Conciseness homework Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Conciseness homework - Assignment Example The samples were then stored in coolers on site for transportation to the chemical analytical laboratory. c. Based on the geotechnical data obtained from the sub- surface exploration program, the results of the percolation testing, and the planned plumbing fixtures, the feasibility of installing a leachfield-type on-site sewage- disposal system was evaluated. Answer: The feasibility of installing a leachfield-type on-site sewage- disposal system was based on data obtained from several reports. The data considered include the sub- surface exploration program, the results of the percolation testing, and the planned plumbing fixtures. Revise the following sentences by applying all the guidelines mentioned in this chapter. When you change passive verbs to active, it may be necessary to make some assumptions about the agent of the action, because the sentences are taken out of context. a. Based on our review of the available records, conversations with the various agencies involved, including the Fire Department and the Police Department, and a thorough survey of the site where the spill occurred, it was determined that the site contained chemicals that were hazardous to human health. Based on review of reports and inputs from different agencies like the Fire Department and the Police Department, it was determined that the oil spill has left the site chemically contaminated and was hazardous to human health. b. After seven hours at the negotiation table, the union representatives and management decided that the issues they were discussing could not be resolved that evening, so they met the next day at the hotel complex, at which point they agreed on a new contract that would increase job security and

Infosys Case Analysis Essay Example for Free

Infosys Case Analysis Essay ? Case analysis infosys document structure We have approached the case by first analyzing the identified issues, and then associate root causes to those issues. Further to it we have used two frameworks, â€Å"Web of Change† and â€Å"Hewitt Best Employer Characteristics†, to theoretically assess the weaknesses in Infosys Human Resource and Change Management policies. These frameworks can be used by organizations to better plan their change management and human resource management initiatives. We have used â€Å"Hewitt’s Best Employer Survey†, to identify the key initiatives which Infosys should undertake to enable it to reach its target of â€Å"Best Employer† by 2011. Further to it we believe that â€Å"Best Employer† and â€Å"Best Performer† are complementary goals, and it’s difficult to achieve one without the other, and hence we have identified the key initiatives which can help Infosys to achieve â€Å"Best Performer† target without compromising on its â€Å"Best Employer† objective. about infosys Infosys is the second largest Indian IT software services company. Infosys has reached pinnacles of success in short span of 20 years, through innovative business strategies and human resource practices. Currently it is facing challenges around balancing between business growth and employee satisfaction. About its business Model Infosys delivers IT services to its clients globally in a model called GDM (Global Delivery Model). The main characteristic of this model is that it decouples client location and project execution. Project is executed in locations which provide best combination of cost and talent. Project teams are spread across client site and offshore development centers in countries like India, China, and Mexico etc which provide rich availability of talent at competitive cost. Usually teams at client site document requirements and manage client relationship and offshore team manages delivery. This is a human resource intensive industry and the challenge is exacerbated by the fact that most of the resources are highly skilled professionals (engineers, MBAs, computer scientists etc). Being an industry where human resource is your only asset and your only competitive advantage, managing, ssues and Root Cause analysis In this section we’ll analyze the issues identified in the case and will attempt to identify root causes which led to employee dissatisfaction. After our analysis we believe that issues mentioned in the case is symptomatic of gaps in general principles of leadership, change management and HRM. Policies are not written in blood and stone, and they change ov er the lifetime of organizations. What should not change are basic organizations principles around human resource management. Our assessment is that policy changes in Infosys were reflective of external environment and business imperatives. However, diverging from the basic principles of Change management, leadership, communication and employee development in implementing new policies is what led to its fall in Best Employer ratings. â€Å"Stock Options started lacking luster to the new employees and created equity imbalance among employees† Stakeholders involved New Employees Discontentment Impact Inequity of income/wealth effect in the company which created tension between employees. New employees who had seen Infosys from outside as an organization committed to fairness, equity, and employee wealth creation got disenchanted. Root Cause Failure to Manage Expectations This issue primarily arose because of incorrect expectation setting of new employees. Infosys kept on using stock options and the millionaires’ stories as branding activity, even when stock options were no more an incentive to new recruits. Company should have made it very clear about its new compensation philosophy when it discontinued ESOPS. 1. Managing scale and attrition risk Stakeholders involved Employees Managers Discontentment Impact Infosys was growing at a speed where it was doubling its organizational strength every 1-2 years. However organization was plagued by high attrition rate. Employees felt lack of motivation, due to repetitive process tasks, which the business model demanded. Due to high growth, a lot of employees moved up the managerial ladder, but lacked proper training and orientation and hence couldn’t connect to employees Root Cause Lack of Employee fulfillment ( from the job ) Detached Lleaderships To stress on the need for the above two, we’ll give two examples from Indian public sector. Indian Railways Indian railways has recently transformed itself into a highly profitable organization, and according to the officer on special with Railways, single most critical factor which contributed to this success is involvement and commitment of employees of railways despite having a poor compensation structure. Employees of Indian railways take great pride in their work, since they believe they are contributing to the running of the country’s biggest infrastructure and are responsible for transporting of 2 crore customers every days. This association with organizational goal and pride in your organization is what makes an organization for perpetuity. Due to changing business needs, Iinfosys couldn’t connect to its employees in motivating them. Indian Army A unit commander in the army is able to inspire its soldiers to give up their life, compensation etc notwithstanding. The only reasons soldiers are so committed, is their immediate leader. It depends on the unit commander’s ability to connect to his soldiers, motivate them and show a genuine concern for their wellbeing, is what motivates the soldiers to do the unthinkable for their leader. According to research in human resources field, people leave managers and not companies. The leadership skills of managers are the greatest source of employee fulfillment at work. Lack of engagement and commitment of managers towards their subordinates, was probably the single biggest reason for high attrition rate at Infosys. 2. Strong formalization and process orientation, which came as part of growth, took away bandwidth to innovate from employees. Stakeholders involved Employees Discontentment Impact Employees who were used to getting the thrill and satisfaction from using their skill on technical challenges were feeling cocooned because of new process driven and re-use methodology. Similar impact was observed in people policy issues. All personal policies were getting more and more formalized. Root Cause Lack of employee Motivation Resistance to change One of the basic principles of organization design is that you don’t use strong formalization from highly skilled agents (employees). Formalization is for low skilled repeatable tasks. Infosys should have come up with business models aimed at high end, value added services much earlier. This would have kept its inherent talent not only motivated but better utilized for higher margins. In 1990s moving away from body shopping to GDM provide this opportunity, but in early to middle 2000s, Iinfosys couldn’t reinvent itself. Formalization in organizational policies when it grows out from entrepreneurial stage is inevitable. It’s actually needed to ensure consistent implementation of policies and create a sense of equity and fairness among employee. Dissatisfaction on this front could be attributed to resistance to change, and hence effective change management principles should be employed for disruptive changes. 3. Introduction of variable pay Stakeholders involved Employees Senior Management HR Department Discontentment Impact Variable pay was received with a lot of skepticism by the employees, fearing that it was introduced to reduce their compensation Root Cause/s Change Management Failure Lack of Leadership engagement Communication Failure This was probably one of the most disruptive changes introduced by Infosys. The amount of skepticism and distrust displayed by employees was a first in Infosys. Immediate reaction of employees was that this policy has been introduced to cut employee costs to satisfy shareholders demand for higher and higher profitability. The fact that a vast majority of senior management were shareholders in the company added to employee distrust. There was no clarity among employees how this policy will pan out. A lot of employees were not comfortable in linking their performance to factors outside their control (market conditions, decision taken by management etc). Also since the amount of variable component was high (more than 50% for project managers and above), employees could not understand how much their monthly take home were. This is a classic case of failure in change management and involvement of leadership at every level. Infosys data on variable payout shows that most of the time company has delivered 100% payout and even higher percentage to high performers. So employee skepticism bore from lack of clarity and communication on this policy. Lack of clarity, communication and involvement of employees was to such an extent that even middle management was taken by surprise by this policy. Many managers, who couldn’t appreciate the policy implementation, were reluctant in communicating the changes to the employees. For an employee first point of contact for clarification is his/her immediate line manager, hence it’s important to fully equip leadership at every level with information. To understand the role what leadership plays in motivating, retaining employees, we should look at armed forces. Unit commanders are able to motivate their employees to give their life, despite the fact that compensation package of soldiers is one of the lowest. This commitment in subordinates comes because of total commitment of their leader in engaging with them and motivating with them. Immediate line managers are the biggest reason employees leave an organization and are also the main reason employees go beyond their capabilities to outperform. 4. Retaining Organizational Culture with fast track growth Stakeholders involved HR Department Employees Discontentment Impact Due to business growth imperatives, and its business model, Infosys was doubling its employee strength every 1-2 years. To accommodate this type of growth, it had to lower its hiring standards and quality and culture was a victim of this. Root Cause/s Lack of Employee on boarding ( orientation) planning This issue had an impact on multiple facets. It led to a feeling disenchantment in existing employees, as they felt their brand equity in the market was getting diluted. New employees, who were not able to appreciate infosys inherent culture, didn’t felt comfortable and had a feeling that the organization is biased toward old employees. Root cause of this issue was that although organization had changed its selection criteria, it didn’t change its employee orientation strategy, or training methodology. Infosys should have changed its orientation program to be more customized offering for similar group of employees and using existing employees as mentor to help develop organizational culture and values in new employees. Similarly if you are hiring for quantity and not quality, it should have modified its training plan to be more exhaustive. 5. Broad Banding and promotions Stakeholders involved Employees Discontentment Impact Lack of faith in the organization Chaos and confusion in employees minds Root Cause/s Change Management Communication Leadership This policy again created a lot of employee discomfort since they didn’t knew the details of change. It’s again a classic change management failure. Although the policy was designed to bring more clarity in role structure and bring equity amongst similar roles, across the organization, poor communications created fear and scientism in minds of people. We can observe from the reinvention of Indian Railways, one of the reasons organization could progress on the growth trajectory, was employee commitment to the cause of Indian Railways, despite of low compensation. Employees felt proud to be part of the world’s biggest railways and were motivated to excel. Some of the senior managers lacked clarity about policies, hence they were apprehensive of clarifying the policy. This shows a major organizational failure in terms of change management and engagement of leadership with people. Similarly as discussed above, since employee appraisal parameters were not clearly defined, an employee could not appreciate how his/her appraisal going to impact promotions? Web Of Change – Change Management Framework To do substantiate our above understanding of issues at Iinfosys, we used â€Å"Web of Change†, a change management framework to understand the change management issues at Infosys. â€Å"Web of change: is the framework proposed by Stephen Thomas. This model defines 8 change elements as shown below and the web of change helps us to see how the values of each element changed during the Organization Change process in Infosys. The baseline score is the value of the Change elements in Infosys during the glory years of 1990’s and the re-assessment scores the value of the same change elements in the 2000’s when Infosys was going through the â€Å"Growth pangs†.

Audiovisual Translation Avt

Audiovisual Translation Avt What is audiovisual translation. Audiovisual translation is defined as the translation of recorded audiovisual material (Karamitroglou, 2000, p. 2). The concept of recordedness underlines the fact that there is a difference between the translation of recorded film products and the simultaneous subtitling or revoicing which should be regarded as a type of interpretation (Karamitroglou, 2000). AVT is also known as screen translation or film translation. Screen translation stresses on the location of the medium where the translation product appears (e.g., TV, cinema or video screen). On this basis, the translation of websites which can be viewed on computer monitors is considered as a type of screen translation. Film translation, on the other hand, is a restricted term due to some researchers who limit the term film to full-length feature films; namely, movies and sometimes only cinema movies. According to this view, the concept of film does not include series, sports programs and docum entaries. In AVT, the audio and visual aspects of communication are focused (Karamitroglou, 2000). Unlike books, radio, telephone or sign language which only use one semiotic channel, audiovisual communication benefits simultaneously from both the acoustic channel through air vibrations and the visual channel through light waves (Delabastita, 1989). 1.2. Translation theory and AVT The consideration of AVT as a subfield of translation Studies may lead to raise a number of questions. Oshea (1996) distinguishes between AVT and (written) literary translation as the main objective of general translation theory because of a set of limitations which root in the audio-visual nature of the target and original products. These limitations can be considered as: a) temporal constraints in revoicing, b) spatiotemporal constraints in subtitling, c) the accompanying visual source-culture elements in both revoicing and subtitling, d) the accompanying aural source-language elements in subtitling, e) the lip-sync imperative in dubbing, f) the cross semiotic nature of subtitling, and g) the inability of backtracking (with the exception of video) in both subtitling and revoicing (p. 240). These parameters may result in the consideration of audiovisual translation as adaptation rather than translation (Delabastita, 1989). What makes translation vs. adaptation a problematic issue is not merely a property of audiovisual translation; in fact, quite a few translated or adapted texts have raised the same issue within the field of literary translation (Delabastita, 1989). What plays a pivotal role in this case is the attitude we choose in defining the term translation. Considering Tourys definition of translation as any target-language utterance which is presented or regarded as such within the target culture, on whatever grounds (1985, p. 20), we can freely include AVT as a part of translation studies. Karamitroglou (2000) presents the following set of reasons to emphasize on the inclusion of AVT as a part of translation studies: a) Audiovisual translation has more in common with written translation than one might primarily assume (Whitman-Linsen, 1992:103). Most audiovisual translations at the present time are performed with a written form of the original source text in hand (cf. Remael, 1995:128), sometimes even without any further access to the film product itself. b) Typological studies in audiovisual translation have previously managed to present the various audiovisual language transfer methods within the general frame of translation studies and along with the other traditional language transfer methods, in a coherent and scientific way, on the basis of the multiplicity of the semiotic channels involved and the relative time of presentation of the source and target products (Gottlieb, 1994b:271; Gottlieb, 1998:246; cf. Delabastita, 1989:199). Other studies in audiovisual translation have revealed connections between certain audiovisual language transfer methods and established concepts from general translation theory, as for example with subtitling and overt translation (Ascheid, 1997:35). c) Audiovisual translation was born out of the same drive that conducted literary translation: the necessity to overcome the communication barriers imposed by linguistic fragmentation (Luyken et al., 1991:3). d) Just as it is the discovery of the hierarchy of factors (constraints, parameters) which operate in translation processes, procedures and products which constitutes a major task for translation theory (Even-Zohar Toury, 1981:ix), the discovery of a similar chain of the factors that function within audiovisual translation is also the task of audiovisual translation theory. (p. 11) 1.3. Branches of AVT A quite number of various taxonomies have been made for AVT among which the one prepared by Luyken et al. (1991) is known as the most outstanding. His suggested subfields for AVT are as follow: a) lip-sync dubbing, b) voice-over/narration, and c) free-commentary. (p. 40) Gambier (1994) also presents the following audiovisual language transfer methods: a) subtitling, b) simultaneous subtitling, c) dubbing, d) interpreting (pre-recorded and consecutive), e) voice-over, f) narration, g) commentary, h) multilingual broadcast, i) surtitles and supratitles/supertitles, and j) simultaneous translation. (p. 277) 1.4. Subtitling Subtitling can be defined as the translation of the spoken (or written) source text of an audiovisual product into a written target text which is added onto the images of the original product, usually at the bottom of the screen (Gottlieb, 1994a; Gottlieb, 1998: Luyken et al., 1991; Delabastita, 1989; qtd. by Karamitroglou, 2000, p. 5). It can be both intralingual (or vertical), when the target language and the source language are the same, and interlingual (or diagonal), when the target language and the source language are different (Gottlieb, 1994; Gottlieb, 1998; qtd. by Karamitroglo, 2000). Subtitles can be open, when the target text constitutes a physical part of the translated film and is transmitted in addition to the film sound and image, or closed, when the target text is stored in a digital/teletext format which is transmitted in as well as accessed via a separately coded channel at the discretion of the viewers (Luyken et al., 1991; Gottlieb, 1998; qtd. by Karamitroglou, 2000). Subtitles are different from displays which are fragments of text recorded by camera letters, newspapers, headlines, banners etc. (Gottlieb, 1994a; qtd. by Karamitroglou, 2000) or captions (or toptitles) which are pieces of textual information usually inserted by the programme maker to identify names, places or dates relevant to the story line (Luyken et al., 1991; cf. Gottlieb, 1994a; qtd. by Karamitroglou, 2000, p. 5). In this thesis, subtitling refers to interlingual open subtitling which does not include displays or captions. 1.5. The concept of metaphor Metaphor is a trope based on which one thing is spoken of as if it is another thing. It is the permanent feature of language. The ability to understand and produce metaphor is the characteristic of mature linguistic competence so that metaphors are used in intelligence test or to evaluate creativity. Metaphor is basically used to state the experiences and concepts that literal language does not seem to be sufficient for their expression. Therefore, it happens to increase the range of articulation in language. Metaphor can refer to a novel and at the same time amazing use in language (e.g., He slept off the fumes of vanity). I van also refer to the frequently-used terms in the form of conventional metaphors (e.g., I see as I understand); or completely known dead metaphors (e.g., to grasp a concept). Whether occupied with metaphors novel or commonplace, theorists of language and of cognition have come to recognize that no understanding of language and linguistic capacities is complete without an adequate account of metaphor (Asher, R. E., 1994, p. 2452). 1.6. Purpose of metaphor The most important rhetorical function of metaphor is to stimulate imagination, to arose feelings and to prompt action (Elliot, 1984). Metaphors are applied to beautify the ordinary language and to increase the effect of language use. Moreover, they express our intended concept in a more subtle way. In this case, metaphors highlight a particular feature of a phenomenon while leaving out other aspects in a way that we look at the phenomenon in hand form a certain angle. For example, in Life is a stage we merely look at life as a stage regardless of its other features like sorrow, pain and the like. Newmark (1981) believes that the main and one serious purpose of metaphor is to describe an entity, event or quality more comprehensively and concisely and in a more complex way than is possible by using literal language. The process is initially emotive, since by referring to one object in terms of another (a wooden face, starry-eyed), one appears to be telling a lie; original metaphors are often dramatic and shocking in effect, and , since they establish points of similarity between one object and another without explicitly stating what these resemblances are, they appear to be imprecise if not inaccurate, since they have indeterminate and undeterminable frontiers. (p. 84) Newmark (1981) states that I have never seen this purpose of metaphor stated in any textbook, dictionary or encyclopedia. The issue is clouded by the idea of metaphor as an ornament, as a figure of speech, or trope, as the process of implying a resemblance between one object and another, as a poetic device. Further linguists assume that scientific or technological texts will contain mainly literal language, illustrated by an occasional simile(a more cautious form of metaphor), whilst the purpose of metaphor is merely to live up other types of text, to make them more colourful, dramatic and witty, notoriously in journalism. All emotive expression depends on metaphor, being mainly figurative language tempered by psychological terms. If metaphor is used for the purpose of colouring language (rather than sharpening it in order to describe the life of the world or the mind more accurately), it cannot be taken all that seriously. ( p. 84) 1.7. Definition of metaphor The term metaphor roots in the Greek word metaphora which includes two parts: meta meaning over and pherein meaning to carry. It refers to a particular set of linguistic processes whereby aspects of one object are carried over or transferred to another object, so that the second object is spoken of as if it were the first (Terence Hawkes, 1972, p. 1). The earliest definition of metaphor had been presented by Aristotles The Poetics- quoted by I. A. Richards (1965) as a shift carrying over a word from its normal use to a new one (p. 89). As it can be viewed, this definition is so broad that can contain other figures of speech such as allegory, synecdoche, metonymy and the like. Most dictionaries refer to metaphor as a way of expressing something through the establishment of a comparison between that thing and another thing and without using the words like or as. The Concise Oxford Dictionary (COD) defines metaphor as the application of a name or a descriptive term or a phrase to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable (e.g., a glaring error, and food for thought). The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines the metaphor as a way of describing something by comparing it to something else that has similar qualities without using the words like or as (e.g., the sunshine of her smile). In brief, metaphor as a figure of speech belongs to rhetoric. It helps us to use a word, which denotes a certain meaning, figuratively to refer to another meaning. This is basically done through a likeness or analogy between two things. Other definitions of metaphor taken from the Purdue Universitys OWL (1995) include: The act of giving a thing a name that belongs to something else. The transferring of things and words from their proper significance to an improper similitude for the sake of beauty necessity, polish, or emphasis. A device for seeing something in terms of something else. Understanding and experiencing one thing in terms of another. A simile contracted to its smallest dimensions. 1.8. Structure of metaphors In the view of I. A. Rechards (1936; qtd. in Wikipedia), metaphor has two parts: the tenor and vehicle. The tenor is the subject to which attributes are assigned. The vehicle is the subject from which the attributes are borrowed. Other writers use the general terms ground and figure to denote what Richards identified as the tenor and vehicle. In All the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players, the phrases the world and men and women are respectively tenor and vehicle. Larson (1998) believes that metaphor is a figure of speech which is based on a comparison. Accordingly, he states that metaphor is a grammatical form which presents two propositions in its semantic structure. Each proposition includes a topic and a comment about that topic. In John is tall, John is topic and is tall is comment. Translating a metaphor is highly dependent on analyzing that metaphor and discovering the two propositions in its semantic structure. The relation between two propositions is comparison which can be detected in the comments of two propositions. Comments may be alike or identical. In John is a beam pole, the two propositions in the semantic structure can be discussed as follow: 1. John is tall 2. A beam pole is tall. Here, the topic of the first propositions compared with the topic of the second. Comments are identical. The topic in the second propositions often called image. The point of similarity exists in the comments. Therefore, metaphor has four parts (see Beekman and Callow 1974 for more discussion): Topic: the topic of the first proposition (nonfigurative), i.e., the thing really being talked about. Image: the topic of the second proposition (figurative), i.e., what it is being compared with. Point of similarity: found in the comments of the both of the propositions involved or the comment of the EVENT proposition which has the image as the topic. Nonfigurative equivalent: when the proposition containing the topic is an EVENT proposition, the COMMENT is the nonfigurative equivalent. According to the above-mentioned points, the propositions in The moon is blood are as follows: 1. The moon is red. 2. The blood is red. An analysis on these propositions can lead us to the following results: Topic: moon Image: blood Point of similarity: red In The righteous judge will give you the crown of life, the metaphor includes a sentence which is encoding an event proposition. Hence, four parts should be discovered here: 1. (The officials) give (the victorious athlete) a crown. 2. (God), who judges righteously, will give you (eternal life). Topic: God who judges righteously Image: officials Point of similarity: receive a reward for doing well Nonfigurative meaning: will give you eternal life What looks helpful in analyzing metaphors is to write down the propositions which make a vital role in the comparison. It includes topic, image, point of similarity and nonfigurative meaning (in case of Event Propositions). In fact, an adequate translation is only possible when the above points have been clearly discovered. Besides the up-coming view, Newmark (1981) has also considered the following parts in the structure of a metaphor: a) Object that is, the item which is explained by the metaphor (Refered to by Beekman and Callow (1974) as topic). b) Image that is, the item in terms of which the object is explained (Richards vehicle). c) Sense that is, Richards tenor, Beekman and Callows point of similarity, which illustrates in what particular aspects the object and the image are similar. d) Metaphor the word(s) taken from the image. e) Metonym a one-word image which places the object, which may later turn into a dead metaphor, e.g. the fin of a motor cycle. In many cases, a metonym is figurative but not metaphorical, since the image distinguishes an outstanding feature of the object. It may also be a synecdoche (the seven seas is the whole world) which the translator may have to clarify within the text, and would normalize. (p. 85) 1.9. Types of metaphor Metaphors have been taxonomized in different ways. A more commonly identified taxonomy of metaphors is as follow (Wikipedia): a) A dead metaphor is one in which the sense of a transferred image is not present. Examples: to grasp a concept or to gathered what youve understood Both of these phrases use a physical action as a metaphor for understanding (itself a metaphor0, but in none of these cases do most people of English actually visualize the physical action. Dead metaphors, by definition, normally go unnoticed. Some people make a distinction between a dead metaphor whose origin most speakers are entirely unaware of (such as to understand meaning to get underneath a concept), and a dormant metaphor, whose metaphorical character people are aware of but rarely think about (such as to break the ice). Others, however, use dead metaphor for both of these concepts, and use it more generally as a way of describing metaphorical cliche. b) An extended metaphor, or conceit, sets up a principal subject with several subsidiary subjects or comparisons. The above quote from As You Like It is a very good example. The world is described as a stage and then men and women are subsidiary subjects that are further described in the same context. c) A mixed metaphor is one that leaps from one identification to a second identification that is inconsistent with the first one. Example: He stepped up to the plate and grabbed the ball by the horns, where two commonly used metaphoric grounds for highlighting the concept of taking action are confused to create a nonsensical image. The following is another less common classification of metaphors which is not universally accepted (Wikipedia): a) An absolute or paralogical metaphor (sometimes called an anti-metaphor) is one in which there is no discernible point of resemblance between the idea and the image. Example: The couch is the autobahn of the living room. b) An active metaphor is one which by contrast to a dead metaphor, is not part of daily language and is noticeable as a metaphor. c) A complex metaphor is one which mounts one identification on another. Example: That throws some light on the question. Throwing light is a metaphor and there is no actual light. d) A compound or loose metaphor is one that catches the mind with several points of similarity. Examples: He has the wild stags foot. This phrase suggests grace and speed as well as daring. e) A dying metaphor is a derogatory term coined by George Orwell in his essay Politics and the English Language. Orwell defines a dying metaphor as a metaphor that is not dead (dead metaphors are different, as they are treated like ordinary words), but has been worn out and is used because it saves people the trouble of inventing an original phrase for themselves. In short, a clichà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã‚ ¡. Example: Achilles heel. Orwell suggests that writers scan their work for such dying forms that they have seen regularly before in print and replace them with alternative language patterns. f) An epic metaphor or Homeric simile is an extended metaphor containing details about the vehicle that are not, in fact, necessary for the metaphoric purpose. This can be extended to humorous lengths, for instance: This is a crisis. A large crisis. In fact, if youve got a moment, its a twelve-story crisis with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeting throughout, 24-hour porterage and an enormous sign on the roof saying This Is a Large Crisis.'(Blackadder) g) An implicit metaphor is one in which the tenor is not specified but implied. Example: Shut your trap! Here, the mouth of the listener is the unspecified tenor. h) An implied or unstated metaphor is a metaphor not explicitly stated or obvious that compares two things by using adjectives that commonly describe one thing, but are used to describe another comparing the two. An example: Golden baked skin, comparing bakery goods to skin or green blades of nausea, comparing green grass to the pallor of a nausea-stic person or leafy golden sunset comparing the sunset to a tree in the fall. i) A simple or tight metaphor is one in which there is but one point of resemblance between the tenor and vehicle. Example: Cool it. In this example, the vehicle, Cool, is a temperature and nothing else, so the tenor, it, can only be grounded to the vehicle by one attribute. j) A submerged metaphor is one in which the vehicle is implied, or indicated by one aspect. Example: my winged thought. Here, the audience must supply the image of the bird. k) A synecdochic metaphor is a trope that is both a metaphor and a synecdoche in which a small part of something is chosen to represent the whole so as to highlight certain elements of the whole. For example a pair of ragged claws represents a crab in T.S. Eliots The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Describing the crab in this way gives it the attributes of sharpness and savagery normally associated with claws. Black (1962a) believes that the only entrenched classification is grounded in the trite opposition between dead and live metaphors. On this basis, he asserts that this is no more helpful than, say, treating a corpse as a special case of a person: A so- called dead metaphor is not a metaphor at all, but merely an expression that no longer has a pregnant metaphorical use. His classification of metaphors is as follow: 1. Extinct metaphors whose etymologies, genuine or fanciedÃÆ' ¿propose a metaphor beyond resuscitation (a muscle as a little mouse, musculus) 2. Dormant metaphors where the original, now usually unnoticed, metaphor can be usefully restored (obligation as involving some kind of bondage) 3. Active metaphors that are, and are perceived to be, actively metaphoric (p. 25) Black (1962a) also distinguishes between two types of active metaphor: an emphatic metaphor whose producer will allow no variation upon or substitute for the words used, and a resonant metaphor which supports a high degree of implicative elaboration. (p. 26) Newmark (1988) considers the following six types of metaphors in his suggested taxonomy: a) Dead metaphor which frequently relates to universal terms of space and time, the main part of the body, general ecological features and the main human activities. Dead metaphors have lost their figurative value through overuse and their images are hardly evident (e.g., reflect as think and shine as excel). b) Clichà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã‚ ¡ metaphor is usually known to be a murky area between dead and stock metaphor which consists of two types of stereotyped collocations; figurative adjective plus literal noun (simplex metaphor), as in filthy lucre; or figurative verb plus figurative noun (complex metaphor), as in explore all avenues, leave no stone unturned, and stick out a mile. This type of metaphor has outlived its usefulness, and is used as a substitute for clear thought, often emotively, but without corresponding to the facts of the matter. c) Stock or standard metaphor is an established metaphor, which in an informal context is an efficient and concise method of covering a physical and/or mental situation both referentially and pragmatically. Unlike dead metaphors, a stock metaphor is not deadened by overuse. Examples of this kind of metaphor include: she wears the trousers and he plays second fiddle. d) Adapted metaphor usually includes proverbs or is actually a stock metaphor that has been adapted into a new context by its speaker or writer (e.g., almost carrying coals to Newcastle). e) Recent metaphor is produced through coining and spreads rapidly in the source language (e.g., pissed as drunk, fuzz as police, spastic as stupid, skin as bankrupt, and greenback as note). f) Original metaphor is created or quoted by the SL writer, and in the broad sense, contains the core of an important writers message, his personality, his comment on life. Examples are lets weight the night of a village, the slumber of a gazelle, and I can hear the clear sound of solitude, opening and closing its window, and where the Norweyen banners flout the sky, and fan our people cold. (p. 106-112) 1.10. How to interpret metaphors Larson (1998) believes that understanding metaphors is not always an easy task. A literal or word-for-word translation of metaphors in target language may lead to a partial or complete misunderstanding on the part of readers. On this ground, he presents a number of reasons to emphasize on the fact that the translation of metaphors is not always an easy task and literal translation of metaphors, in some cases, might not be the adequate one. These reasons are as follows: First, there is a possibility that the image of metaphor is unknown in the receptor language. For example, I washed my clothes snow white might be meaningless in some parts of the South Pacific because people in these religions have no idea about snow; instead, the images in seashell white or bone white are quite comprehensible for these people. Lack of clearance over the topic of a metaphor may result in some problems for readers. In The tide turned against the government, the phrase public opinion has been left implicit and hence is kind of vague for readers. The hardness in understanding metaphors may be due to the implicit concept of the point of similarity. For example, the point of similarity is uncertain in a sentence like He is a pig.A reference to pig may connotes different concepts such as dirty, gluttony, stubborn and the like in different cultures. An even more serious problem is that the point of similarity may be understood in two cultures in two entirely different ways so that one certain image may be used with different meanings. In different cultures, a sentence like John is a rock may convey different meanings such as He is still, He cant talk, He is always there or He is very strong. Linking a person to ship may raise a wide variety of images in different cultures (e.g., long-haired man, a drunkard, a person who doesnt answer back, one who just follow without thinking and a young fellow waiting for girls to follow him). Therefore, it can be concluded that a literal translation for He is a ship without determining the point of similarity will be misleading in the second language. On the other hand, the comparison in Target Language (TL) may be done in a different way compared to that of Source Language (SL). For example, despite of the SL metaphor in There was a storm in the national parliament yesterday, storm may have never been used in the receptor language to speak of a heated debate. Keeping this metaphor in the translation, we will have no choice but to replace the image of the SL metaphor (a storm at sea) with a familiar equivalent image for TL readers (e.g., fire to refer to heated debate). Languages differ in how they produce metaphors and how often they use them. If the production of new metaphors is a common issue in a language, it is possible to create new metaphors when translating to that language. However, one should be assured that the newly-made metaphor will be practical in the receptor language. There are other languages, as well, with a very low frequencyin producing metaphors. For such languages, direct translation of SL metaphors may result in the hardness of understanding on the part of SL readers. In languages with high frequency of metaphor usage, most images have already had metaphorical meanings. Therefore, using an image in a different way in the Source Text may cause misunderstanding due to its difference with the accepted common image in the receptor language. For Example, the literal translation of John is a rock when it means He is severe in the SL and he has hard muscles in the TL will only make wrong meaning. 1.11. How to translate metaphors The translation of metaphors has always been focused by translation experts and linguists due to The problems in the way of understanding and interpreting metaphors and their direct influence on translating this figure of speech. Accordingly, Larson (1998) suggests the following strategies for translating metaphors: 1. The metaphor may be kept if the receptor language permits (that is, if it sounds natural and is understood correctly by the readers) 2. A metaphor may be translated as a simile (adding like or as) 3. A metaphor of the receptor language which has the same meaning may be substituted 4. The metaphor may be kept and the meaning explained (that is, the topic and/or point of similarity may be added) 5. The meaning of the metaphor may be translated without keeping the metaphorical imagery (p. 277-279) Newmark (1988b) has also presented seven strategies to translate metaphors. These strategies which could won the attention of language and translation experts and later will be focused in this thesis to process its data are as follows: 1. Reproducing the same image in the TL 2. Replacing the image in the SL with a standard TL image which does not clash with the TL culture 3. Translation of metaphor by simile, retaining the image 4. Translation of metaphor (or simile) by simile plus sense, or occasionally metaphor plus sense 5. Conversion of metaphor to sense 6. Deletion. If the metaphor is redundant or serves no practical purpose, there is a case for its deletion, together with its sense component 7. Translation of metaphor by the same metaphor combined with sense. The addition of a gloss or an explanation by the translator is to ensure that the metaphor will be understood (p. 107) 1.12. Rationale of this study Cinema is considered as one of the most influential media in the field of culture. What gives cinema such a high status is not merely due to its great potential in entertaining its audience. It is a medium which sends rather important messages to the people of a community or peoples in different communities. These messages can cover a wide range of issues including science, imagination, religion, morality, culture and the like. On the other hand, language is known to be among the most outstanding ways of transferring such messages particularly in the field of culture. Thus, the study of subtitling metaphors in cinema movies could be significant in different ways. Metaphors have been long regarded as cases of untranslatability. This is mostly due to their unique structure based on which one cannot guess the meaning of a metaphor from its constituent parts. So the matter of subtitling metaphors turns to reveal unique features and constraints. Another outstanding point about the translation of metaphors is in regard with their role as the key cultural components in language. Metaphors root in the culture of a nation so th

Aids in American Youth :: Free AIDS Essays

Aids in American Youth There are more than 40 million people in the world with the disease known as AIDS(Bender 6). There are about 1 million people in America recorded to have the disease(Carasso). While anybody can get AIDS the people who are at the highest risk are youth between under the age of 20 years old(Carasso). This epidemic which came about in the early 80’s has become a deadly problem in our world today. When AIDS came about it is understood that it was only a gay disease in the 80’s, which would cause for this disease to spread rapidly. With the gay community not being the most acknowledge group of people in this decade no one cared that it was happening to them. The disease could have been drastically reduced if people would have known this virus wasn’t passed by, sex nor was it a gay disease only. In fact the disease was initially known as GRID (Gay Related Immune Disorder). In the 80’s almost no one used condoms, which made it easy for the transmission, espe cially when people didn’t know it was sexually translated. Aids has become a problem that every country is faced with, especially Africa with 1 out of 10 being effected with this virus. Some countries in Africa have nearly 50% of its population effected with this disease. The virus of AIDS could have been reduced drastically if people wanted to face the fact that it is sexually transmitted. The disease of AIDS can be passed from person to person several ways. The first, and the most common is through sexual intercourse. Sexual intercourse is by far the greatest risk for contracting the disease. The reason that sex is the most common is because of the friction caused by having sex. For the most part women are more likely to contract the disease, in fact they have a 3 out of 4 chance to catch the disease to a males, 1 out of 4. The other major way, and probably the second leading way to contract the Virus is through sharing a drug needle. Using drugs such as Heroin which calls for an injection of a liquid substance directly into a vein of a person can cause a major transition of blood from one person to another (DeCarlo, Lurie AIDS123).

Belonging: The Perks of Being a Wallflower Essay

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a set of fictional diary entries written by Stephen Chbosky. Charlie is the adolescent narrator who is in his tenth year of high school. Charlie decides to write anonymous letters to someone simply because he wants someone to listen and to not question his thoughts. The letters began after his only friend Michael committed suicide. Not belonging to a community can cause alienation and marginalisation. When Charlie started High School, he knew nobody. Starting at a new school shortly after his best friend died contributed to Charlie’s rational thoughts. ‘Some kids look at me strange in the hallways because I don’t decorate my locker, and I’m the one who beat up Sean and started crying about it after he did it’. The reflective tone and accumulation explain to the audience why he does not belong to a group within his school community. A couple of weeks into school, he met a senior named Patrick during shop class. At the Saturday football match Charlie and Patrick recognised each other and slowly began to develop a relationship. ‘The nice thing about Big Boy was the fact that Patrick and Sam didn’t throw around inside jokes to make me feel like an outsider’. The euphoric quote recognises how relationships can form a sense of belonging and how they have the ability to improve someone’s happiness. Belonging is often the result of sharing common values. In result of Sam (Patricks sister) having such an outgoing personality, Charlie began to learn about their simular interests. ‘Sam and I began to really get along, just like Harold and Maude in the book Mr Anderson just asked me to read’. The simile helps identify their relationship and indicate that this may develop during the book. Throughout the book, Charlie grows closer to Patrick and Sam. While trying to belong to a new community, he starts to understand that there are many secrets that people hide fro m the surface to avoid judgement. At the formal after party, Charlie saw Brad and Patrick ‘making out’. When Brad saw Charlie he reacted negatively in a dramatic way. ‘WHAT IS HE DOING HERE?’ the capital letters and question mark express to the reader how embarrassed Brad was. After two weeks Patrick explained to Charlie why Brad reacted the way he did. Brad was the in the football, and therefore was stereotyped by the whole school. Brad was so embarrassed that he would only be affectionate with Patrick behind closed doors, at parties, while he was either drunk or stoned. Brads parents then sent him away to rehabilitation for the summer to overcome getting stoned and/or drunk on a regular basis. After he returned, he barely even looked at Patrick. ‘I asked Patrick if he felt sad that he had to keep it a secret, and Patrick just said that he wasn’t sad because at least now, Brad doesn’t have to get drunk or stoned to make love’. The deep emotional tone incorporated by Patrick emphasises his care for how others feel. Brad and Patricks relationship demonstrates how belonging to a particular group and culture can prevent individuality. In the conclusion of the book, Charlie starts to lose control over his emotions. Belonging to a group can bring support in times of need to help overcome life barriers. After Charlie passed out in Sam’s arms, he had a dream where his Aunt Helen was still alive. ‘Everything was in slow motion. The sound was thick. And she was doing what Sam was doing’. The visually, auditory imagery and short sentences explains to the reader the truth in his relationship with his Aunt. During the beginning of the book Charlie had a sexually dream of Sam on top of him, and now he was having the same about his aunt. She sexually assaulted her nephew during her last months before passing away. This quote clarifies why Charlie is so emotional troubled and contently ‘blacks-out’ when he overwhelms himself with emotions. ‘You’re my best friend, was all I could say in return. She kissed my check, and for a moment it was like the bad part last night didn’t happen’. The contrast from last night and how he was feeling now emphasise s the dramatic effects of relationships. Stephen Chbosky explores the aspects of belonging throughout The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The sense of not belonging, belonging to a group, power on one’s identity and being allowed to express yourself within a culture was explored constantly while incorporating many obstacles for each character. b) Compare both Strictly Ballroom and the Perks of Being a Wallflower Strictly Ballroom is a film production directed by Baz Luhrmann. Luhrmann focuses on film techniques when emphasising the belonging aspects in his film, while Chbosky focuses on literally techniques. During the opening scenes of Strictly Ballroom, the main character Scott, demonstrates his fear and need to express himself artistically. Scott belonging to the ballroom community repressed his individuality which made over coming obstacles very difficult for Scott. Fran was one who shared a common interest and gave Scott courage to express his individuality through his artistic ability. Close-ups were used to show Scott’s frustration and anger in not understanding why he cannot dance ‘his’ way. In complete contrast Charlie in Perks of Being a Wallflower maintains his identity, but does not fit in with a group because of how different he is. In the State championships Scott had the opportunity to dance with Fran and show the audience his ability. Barry Fife is the Machiavellian character who uses his persuasive techniques and power to locate obstacles in Scott’s path. Patrick and Brad in Perks of Being a Wallflower also are thrown many obstacles by the community. Brad is like Scott and is too frightened to show their personal identity. In the denouement of Strictly Ballroom Scott and Fran finally have the ability and courage to stand up the Barry Fife and the Ballroom community to show their ability and dance the way ‘they think is right’. Quick editing, close ups and non-diabetic music was used in this scene to maintain excitement and hope for Scott and Fran. Charlie stays true to himself throughout the story and comes to terms with all the traumatising events in his life that have caused him to have mental problems.

 Developing my Leadership Style Essay

Pressures on organizations are increasing; even in the Students’ Union where I work. There are growing needs to become more efficient, and to deliver success against strategic goals with shrinking resources. Quantitative analysis can measure performance outputs, and managers can make judgments using business information by qualitatively analyzing. Employees often represent the largest expense for organizations; therefore it is vital to monitor staff performance in order to recognize success and failure. Leaders can achieve little without the support of their followers. Flatter hierarchal structures are more prevalent in modern times; this means managers cannot expect blind allegiance. Engagement with followers is vital. Effective engagement must happen continuously. It is important not to limit the times of communication to employees. This can lead to misunderstandings of tasks and direction of work. For example, if I were to only talk to my team members on a one to one basis annually, it would be likely they would not be working on what I would ideally want to them to work on. It is useful to note however that some employees might not like too much engagement from a manager. They might feel like they are being monitored too much, and fear they are doing something wrong. They correct balance must be found. An important outcome of effective engagement is that team members can link their daily actions to the organization’s strategic plan. This will motivate individuals, as it will give them clear goals to work towards. To improve this in my team I could organize a mapping day where everyone links his or her work to the Students’ Union’s strategic plan. Some see a leader simply as an individual others follow, whereas others define leadership as organizing a group of people to achieve a common goal. Studies of leadership have produced theories about the different duties and traits of leaders. I am interested in leadership, as I would like to become a more effective manager. It is useful to understand the similarities and differences between a leader and a manager. Usually a manager is concerned with specific tasks such as budgets, projects, or organizing. Management does not always include a responsibility for people. Leadership, on the other hand, typically have bigger responsibilities than managers; for instance, creating new visions or forming new policies. Leadership always involves leading a group of people. There is a large overlap between leaders and managers. Both strong leaders and strong managers are skilled in keeping their teams focused by challenging individuals to perform strongly in line with objectives. Weak leaders and managers fail to engage with their teams; and so accept chaos and apathy. Leadership Styles It is important to recognize my own leadership style so I can be mindful of my weaknesses. One way to carry out the self-analysis is by using the ‘six specific scales for leadership’ table. The six scales are listed below along each row. Task Person Flexible Dogmatic De-centralised Centralised Reward Punishment The ‘means’ The ‘end’ Structured Organic Task / Person relates to if a manager is task focused or people focused. Task focused leaders emphasize the need to perform to achieve certain goals. A task directed leader would more likely portray an authoritarian style, or a top-down approach meaning they make most the decisions. This could improve efficiency, but lessen moral. On the other hand, person orientated leadership is a behavioral approach in which the motivation and well-being of the team are prioritized. These leaders may have a servant leadership philosophy where rather than giving orders they try to persuade people to work, and try hard themselves to serve the team. There is a risk a team may not function well with this untraditional style, or they could enjoy feeling more valued. Flexible / Dogmatic refers to if a leader will alter practices when a situation changes, or will strictly keep doing things they way they have always been done. A dogmatic leader would want their team to follow established procedures and would reject suggestions to do things differently. A flexible leader would be much more likely to use suggested ideas to modify the statue quo. De-centralised / Centralised is an issue all businesses face; are decisions made by senior managers, or made further down the hierarchy. De-centralised leadership gives an organization a flatter hierarchy, and as decisions are made closer to the customer; this can improve customer service. However a disadvantage of De-centralised leadership is decision-making is less holistically strategic. Centralised leadership makes it easier to implement overarching policies, and prevents people from working in silos. On the other hand, extra layers of bureaucracy are added and disengagement from the front line could lead to bad decisions. Reward / Punishment refers to how a manager chooses to motivate their staff. Do they positively reinforce positive behavior though rewards, or discourage undesirable behavior using punishments? Transactional leaders often reward employees for loyalty and good work. Authoritarian managers may be more likely to use punishments to encourage industry. The means / The end questions whether the method to reach a goal is the most important, or is the end result more critical. A values based leader will probably prioritize ‘the means’ over ‘the end.’ Whereas a leader driven by performance targets may only worry about ‘the end.’ Structured / organic refers to the culture a manager creates. A structured leader will favor bureaucratic structures, precision and strict subornation. On the other hand an organic manager will work to reduce hierarchical structures, and will highly value external knowledge. Different leaders prioritize the things on the scale differently. The scales are useful because a strong emphasis on one aspect suggests a weakness of another trait. If an honest self-analysis is carried out, a person will be made aware of their weaknesses. They can then plan strategies to strengthen the flaws. Own Style I am going to assess the effectiveness of my own leadership style by plotting my characteristics on the six-point scale. Task x Person Flexible x Dogmatic De-centralised x Centralised Reward x Punishment The ‘means’ x The ‘end’ Structured x Organic When I manage I almost wholly focus on the task completion, often at the expense of the welfare of my team. I am flexible in the way I strive to meet my goals as I am not averse to taking on board other people ideas; that also means I do not hold all the decision making power, (de-centralized). I am not the best at recognizing good behavior, as I have always thought people are being paid to do produce a high standard of work, I more typically penalize team members rather than reward them. Again my performance valued nature means I focus on the end rather than the means. Lastly, I prefer to follow a structured approach because it is easier to monitor individuals’ performance and is arguably more time efficient. This is not to the required standard for my job in the Students’ Union, steps will need to be put in place in order to improve. Implications I work as Students’ Union President. I have to manage my fellow full time officers, (the four Vice Presidents), and the seven part-time officers who volunteer their time to help students. An advantage of being a task based leader is that I can ensure deadlines are met, and jobs get completed by all members of the team, especially those who are not good at managing their time. On the other hand, staff wellbeing may be neglected causing retention and motivation problems. To become a better manager I need to find a way of both organizing the team while not forgetting to look after their welfare. It is important that I am flexible in my role as I am meant to represent the views of all BCU students. I would not be a popular student leader if I did not take into account all new ideas that students suggest to me. Also, as all of my projects involve working with the ever-changing student population, I could easily do something wrong if I did not keep gathering the most current student views. Constantly changing tactics though, does slow work progress; sometimes with time sensitive decisions I must push ahead with what I think is best. A way I could improve would be to define projects that it is appropriate to have a wider student input, and those projects that do not. Doing this would save time on some projects, which I could use to instigate better quality engagement with students on other projects. In regard to decision-making, I usually consult the whole team in our weekly meetings before a decision is made. I think it important to make the team feel empowered, especially the volunteers. I hope that giving others control of decisions gives them ownership of projects, so they are more motivated to work hard on them. However, consulting team members with things does slow things down; but I think it is worth it to make more informed decisions. I am not the best at rewarding my team. My ethos is that I expect team members to do a good job. I do reward individuals if they go above and beyond the call of duty. But, on many more occasions I have had to speak to people about why something is not quite up to scratch. I do have a tendency to focus on the end results rather than the journey there. I don’t mind how people reach their targets, as long as they do. I favor procedures; I like the team to follow the designed routes to get things done. This result of the self-analysis worries me. Forgetting to reward individuals will demotivate them. If I carry on doing this I could reach the stage where every time I pop into the communal office my team thinks I have come to highlight someone’s failure; this would be a big problem. I need to find a way to regularly reward hard working people. This will create a more positive environment, and people who are comfortable and happy will likely perform better. Adair proposed the Three Global Factors of leadership. The three factors are, determination to deliver, engagement with individuals, and engagement with teams. The three factors overlap, and are inter-related. Different leaders prioritiesprioritize the three factors differently. I certainly lean toward the ‘determination to deliver’ strand. By focusing on the task, the team may feel undervalued and pressured. Little communication may also mean individuals feel neglected or ignored. I must try to engagement more with individuals and teams to become a more balanced and effective leader. I should set aside time in my calendar to get to know people. This will let me know the best way to communicate the targets to them to motivate them. Spending time with people will also make it a lot easier for me to detect issues. For example, if I know that someone is unhappy, I can investigate why that is and take steps to improve things for them. Developing my Leadership Style After assessing my leadership style and evaluating the results I have produced an action plan to improve my management approach. Action Plan: Benefits of Action Plan Creating an action plan will help me maintain focus working towards goals that I have set to improve my leadership style. The goals relate to weaknesses, (such as prioritising the means and ignoring people), identified in the assessment of my style. The action plan will help ensure that actions and decisions are oriented toward accomplishing the specific goals. The action plan will help me gain self-esteem. Effective action plans contain small steps to achieve ambitions. As I succeed at each step of my plan, I will gain confidence in my ability to be successful and bring change. To create an action plan, I had to determine specific steps linked to the self analysis. The goals and steps are measurable so I am able to tell whether the goals have been met or not. The team will be heavily involved in the action plan. Hopefully this will help strengthen morale and the sense of unity. There are opportunities for team input. Team members who feel included in adaptations will be more motivated to follow through on actions toward achieving the goal because they will feel they partially own the goal. It is important to monitor, evaluate and adapt an action plan to sustain its effectiveness. I will periodically check that I am completing the actions I said I would take by keeping a record of the progress. Objectives should be investigated if they do not in keep with the timeframe defined. My team and myself can sit down and discuss reasons why the success criteria is not being fulfilled in the time predicted. Then the action plan could be reformed or work could be refocused to get things back on track. A More Effective Leader? Having completed this process, I feel confident I can become a more effective leader. For me, the self-analysis was the most important part. I tried my best to give honest answers. It was interesting linking back the findings to the preceding research I had done about leadership styles. I intend to use this Action Plan to complete the objectives I have set myself. I am sure it will strengthen the team I work in.