and imaginative effect on architecture. Ownership The Walt Disney Hall is primarily owned by the widowed Lillian Disney after her major contributions to the construction. Her contribution was later topped by another contributor to the construction, who was the Walt Disney Company. The company contributed about $25 million. Additionally, the Walt Dis ney family made private contributions to the project amounting to an estimated $85 million. This is evidence that the ownership of the Walt building is not well defined, but its stakeholders in shareholding comprises a number of private entities individuals and companies that made their contribution to the construction of the building. However, it is safe to stipulate that the primary owners are the Walt Disney Company, Lillian Disney and the entire Walt Disney family. According to Bell, the owners of the Walt hall are mainly business people and profit making organizations who have wanted to proceed with the dedication started by Lillian, and not just for the purpose of making profit. The building however has a variety of functions held at the venue, ranging from orchestral performances, musical performances, movies’ premiering featuring in many television series episodes and movie features. Much of the maintenance of the building is done with the proceeds from the sale of th e tickets of which usually, most of it goes to serve in the Walt Disney foundation. Functions of the Hall The Walt Hall first performance was held in 2003 during the acoustics, Daphnis and Chloe’s acoustic performance which set the way for other grand performances, performing the Sonic LA, Sound Stage and Living LA. This paved way for other prime performances to follow in the wake of a new concert hall for Los

How significant are maritime issues in the Indian Ocean in terms of Essay

How significant are maritime issues in the Indian Ocean in terms of overall global security and stability - Essay Example The Ocean is bounded by three landmasses and ranks as the world third largest ocean or water body. The Indian Ocean is a discrete geographical entity and surrounded by long-standing disagreements (Institute for Security Studies 2012). The Indian Ocean region comprises of the following nations in Africa: South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Sudan, and Egypt (Institute for Security Studies 2012). The Middle East countries include Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, and the United Arabs Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Iran. The South Asian nations include Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka (Institute for Security Studies 2012). Additionally, the South East Asia countries include Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Burma, and Thailand (Institute for Security Studies 2012). Lastly, the Island states include Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Reunion (France), Mayotte (France), Comoros, Maldives, and British Indian Ocean Territory (Institute for Security Studies 2012). The economic viability of Indian Ocean stems from its choke points. They serve as major trade routes for global oil transportation, and their disruption can cause delays in delivery of goods and services all over the world. Some of the importance choke points are discussed in subsequent paragraphs. Strait of Hormuz: This choke point is located between Oman and Iran and connects the Persian Gulf to Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea (Kopp 2012). It is considered as the global choke point because of the daily flow of oil to about 17 million barrels as at 2011 (Kopp 2012). The flow through this choke point stood at 35% of all seaborne trade, which was equivalent to 20% of worldwide oil purchased in 2011. Most of the crude oil exports went to Asian markets such as Japan, India, South Korea, and China. The chokepoint is also important to Qatar because it exports approximately two trillion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas each year, accounting for about

Social Media Marketing Plan for Automotive Dealership Assignment

Social Media Marketing Plan for Automotive Dealership - Assignment Example As the paper declares the Company is an automotive dealership company that is currently located in Los Angeles, California. The company is a partnership whereby I am one of the directors who aspire to take the company to the next level. We plan to launch the company’s website and blog so that the company can have more online presence. The business will deal with cars from various carmakers. In essence, the company will operate as an intermediary between car manufacturers and the customers so that customers can buy their preferred cars efficiently and effectively. According to the report findings considering the nature of the automobile industry, it is critical to stay in touch with the customers. The close interaction via social media sites will enhance customer satisfaction through real-time feedback and support. The company has been operational for the past five years but its profit margins have not expanded to reflect its age. In this regard, the company will adopt an online marketing plan that will see the sales skyrocket within the next five years. Social media provides the best platform for such a proposal, considering the significant number of active social media users. Over the five years that the company has been in operation, it has gained strength in many areas and suffered some weaknesses. The strengths that the company boasts of outweigh its weaknesses. The company plans to use its experience in sales and marketing to market its products and services over various social media platforms.

If a company sells its products only from an online website, which is Essay

If a company sells its products only from an online website, which is accessible to customers all over the world, does it still need to worry about having a specific target market. Explain your answer - Essay Example The paper therefore focuses on whether a company that makes online sales through a website that is accessible to clients across the world still needs to focus on maintaining a particular target market. Like it happens in life that an individual will never appeal all human beings, the same is witnessed with businesses. Despite having a website accessible to customers around the world, an organization needs to create value for defining who it requires using the goods or services it provides. Defining expected buyers remains important due the following reasons. First, through identification of a target market, a company becomes precise in its marketing as well as advertising efforts. Having an ideal client helps in strategizing specific tactics of reaching them. Specific strategies remain important during the decision-making process as decision making becomes easier and more focused saving in time as well as resources (Mooradian and Matzlerz 2012). Secondly, customers will find the business quickly. Although the website serves a global purpose where everyone can learn about the existence of an individual company, majority of individuals may fail to learn about the enterprise’s life. Customers need to have greater assurance from products and service providers that their needs and desires, as well as challenges, will be considered once they arise. The aspect of developing a virtual or physical location where customers will meet the providers of goods and services creates more confidence in customers prompting more use of products and services offered. Lastly, although referrals are made through the internet, having a particular target market establishes close association with existing clients making it easier for them to make referrals. Consequently, irrespective of the above benefits of having a target market, reaching customers throughout the

Gender Inequality Essay Example for Free

Gender Inequality Essay Femininity and masculinity are socially constructed practices that reinforce gender inequality. Among the most popular variations of the social constructionist theories is the gender role theory as an early form of social constructionism (Gergen, 1985). The focus on power and hierarchy reveals inspiration stemming from a Marxist framework, utilized for instance by materialist feminism, and Foucault’s writings on discourse. Sex is the biological differences between male and female contradicting with gender which is the culturally and socially constructed differences between female and males based on meanings, beliefs and practices that a group associates with feminity or masculinity. Emerging from the criticism of Objectivity, Social Constructionism challenges concepts of knowledge put forward by Positivism, which states that the reality and empirically-proved truths are independent of the mind. For example, Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker writes that some categories really are social constructions: they exist only because people tacitly agree to act as if they exist. † In fact, there are few scientific studies that currently support a biological basis for substantial differences between the way women and men think. Rather, research indicates there is more variation among women or men on cognitive, emotional and psychological variables than between the two groups (Fausto-Sterling, 1992). Despite this however, the idea persists that women and men are vastly different in their thinking. Hegemonic femininity, also referred to as â€Å"emphasized femininity† by some theorists, is a concept that was developed in tandem with hegemonic masculinity â€Å"to acknowledge the asymmetrical position of masculinities and femininities in a patriarchal gender order† (Connell Messerschmidt, 2005). This theory purports that males possess physical strength, the ability to use interpersonal violence in the face of conflict, and authority while females are physically vulnerable, unable to use violence effectively, and compliant (Schippers, 2007). In order for men to maintain superiority and social dominance over women, the constructs of masculinity then must remain unavailable to women. To achieve this, any feminine characteristic that does not fall in line with hegemonic femininity then must be defined as â€Å"deviant and stigmatized† (Schippers, 200). Women themselves have been made to submit to this stereotype hence leaving men to make decisions for them. Sociologists have criticized this as a misconception of meaning of gender to imply sex. Gender s not a personal trait; it is â€Å"an emergent feature of social situations: both as an outcome of and a rationale for various social arrangements, and as a means of legitimating one of the most fundamental divisions of society. † (West Zimmerman, 1977). The notion of womanhood or femininity is accomplished through an active process of creating gender through interacting with others in a particular social context. The perception of sexuality by others is an exte nsion of others’ perceptions of one’s gender. Gender is never fully acquired – it has to be constantly performed and reenacted in social interactions hence gender is an accomplishment, (Alsop, Fitzsimmons Lennon, 2002). It is frequently difficult to sort out how much of a measured difference between the sexes can be attributed to one’s biological composition and how much of the difference may be attributed to learned behavior. How do we know if the behavior is truly sex-based? In other words, is there something on the X or Y chromosome that predisposes men and women to be better in doing certain activities ? Or, could it be that people tend to be better at things they have practiced more and for which they’ve received positive reinforcement over the years? If there are no proves of chromosomal relationships or any biological connections between feminity or masculinity and activities performed. Fathers of evolution studies like Charles Dawin proved that the act of being able to perform certain activities is based on learned practice and not man or woman distinction. This stereotype has greatly led to gender disparity and the world is trying to fight the monster created by our fore fathers misconceptions. National news accounts of hazing and important evidence point toward gender differences in hazing activities. In general, a common conclusion drawn is that hazing among men is more likely to be violent in nature and hazing among women is more likely to be psychological in nature. For example, The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky (Woolhouse, 2000) quoted Gary Powell, a Maryland attorney who has represented fraternities and sororities charged with hazing as saying â€Å"females tend to be less physically violent than those involving males. Such perspectives align with and also reinforce predominant understandings of differences between women and men. Analyzing the phenomenon of hazing through the lens of gender theory provides some helpful insights on both similarities and differences in hazing behaviors between female and male groups. Gender theory contends that versions of masculinity and femininity are largely learned through a process of socialization rather than essential to one’s biological sex, (Jennifer Coates, 1996). Nevertheless, particular versions of femininity and masculinity rise to ascendancy during particular social periods. Bem (1993) points out that even while the predominant versions of masculinity and femininity may shift periodically, they generally operate as two poles of a gender binary where the masculine is positioned as active and the feminine as passive. In other words, that which is culturally defined as masculine oppositionally defines feminine. Active/passive, strong/fragile, aggressive/submissive, independent/dependent, and invincible/vulnerable are further examples of gender binaries that depict masculinity and femininity as polar opposites of a vast gender divide. While this particular construction is rooted in perceptions of ideal womanhood for white women specifically, it is relevant to all women because it remains a powerful and pervasive image or standard against which all women are often compared. Over the past few decades many writers have documented the differential treatment of boys and girls and the probable implications. Feminist scholars have long paved the way for considering how girls have been placed at a disadvantage as a consequence of gender stereotyping ( Pipher,1995). Studies in educational settings have documented gender bias, most often unintentional; teachers who simply give boys more quality attention that is likely to promote cognitive development and substantive learning. According to the Sadkers’(1994) research, even though girls and boys are sitting in the same classrooms day after day, on average, boys are receiving a better quality education than the girls. Studies have also documented how children themselves police each other’s behavior according to stereotypes (Thorne, 1997). For instance, if a young boy plays with a doll in the presence of older boys, it is likely that he will be teased and will quickly learn that having a doll is outside the bounds of acceptable masculine behavior. Sexual objectification is one of the worst results of the gender fallacy. Most societies have taken women to be sex objects. Issues of rape are more rampant in women; women are perceived to be physically and emotionally weak hence being subjected to intimidation by men. I want to be clear here that I do not consider these vulnerabilities to be innate to girls/women or boys/men, but rather a consequence of complex and powerful social forces that contribute to sustaining unequal power relations as a consequence of sexism, racism, homophobia, poverty and other systems of disadvantage that render certain groups of individuals vulnerable in particular ways. Conclusion Theories that imply that gendered behavior is totally or mostly due to social conventions and culture fall into the Nature versus nurture debate. Much empirical research has been done on to what extent gendered behavior stems from biological factorsAttending to the cultural construction of gender, homophobia, and the influences of race and social class is key to promoting more complex understandings and developing effective solutions to the problem of gender disparity. Interventions in all arenas need to take gender theory into account in order to design educational and policy initiatives that will work, (Jeremy Earp 2001). Making masculinity visible is the first step to understanding how it operates in the culture and how definitions of manhood have been linked, often unconsciously, with dominance and control.

Dhaping human behaviour Essay Example for Free

Dhaping human behaviour Essay Socialisation is the lifelong process by which human behaviour is shaped through experience in social institutions (e.g. family, which is a crucial factor in primary socialisation). Through socialization, individuals learn the values, norms (formal and informal rules), and beliefs of a given society.  In considering the nature of the self, it is necessary to include a still more fundamental social scientific issue the extent to which human beings are being formed by biological inheritance (i.e. genetic determinism), or through socialisation (i. e. cultural determinism); the issue called nature-nurture debate. Another way to put this is the difference between instinct and learned behaviour, where instinct is inherited, and learned behaviour acquired through socialisation. Sociologists does not really consider instinctive behaviour; therefore, most sociologists would only accept there are inborn needs of food, shelter and sex. Other than these three, sociologists prefer the fact that human behaviour is shaped by social experience rather than that it is biologically given.  However, although the direction of sociology is towards social explanation, there is no contradiction between social and biological explanations of behaviour. It is just a matter of empirical research by biologists, sociologists, social biologists and by other relevant subject specialists to find explanations of human behaviour. According to sociologist Charles Cooley, there are two types of socialisation: primary and secondary. Those factors that are involved in primary socialisation are usually small, involve face-to-face interaction and communication and allow the individual to express the whole self, both feelings and intellect. Usually, those factors are the family, peer groups, of close friends and closely-knit groups of neighbours. Within these groups, through personal experience, the individual learns primary values such as love, loyalty, justice, sharing, and etc. Freud claimed that the first few years of a persons life those usually spent amongst primary groups are the most important in forming the structure of the persons character. In contrast, secondary groups are usually large, more impersonal and formally organised, and exist for specific purposes. In the secondary stage, the individual learns by himself or herself more values and norms which are to be applied for the individual to fit in. This includes learning how to organise and conduct oneself in formal contexts (backgrounds) and how to behave towards people who have different degrees of status and authority. One of the crucial agents of secondary socialisation is school. Trade unions and professional associations, also secondary socialisation agents, can affect an individuals behaviour when an individual agrees to conform to the beliefs, aims and regulations of the organisation. Therefore, indirectly, the individual accepts a socialising influence on his or her conduct. In both primary and secondary groups, the mass media (e.g. radio, television, the cinema) also plays a vital part in socialising individuals. For example during primary socialisation, by watching certain cartoons, a child (although indirectly) can already be socialised of his or her gender roles, such as patriarchal ideology (e.g. where the cartoon might portray the girl as the weaker one, always being bullied and being the helpless, damsel in distress; while the boy will then be the hero). Later, during secondary socialisation, magazines (a form of mass media) can also reinforce gender roles such as saying that girls must learn to cook so that they could cook for their husbands later in marriage. One way of studying the role of society in shaping human behaviour is to examine the development of individuals who were either completely or nearly excluded from any social interaction for a period of their lives. This includes cases of those who spent most of their childhood isolated from others in the wild (such as the Wild boy of Aveyron and the two girls, Wolf children of Bengal) and those who were cut off from others through confinement (imprisonment), also during childhood (such as the cases of Anna and Isabelle). The case of the wolf children revealed that their behaviour was very similar to the wolves that had apparently raised them. They preferred raw meat, moved on all fours and lacked any form of speech. There is a more recent case described by ODonnell where a 14 year old boy found in the Syrian desert had exceptional speed and had adopted some of the behavioural characteristics of the gazelles he was found with.

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Steps

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Steps We owe the discovery of the polymerase chain reaction to Kary B Mullis in the year 1983. He was the actual proponent of PCR. Few people are aware that in 1971, Kleppe and the Nobel laureate Gobind Khorana published studies including a description of techniques that are now known to be the basis for nucleic acid replication. However, it is unfortunate that Kleppe and Khorana were ahead of their times. Oligonucleotide synthesis wasnt as simple as it is today; genes had not been sequenced and the idea of thermostable DNA polymerases had not been described. Hence, the credit for discovering the PCR remains with Kary Mullis. The Polymerase Chain Reaction is essentially a cell-free method of DNA and RNA cloning. The DNA or RNA is isolated from the cell and replicated upto a million times. At the end, what you get is a greatly amplified fragment of DNA. The PCR is quick, reliable and sensitive and its variations have made it the basis of genetic testing. WHAT KARY B MULLIS SAYS ABOUT HOW HE DISCOVERED THE POLYMERASE CHAIN REACTION I was just driving and thinking about ideas and suddenly I saw it. I saw the polymerase chain reaction as clear as if it were up on a blackboard inside my head, so I pulled over and started scribbling. A chemist friend of his was asleep in the car. Mullis says that Jennifer objected groggily to the delay and the light, but I exclaimed I had discovered something fantastic. Unimpressed, she went back to sleep. Mullis kept scribbling calculations, right there in the car. He convinced the small California biotech company, Cetus, he was working for at that time, that he was up to something big. They finally listened. They sold the patent of PCR to Hoffman-LaRoche for a staggering $300 million the maximum amount of money ever paid for a patent. Mullis meanwhile received a $10,000 bonus. BASIS OF THE METHOD The purpose of PCR is to generate a huge number of copies of a segment of DNA, which could be a gene, a portion of a gene, or an intronic region. There are three major steps in a PCR, which are repeated for 30 or 40 cycles. This is done on an automated cycler, which can either heat or cool the tubes containing the reaction mixture, as required, in a very short period of time. There are three major steps in a PCR, which are repeated for 30 or 40 cycles. DenaturationDuring this process, the double stranded DNA melts and opens to form single stranded DNA. All enzymatic reactions, such as those carried over from a previous cycle, stop. This will be explained in the next paragraph. The temperature for denaturation is not fixed but it usually occurs at about 95 °C. It is important to realize that the denaturation temperature is largely dependent on G:C (guanine:cytosine) content of the DNA fragment to be analyzed. This is reasonable when one considers that the G:C bond is a triple hydrogen bond and the AT bond is a double bond. Logic dictates that a triple bond should be 1.5 times harder to break than a double bond. Therefore, when the segment of DNA to be analyzed has a very high G:C content, the denaturation temperature can reach even upto 99 °C. AnnealingThis requires temperatures lower than those required for denaturation. In this process, the primers anneal to that very specific segment of DNA that is to be amplified. The primers are jiggling around, caused by the Brownian motion. Ionic bonds are constantly formed and broken between the single stranded primer and the single stranded template. The more stable bonds last a little bit longer (primers that fit exactly) and on that little piece of what is now double stranded DNA (template and primer); the polymerase can attach and starts copying the template. Once there are a few bases built in, the ionic bond is so strong between the template and the primer, that it does not break anymore. ExtensionThis is done at 72 °C. This is the ideal temperature for working with polymerase. The primers, which are complementary to the template, already have a strong ionic attraction to the template. This force is stronger than the forces breaking these attractions i.e. the high temperature. Primers that are on positions with no exact match (non complementary) get loose again (because of the higher temperature) and dont give an extension of the fragment. The nucleotide bases are added from the 5 end to the 3 end. The phosphate group of the dNTPs is coupled with the hydroxyl group of the extending DNA strand. The extension time depends on two factors; the type of polymerase used and the length of the DNA fragment to be amplified. Usually, Taq polymerase adds dNTPs at the rate of about 1000 bases per minute. It is important to realize that each component of the PCR including the input DNA, the oligonucleotide primers, the thermostable polymerase, the buffer and the cycling parameters has a profound impact on the sensitivity, specificity and fidelity of the reaction. The three steps of the first cycle are shown, that is, denaturation, annealing and extension. At the end of the first cycle, two strands have been synthesized. At the end of the second cycle, four strands have been synthesized (the three steps of the cycle have not been shown). At the end of the third cycle, eight strands have been synthesized. The number of strands increases exponentially with each cycle. Nuggets The Polymerase Chain Reaction is essentially a cell-free method of cloning DNA and RNA. There are three steps involved in every cycle; these are denaturation, annealing and extension. At the end of each cycle, the DNA doubles. Therefore, theoretically, if there are n cycles in a reaction, the number of DNA fragments at the end of the reaction will be 2n. COMPONENTS OF THE POLYMERASE CHAIN REACTION The components that are essential for a successful PCR are elaborated here. TEMPLATE DNA This is that portion of the DNA/gene that is to be amplified. Usually the concentration is  100 ng genomic DNA per PCR reaction. However, this can vary depending on the target gene concentration and the source of DNA. The PCR reaction is inherently sensitive. It is not necessary for the template DNA to be abundant or highly purified. Higher amounts of template DNA can increase the yield of nonspecific PCR products, but if the fidelity of the reaction is crucial, one should limit both template DNA quantities as well as the number of PCR cycles. DNA in solution may contain a large number of contaminants. These contaminants may inhibit the PCR. Some of these reagents are phenol, EDTA, and proteinase K, which can inhibit Taq DNA polymerase. However, isopropanol precipitation of DNA and washing of DNA pellets with 70% ethanol is usually effective in removing traces of contaminants from the DNA sample. Effects of Fixation This is of particular interest to the pathologist since he has to deal with formalin fixed tissue. DNA extracted from fresh tissue or cell suspensions forms an optimal template for PCR. The tissue is best stored at -70 °C at which the nucleic acids can be stored indefinitely. A temperature of -20 °C is sufficient to preserve the DNA for several months and at 4 °C, the DNA can be stored for several weeks. At room temperature, the DNA has been successfully stored for hours to days; however, mitochondrial DNA is very sensitive to temperature and may degrade in thawed tissues. DNA extracted from fixed tissue has been used successfully for PCR. The type of fixative and the duration of fixation are of critical importance. Non crosslinking fixatives like ethanol provide the best DNA. Formaldehyde is variable in its DNA yield. Carnoys, Zenkers and Bouins are poor fixatives as far as DNA preservation is concerned. Not surprisingly, formaldehyde is the fixative which has been evaluated the most, because it is more commonly used worldwide. The studies have demonstrated that a successful PCR depends on the protocol to extract the DNA and the length of fixation. Formaldehyde reacts with DNA and proteins to form labile hydroxymethyl intermediates which give rise to a mixture of end products which include DNA-DNA and DNA-protein adducts. Purification of DNA from formalin fixed tissue, therefore, includes heating to reverse the hydroxymethyl additions and treatment with a proteinase to hydrolyze the covalently linked proteins. However, there is no way to reverse the DNA-DNA links and these links inhibit the DNA polymerases. This accounts for the low PCR yield which is seen with formalin fixed tissue. Usually, the PCR reaction with formalin fixed DNA as a template yields products which are not more than 600 bp in size. Nuggets Template DNA is required in a concentration of 100ng for each PCR reaction. Contaminants in DNA may inhibit the reaction. Fixation of tissues provides DNA which is not as good as DNA obtained from fresh/ frozen tissues. Different fixatives give different DNA yields. Alcohol is the best fixative and Carnoys, Zenkers and Bouins are poor fixatives as far as DNA preservation is concerned. Formalin is intermediate in DNA yield. Purification of DNA from formalin fixed tissue involves heating to reverse the attachment of hydroxymethyl intermediates and treatment with a proteinase to hydrolyze the covalently linked proteins. The DNA obtained after fixation can be used for reactions in which the PCR product is not more than 600 bp. PCR BUFFER The purpose of using buffers in PCR is to provide optimum pH and potassium ion concentration for the DNA polymerase enzyme (usually obtained from bacteria Thermus aquaticus) to function. Most buffers are available in a 10X concentration and require dilution before use. Although most protocols recommend the final buffer concentration of 1X, a concentration of 1.5X might result in increased PCR product yield. The PCR buffer contains many components. Some important ones are discussed here: Divalent and monovalent cations These are required by all thermostable DNA polymerases. Mg2+ is the divalent cation that is usually present in most of the PCR buffers. Some polymerases also work with buffers containing Mn2+. Calcium containing buffers are ineffective and therefore, rarely used. Buffers can be divided into first and second generation buffers on the basis of their ionic component. The second generation buffers, as opposed to first generation buffers, also contain (NH4)2SO4 and permit consistent PCR product yield and specificity over a wide range of magnesium concentration (1.0 to 4.0 mM MgCl2). The overall specificity and yield of PCR products is better with second generation buffers, as compared with first generation PCR buffers. Buffers also contain KCl. Salts like KCl and NaCl may help to facilitate primer annealing, but concentration of 50 mM will inhibit Taq polymerase activity. Interactions between K+ and NH4+ allow specific primer hybridization over a broad ran ge of temperatures. Magnesium is one of the most important components of the buffer. Mg2+ ions form a soluble complex with dNTPs which is essential for dNTP incorporation; they also stimulate polymerase activity and influence the annealing efficiency of primer to template DNA. The concentration of MgCl2 can have a dramatic effect on the specificity and yield of PCR products. Optimal concentration of MgCl2 is between 1.0 to 1.5 mM for most reactions. Low MgCl2 concentration helps to eliminate non-specific priming and formation of background PCR products. This is desirable when fidelity of DNA synthesis is critical. At the same time, however, too few Mg2+ ions can result in low yield of PCR products. High MgCl2 concentration helps to stabilize interaction of the primers with their intended template, but can also result in nonspecific binding and formation of non specific PCR products. It is important to be aware that many PCR buffers (often sold in 10X stocks) already contain some amo unt of MgCl2. Therefore, the addition of further amounts must be carefully monitored. In the best possible scenario, the PCR would work well with the amount of Mg2+ already present in the buffer solution. However, if this does not occur, it is necessary to standardize the amount of Mg2+ in the reaction mix. This can be difficult because the dNTPs and the oligonucleotide primers bind to Mg2+. Therefore, the molar concentration of Mg2+ must exceed the molar concentration of the phosphate groups contributed by dNTPs and the primers. As a rule of thumb, the magnesium concentration in the reaction mixture is generally 0.5 to 2.5 mM greater than the concentration of dNTPs. The optimal concentration of Mg2+ should, therefore, be standardized for each reaction. Tris-Cl The concentration of tris-Cl is adjusted so that the pH of the reaction mixture is maintained between 8.3 and 8.8 at room temperature. In standard PCR reactions, it is usually present in a concentration of 10mM. When incubated at 72 °C which is the temperature for extension, the pH of the reaction mixture falls by more than a full unit, producing a buffer whose pH is 7.2. Other components Some buffers also contain components like BSA (Bovine serum albumin) and DMSO (dimethyl sulphoxide). BSA reduces the amount of template sticking to the side of the tube, making it available for amplification and reducing the risk of primer dimer. Primer dimers are products obtained when the primers anneal to each other instead to to the template DNA. DMSO has been shown to facilitate DNA strand separation (in GC rich difficult secondary structures) because it disrupts base pairing and has been shown to improve PCR efficiency. In effect, it is wise not to tamper with the buffer provided with the Taq polymerase. The buffer is usually standardized for the vial of Taq and there is no need to add additional MgCl2 or stabilizers like DMSO and BSA. However, some Taq buffers come with the buffer in one vial and MgCl2 in a separate vial. Under such circumstances, it is advisable to start with 1 µL of MgCl2 and increase its concentration in aliquots of 0.5  µL, if the initial reaction fails. Nuggets The PCR buffer contains divalent and monovalent cations, Tris Cl and other components. The PCR buffer is used to give the correct pH and potassium concentration for the DNA polymerase to function. The most common divalent ion used is magnesium in the form of MgCl2. MgCl2 concentration is vital for PCR. Tris Cl is used to maintain the pH between 8.3 and 8.8 at room temperature. Salts like NaCl and KCl may facilitate primer annealing Other components like BSA and DMSO help to increase the sensitivity and specificity of the reaction. OLIGONUCLEOTIDE PRIMERS What are Oligonucleotide Primers? PCR primers are short fragments of single stranded DNA (17-30 nucleotides in length) that are complementary to DNA sequences that flank the target region of interest. The purpose of PCR primers is to provide a free 3-OH group to which the DNA polymerase can add dNTPs. There are two primers used in the reaction. The forward primer anneals to the DNA minus strand and directs synthesis in a 5 to 3 direction. The sequence of primers is always represented in a 5 to a 3 direction. The reverse primer anneals to the other strand of the DNA. How to design a primer? The predominant goal kept in mind while designing a primer is specificity. Each member of the primer must anneal in a stable fashion to its target sequence in the template DNA. The longer the primer, the higher is its specificity. Unfortunately, the longer the primer, the less likely it is to anneal to a particular sequence in the template DNA. Conversely, if the primer length is small, it is likely to anneal, but its specificity will be poor. A compromise is reached by designing primers between 20 and 25 nucleotides long. Inclusion of less than 17 nucleotides often leads to non specific annealing, while presence of more than 25 nucleotides may not allow annealing to occur at all. Remember that the DNA sequence in the human genome appears to be a random sequence of nucleotides. When designing primers, it is important to calculate the probability that a sequence exactly complementary to a string of nucleotides in the human genome will occur by chance. Several formulae are designed to calculate such probabilities. However, mathematical expressions are not necessarily correct and in this case, the predictions maybe wildly wrong. The distribution of codons is non random with repetitive DNA sequences and gene families. It is advisable to use primers longer than the statistically indicated minimum. It is also advisable to scan DNA databases to check if the proposed sequence occurs only in the desired gene. For a practicing pathologist, it is best not to attempt designing of primers. What a pathologist requires is the primer sequence for an established test. If, for example, a pathologist requires primer sequence for the diagnosis of sickle cell anemia, all he has to do is search the web for papers related to molecular testing of sickle cell anemia. The primer sequences will be provided in the paper. Custom made primers can be commercially synthesized. Several biotechnology companies provide this facility. Before the primers are ordered, it is essential to check that the sequence is correct and that there are no missing nucleotides in the sequence. That is where, BLAST is invaluable. Before the intricacies of the BLAST search are elaborated upon, it is necessary to mention that designing a primer does not depend only on the sequence of nucleotides. Other factors like the GC content and melting point are also important considerations. They will be dealt with later in the chapter. BLAST and its uses BLAST is an acronym for Basic Local Alignment Search Tool. It is an algorithm comparing information about primary biological sequences with a library or database of sequences. A BLAST can be performed for different organisms, but in this book, we will concern ourselves with nucleotide BLAST in humans only. BLAST searches the database for sequences similar to the sequence of interest (the query sequence) by using a 2-step approach. The basic concept is that the higher the number of similar segments between two sequences, and the longer the length of similar segments, the less divergent the sequences are, and therefore, likely to be more genetically related (homologous). Before perfoming a BLAST search the oligonucleotide sequence is first identified. The sequence is fed into the programme. BLAST first searches for short regions of a given length called words (W). It then searches for substrings which are compared to the query sequence. The program then aligns with sequences in the database (target sequences), using a substitution matrix. For every pair of sequences (query and target) that have a word or words in common, BLAST extends the search in both directions to find alignments that score greater (are more similar) than a certain score threshold (S). These alignments are called high scoring pairs or HSPs; the maximal scoring HSPs are called maximum segment pairs (MSPs). The BLAST search as outlined in fig 7.2 shows the results of the search. If we scroll down further, we can see the sequences producing significant alignments. Note that in this BLAST search, there are 49 BLAST hits in the query sequence. In the list shown in figure 7.2, there is a list of hits starting with the best (most similar). To the right of the screen is the E-value. This is the expected number of chance alignments; the lower the E value, the more significant the score. First in the list is the sequence finding itself, which obviously has the best score. To the left is the accession number. This refers to a unique code that identifies a sequence in a database. It is important to know that there is no set cut-off that determines whether a match is significant or similar enough. This must be determined according to the goals of the project. The sequences provided in the figure 7.2 show a significant alignment with Pseudomonas japonica. It shows a high score (bits) and a low E-value. Note that the lower the E value, the greater the likelihood that the sequence is a good match. BLAST output can be delivered in a variety of formats. These formats include HTML, plain text and XML formatting. For the NCBIs web-page, the default format for output is HTML. When performing a BLAST on NCBI (National Centre for Biotechnology Information), the results are displayed in a graphical format showing the following: The hits found A tabular form showing sequence identifiers for the hits with scoring related data Alignments for the sequence of interest and the hits received with corresponding BLAST scores for these. The easiest to read and most informative of these is probably the table. The main idea of BLAST is that there are often high-scoring segment pairs (HSP) in a statistically significant alignment. BLAST searches for these high scoring sequence alignments between the query sequence and the sequences in the database. The speed and relatively good accuracy of BLAST are among the key technical innovations of the BLAST programs. Sequence of events to be followed when performing a BLAST search.: Go to PUBMED (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/) Scroll down to reach a heading called POPULAR Under POPULAR click on BLAST Click on nucleotide blast Under the heading, enter accession number(s), gi(s), or FASTA sequence(s), type or paste the sequence that you want matched. Click BLAST Wait for the results. Analyse the nucleotide sequence as it appears. Calculation of Melting Temperature The melting temperature or Tm is a measure of stability of the duplex formed by the primer and the complementary target DNA sequence and is an important consideration in primer design. Tm corresponds to the midpoint in transition of DNA from the double stranded to its single stranded form. A higher Tm permits an increased annealing temperature that makes sure that the annealing between the target DNA and the primer is specific. The Tm is dependent on the length of the oligonucleotides and the G+C content of the primer. The formula for calculation of Tm is given in table 7.1. Table 7.1: Formula for calculation of the melting temperature. Length of Primer Tm ( °C) Less than 20 nucleotides long 2(effective length*) 20 to 35 nucleotides long 22 + 1.46(effective length) *Effective length = 2(number of G+C) + number of (A + T) Primers are usually designed to avoid matching repetitive DNA sequences. This includes repeats of a single nucleotide.. The two primers in a PCR reaction are not homologous to each other and their complementarity can lead to formation of spurious amplification artifacts called primer dimers. The 3 end of a primer is most critical for initiating polymerization. The rules for selecting primers in addition to those already mentioned are as follows: The C and G nucleotides should be distributed uniformly throughout the primer and comprise approximately 40% of the bases. More than three G or C nucleotides at the 3-end of the primer should be avoided, as nonspecific priming may occur. The primer should be neither self-complementary nor complementary to any other primer in the reaction mixture, in order to avoid formation of primer-dimer or hairpin-like structure. All possible sites of complementarity between the primer and the template DNA should be noted. The melting temperature of flanking primers should not differ by more than 5 °C. Therefore, the G+C content and length must be chosen accordingly (a higher G+C content means a higher melting temperature). The PCR annealing temperature (TA) should be approximately 5 °C lower than the primer melting temperature. G+C content in each primer should not be more than 60% to avoid formation of internal secondary structures and long stretches of any one base. Primer extension will occur during the annealing step. Primers are always present in an excess concentration in conventional (symmetric) PCR amplification and, typically, are within the range of 0.1M to 1M. It is generally advisable to use purified oligomers of the highest chemical integrity. Primer Dimers A Primer Dimer (PD) consists of primer molecules that have attached or hybridized to each other because of strings of complementary bases in the primers. As a result, the DNA polymerase amplifies the PD, leading to competition for PCR reagents, thus potentially inhibiting amplification of the DNA sequence targeted for PCR amplification. In the first step of primer dimer formation, two primers anneal at their respective 3 ends. The DNA polymerase will bind and extend the primers. In the third step, a single strand of the product of step II is used as a template to which fresh primers anneal leading to synthesis of more PD product. Primer dimers may be visible after gel electrophoresis of the PCR product. In ethidium bromide stained gels, they are typically seen as 30-50 base-pair (bp) bands or smears of moderate to high intensity. They can be easily distinguished from the band of the target sequence, which is typically longer than 50 bp. One approach to prevent PD formation consists of physical-chemical optimization of the PCR system, i.e., changing the concentration of primers, MgCl2, nucleotides, ionic strength and temperature of the reaction. Reducing PD formation may also result in reduced PCR efficiency. To overcome this limitation, other methods aim to reduce the formation of PDs only. These include primer design, and use of different PCR enzyme systems or reagents. Nuggets Oligonucleotide primers are short fragments of single stranded DNA (17-30 nucleotides in length) that are complementary to DNA sequences that flank the target region of interest. They dictate which region of DNA in the PCR will be amplified. Primer sequences can be obtained by reviewing previously published literature. A confirmation of the sequence can be done by using BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool). The melting temperature is the midpoint in the observed transition from a double stranded to a single stranded form. A higher annealing temperature ensures that the annealing between the target DNA and the primer is specific. A primer dimer consists of primer molecules that have attached or hybridized to each other because of strings of complementary bases in the primers. Taq polymerase amplifies the primer dimer leading to competition for the PCR products. Several methods are used to reduce primer dimer formation including changing the concentrations of primers, MgCl2, nucleotides, ionic strength and temperature of the reaction. TAQ DNA POLYMERASE The initial PCR reaction used the Klenow fragment of Escherichia coli DNA polymerase. However, this was unstable at high temperatures and it was necessary to add a fresh aliquot of enzyme after every denaturation step. The annealing and extension temperatures had to be kept low and as a result, there was formation of non specific products in abundance. The discovery of the thermostable Taq DNA polymerases ensured that the PCR did not remain a laboratory curiosity. The extension and annealing temperatures could now be kept high and the formation of non specific products was greatly reduced. Taq became famous for its use in the polymerase chain reaction and was called the Molecule of the Year by the journal Science. Why Taq? Taq is the enzyme of choice in PCR because of the following reasons: Taq works best at 75 °C80 °C, allowing the elongation step to occur at temperatures which make non-Watson-Crick base pairing a rare event. It can add upto 1,000 nucleoside triphosphates to a growing DNA strand. Taq has a half-life of 40 minutes at 95 °C and 9 minutes at 97.5 °C, and can replicate a 1000 base pair strand of DNA in less than 10 seconds at 72 °C. Because of all these properties, Taq is the enzyme of choice in the PCR. How does Taq polymerase act? The first requirement is a primer. The primer is annealed to the template strand having free hydroxyl group at its 3 end. During the extension phase, the Taq synthesizes a new DNA strand complementary to the template by adding dNTPs in a 5 to 3 direction condensing the 5 phosphate group of the dNTPs with the 3 hydroxyl group of the end of the extending DNA strand. Since Taq works best between 70 °C- 80 °C, a temperature of 72 °C is usually chosen as the optimum annealing temperature. Where does Taq come from? In Thermus aquaticus, Taq polymerase is expressed at very low levels and commercial production is not economically viable. However, the enzyme can now be produced from different versions of the engineered Taq gene so as to obtain high levels of expression in E coli. What other polymerases are available for use in PCR? Taq is not the only polymerase; other polymerases are available but Taq is the one that is generally used in a PCR. A few other polymerases with their uses are as follows: PFU DNA polymerase -Found in Pyrococcus furiosus, it functions in vivo to replicate the organisms DNA. The main difference between Pfu and alternative enzymes is the Pfus superior thermostability and proofreading properties compared to other thermostable polymerases. Unlike Taq DNA polymerase, Pfu DNA polymerase possesses 3 to 5 exonuclease proofreading activity, meaning that it works its way along the DNA from the 3 end to the 5 end and corrects nucleotide-misincorporation errors. This means that Pfu DNA polymerase-generated PCR fragments will have fewer errors than Taq-generated PCR inserts. As a result, Pfu is more commonly used for molecular cloning of PCR fragments than the historically popular Taq. However, Pfu is slower and typically requires 1-2 minutes to amplify 1kb of DNA at 72 ° C. Pfu can also be used in conjunction with Taq polymerase to obtain the fidelity of Pfu with the speed of Taq polymerase activity. TFL DNA polymerase Obtained from Thermus flavus, it is useful for the amplification of large segments of DNA. WHAT IS FIDELITY? All DNA polymerases have an intrinsic error rate that is highly dependant on the buffer composition, pH of the buffer, dNTP concentration and the sequence of the template itself. The types of errors that are introduced are frameshift mutations, single base pair substitutions, and spontaneous rearrangements. Therefore, the PCR reaction generates a product that is very similar, but in many cases, not identical to the original sequence. The quantity of dissimilar product obtained is obviously related to the cycle in which the mismatch took place. Under normal circumstances, this does not make any difference; however, these errors may become significant during sequencing when the role of fidelity comes into play. Fidelity is the ability of the polymerases to avoid the incorporation of wrong nucleotides during the reaction. Under normal circumstances, it really does not make a difference if a wrong nucleotide is incorporated because the size of the PCR product remains the same and that is what we have to look for. However, there are some polymerases like Pfu which have a high fidelity. In addition to reading from the 5 to the 3 direction, they can also read from the 3 to the 5 direction and correct the wrong nucleotides wh

Shakespearean Theater :: William Shakespeare

Shakespeare was fortunate to begin his career in the late 1500s, when English theater was going through major changes. Professional actors had been performing in England for centuries. Called "Players," they traveled from town to town, setting up makeshift stages in public halls, marketplaces, and the courtyards of inns. Often they met hostility from local authorities, who believed that crowds of playgoers were a magnet for crime and also contributed to the spread of disease. Actor James Burbage built England?s first permanent playhouse in 1576. Other open-air theaters sprang up during the next few decades. These playhouses were all located in the suburbs rather than in London, which had strict laws governing entertainment. In 1599 Shakespeare's built their own playhouse, the Globe. This roughly circular building had three levels of covered galleries. A platform stage about forty feet wide projected out into the open courtyard, where people who paid the lowest admission price could stand and watch the play. Admission to the gallery benches cost about twice as much. Wealthy people paid sixpence (what a skilled laborer earned in a day) to sit in the "lords' room," the part of the gallery directly over the stage. In all, Shakespeare's Globe could accommodate about 3,000 spectators. Toward the end of his career, his company acquired a fully enclosed theater in London for the winter season. The stage at the Globe had trapdoors for the entrance and exit of actors playing ghosts or other supernatural characters. At the back of the main stage was a small, curtained inner stage used for indoor scenes. Above this stood a two tiered gallery. The first tier was used to stage balcony and bedroom scenes, the second to house musicians. Sound effects, such as the booming of thunder, were produced in a hut on top of the stage roof. All performances took place in the afternoon because there was no artificial lighting. The stage was mostly bare. There were few props and no movable scenery. Instead of relying on scenery, Shakespeare used descriptive language to help audiences visualize the settings of his plays. For example, his long descriptions of the moon are more than just beautiful writing---they reminded Elizabethan audiences that the characters were meeting at night. What the Elizabethan stage lacked in scenery, it made up for in costumes. Shakespeare?s audiences considered clothing an important indication of social rank, so they demanded extravagant?if not always historically accurate---costuming. Along with its playbooks, an elaborate wardrobe was an Elizabethan theater company? Shakespearean Theater :: William Shakespeare Shakespeare was fortunate to begin his career in the late 1500s, when English theater was going through major changes. Professional actors had been performing in England for centuries. Called "Players," they traveled from town to town, setting up makeshift stages in public halls, marketplaces, and the courtyards of inns. Often they met hostility from local authorities, who believed that crowds of playgoers were a magnet for crime and also contributed to the spread of disease. Actor James Burbage built England?s first permanent playhouse in 1576. Other open-air theaters sprang up during the next few decades. These playhouses were all located in the suburbs rather than in London, which had strict laws governing entertainment. In 1599 Shakespeare's built their own playhouse, the Globe. This roughly circular building had three levels of covered galleries. A platform stage about forty feet wide projected out into the open courtyard, where people who paid the lowest admission price could stand and watch the play. Admission to the gallery benches cost about twice as much. Wealthy people paid sixpence (what a skilled laborer earned in a day) to sit in the "lords' room," the part of the gallery directly over the stage. In all, Shakespeare's Globe could accommodate about 3,000 spectators. Toward the end of his career, his company acquired a fully enclosed theater in London for the winter season. The stage at the Globe had trapdoors for the entrance and exit of actors playing ghosts or other supernatural characters. At the back of the main stage was a small, curtained inner stage used for indoor scenes. Above this stood a two tiered gallery. The first tier was used to stage balcony and bedroom scenes, the second to house musicians. Sound effects, such as the booming of thunder, were produced in a hut on top of the stage roof. All performances took place in the afternoon because there was no artificial lighting. The stage was mostly bare. There were few props and no movable scenery. Instead of relying on scenery, Shakespeare used descriptive language to help audiences visualize the settings of his plays. For example, his long descriptions of the moon are more than just beautiful writing---they reminded Elizabethan audiences that the characters were meeting at night. What the Elizabethan stage lacked in scenery, it made up for in costumes. Shakespeare?s audiences considered clothing an important indication of social rank, so they demanded extravagant?if not always historically accurate---costuming. Along with its playbooks, an elaborate wardrobe was an Elizabethan theater company?

Shakespeare In Love Essay -- Movie Film Movies Essays

Shakespeare In Love with Queen Elizabeth "Shakespeare In Love" dominated the Oscars in 1998 bringing home seven academy awards including best picture. At Consumnes River College, a film professor argued to his class that "Saving Private Ryan" should have won the award. The whole class, which I attended, obediently agreed. Only after studying Renaissance literature, I realize our mistake. "Shakespeare In Love" accurately portrays Renaissance England and the birth of English drama, which is the ancestor of American motion picture. Its combination of screenplay and acting accurately portrays the important figures surrounding young Elizabethan drama. However, despite representations of Will Shakespeare, Kit Marlowe, and Ned Allen, perhaps the most dazzling representation is of Queen Elizabeth. Even though the Queen’s character does not consume a leading role, England’s greatest monarch resonates throughout the film. One aspect of the film that proves this and pays homage to Queen Elizabeth is its fictionalized her oine, whose life coincides with that of England’s heroic Queen. Much of the audience may assume that Gwyneth Paltrow’s star character, Viola, merely symbolizes William Shakespeare’s "Juliet." However, the film’s original screenplay clearly establishes a link between Elizabeth’s character and Viola’s. First of all, both possess keen wit uncommon to woman of the era, which they use to belittle the male sex. When an aristocratic male attempts to court Viola and says that he has spoken to her father, she replies, "So my Lord, I speak with him everyday." (Shakespeare) This comical scene alludes to Viola’s quick wit and confidence, which symbolizes those attributes of the Queen. When Viola argues with the queen that playwrigh... ... The film inevitably becomes more interesting as the parallels between Viola and the Queen are drawn. Viola’s character represents the Queen’s courage, wit, and tragic love and other qualities. Furthermore, the fact that the Queen institutes poetry and art into her court illustrates her courage to rebel against the classic philosopher Plato who said, "Hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted into [the ideal] state." (Plato 13) Because Queen Elizabeth believes in the power of art and since it flourished to America, it is fitting that modern art should honor her. This one aspect of "Shakespeare In Love" that honors England’s greatest monarch is a fabulous stroke of creativity. However, it is just one reason why the film deserves "best picture," for it contains other essential keys that also unlock Renaissance England.