Author: chris

Write a 700- to 1,050-word paper in which you answer the following questions:

• How is the word myth used popularly? For example, what does the statement, “It’s a myth” mean? In contrast, how is the word myth used in the academic context? After considering the definition in your textbooks and course materials, write a definition in your own words.
• What are the most common mythological themes across different cultures? Why do myths from different cultures around the world address such similar or universal themes? Think about how myths explain the unknown and the tribulations of mankind.
• What is the relationship between belief, knowledge, mythology, and religion? Where do mythology and religion intersect? Where do they diverge? Think about the function of myth and religion in helping human beings cope with change, suffering, loss, and death.
• Do you think mythology is still relevant in contemporary culture? How do people resort to modern myths to deal with the unknown and hardships in life?

Format your citations and references consistent with APA guidelines.

In Unit 1 you learned how to determine whether a resource was reliable and reputable and how to best apply such a source of information to your everyday life. To reinforce this skill, you will apply this knowledge by researching and evaluating two different resources on one scientific topic. Pick a topic that is related to any field of science, such as chemistry, physics, biology, or geology, and think of a question that you would like to find an answer to. For example, “Is global warming causing more earthquakes?” Or “What is the best treatment for my allergies?” Discuss how, and why, you chose your question.

To complete this Assignment:

Basic Writing Expectations:

Create an 8- to 10-slide Microsoft^® PowerPoint^® presentation, with notes, of your findings and conclusions from the following:

Interview two married couples – one younger and one older.

Prepare an interview response form for each interviewee that lists five product categories: groceries, furniture, appliances, vacations, and automobiles.

• Ask each spouse to indicate, without consulting each other, whether purchases in each category were made by joint or unilateral decisions, and to indicate whether the husband or wife makes unilateral decisions.
• Compare each couple’s responses for agreement between husbands and wives relative to who makes the decisions.
• Compare both couples’ overall responses for differences relative to the number of joint versus unilateral decisions.

Cite at least two references to support marketing concepts

In this exercise, you play the role of Shawna, a project manager for ZAP Pharmaceutical Company. Currently, you are managing a large IT project in the healthcare industry for ZAP. Your project is to refurbish an existing office building, install the IT infrastructure, and outfit the area for use as a new telephone answering hub for your company. You took over this project a week ago from John, the previous project manager. John had overseen the project since its inception.

This project is in the execution phase, with the refurbishing and installation of the infrastructure currently being done in concert with each other. All of the new office equipment is on order and is scheduled for delivery on the day after the refurbishment and infrastructure work are scheduled for completion. The overall work progress is about three quarters finished. Senior management is pleased with the progress of the project so far.

There are four vendors working with you on the project. Bear’s Construction Company is handling all the refurbishment. This work includes all structural work, drywall, and electrical work in the building. Anne’s Interior Design is doing the carpeting, painting, and cubicle work. Roxy’s IT Services is installing all IT components, including servers, IT cabling, and a wireless network. Sheba’s Office Equipment is providing all desks, computers, and phones. All contracts associated with this project are fixed price contracts.

Since taking over for John, you have had a number of contractual issues arise associated with this project. You have delayed making any decisions about these issues, hoping they would work themselves out. Today, a third contractual issue was brought to your attention.

Realizing you can no longer postpone action on these issues, you call a meeting of your project team. You project team is made up of three individuals. Iris is the future manager of the telephone hub. Tony is the IT lead on the project. Phil is the facility specialist assigned to your team.

You describe each of the three issues to the team and ask for input.

1. Bear’s Construction Company is making a claim that it is not responsible for inspections required by the local township. Bear has produced a memo signed by John during negotiations that states that ZAP is responsible for all permits and inspections. However, a quick review of the contract shows that Bear is responsible for all inspections. Failure to resolve this issue will likely delay the project at least 1 week, because Bear is making no effort toward arranging for the required inspections.
2. Anne’s Interior Design has brought to you another issue. In the contract, under the section labeled Special Conditions, it states that carpeting must meet a specific wear rating. In the same contract, in the General Conditions section, the contract prohibits the use of any nongeneric materials within the work of the contract. This would include carpets with special wear rating, because these would be nongeneric materials. Anne has already purchased and begun the installation of the generic carpet that does not meet the wear rating.
3. Sheba’s Office Equipment has informed you of a minor typographic error in the contract with you to provide office equipment for this project. In the contract, it states Sheba shall be paid as follows.

$350,000 (Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars)

Sheba apologizes for any inconvenience this may have caused and is awaiting the payment of $350,000. The company further states $350,000 would have not likely even begun to cover the shipping costs. Sheba informs you that it will ship the office equipment when the remainder of its fee is received. After receiving this information from Sheba, you priced out the cost of the office equipment from other vendors and the average price was $40,000.

Your Role

As the project manager, the project team is looking to you for direction on each of these issues. Review the comments of the key players, consult the grading rubric below and then answer the following questions.

1. Is Bear or is ZAP responsible for the inspections? What is a reasonable course of action given that the project may have to be delayed a week or more?
2. What carpet should be installed? Should work be stopped to evaluate this issue? What do you do to resolve this?

Key Players:-

 

1)    As for Bear, I remember the memo. Yes we signed it. I was there at the time. I don’t remember why it is missing from the contract. I say we arrange for the inspections just to keep this project going  :-            Iris Future Building Manager Female                                                   

 

2)    I don’t care what the memo says. The contract is the contract. Bear is responsible. If we lose a week, we lose a week. Bear is getting paid for the work. Make them do it! I say stop the carpet installation right now! Make them put in the better carpet. After all, it will last longer for ZAP. I don’t want to have to redo this work next year. Further, I would not pay Sheba one dime more than $350,000 dollars. I say cancel the contract with them and order the materials from someone else. Sure, it will put us behind schedule about a month, but look at the money savings.   Tony IT Project Lead Male

3)    I don’t know about contracts, so I don’t know which side is correct. In any event, does it matter? I think what is important is how much time we have already lost and how much more we will lose while we resolve this.By the local township codes, either carpet will do. The better one will of course last much, much longer. But we will lose about 6–8 weeks removing the one currently being installed, ordering the better one, and installing the better one. I hope this information helps.I am not sure if it makes sense to pay $350,000 for $40,000 dollars worth of office desks and chairs. But can we really just cancel a contract on our own? I am not sure about that. And then there is the issue of time—an additional month before the grand opening. Senior management might not be happy.  :-  Phil Project Facility Specialist  Male

Resource: Ch. 3 & 4 of Working in Groups and the Week Two videos “Building A Team Of Talent” and “Team Building”

Write a 200- to 350-word response to each of the following:

• What are the characteristics of effective teams?
• How do roles, needs, and diversity affect teamwork? Provide specific examples.
• What are components of group diversity

Paper on Narcotics and the biases setup in urban vice wealthy neighborhoods. MLA or APA. 6pages. 4 resources. Must be able to provide a rough draft ASAP.

Instructions

Prepare three 7 to 10 minute mini-lessons/lectures on myth in our world. Each of your lessons/lectures should be about 900 words long (double-spaced, Times 12-point font, with 1-inch margins). This is not much time, so you will want to be concise but conversational, as this is a presentation rather than an essay.   a) Mini-Lesson/Lecture I: Myth in Culture and the Arts Examine how a particular myth influenced/inspired something specific in culture or the arts, including but not limited to a work of art, a poem, a religious ritual, a film, a statue, a carving, a religious symbol, a novel, a video game, or a specific TV episode. Compare the original myth with its presentation in the chosen medium.   b) Mini-Lesson/Lecture II: Myths and Values Choose a specific myth and identify the specific values expressed through it. Explain how the myth functions to uphold, enforce, or reinforce a set of values within its culture/society/religion, to the detriment or benefit of that culture/society/religion.   c) Mini-Lesson/Lecture III: The Impact of Myth Briefly describe a historical event, a controversy, a world event, a current event, a military group or action, a political event or group, a religious group or action, or a similar phenomenon. Then, show how a specific myth relates to that event, group, or action, as well as examining the impact that the values, attitudes, and ideas imparted by that myth have on the people, ideologies, and points of view in play. In choosing your phenomenon, considerhistorical or political events that might be said to have myths as their ideological basis, such as the creation of the state of Israel, the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, the Holocaust, the reign of Hirohito, Jonestown, the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir movement, the Branch Davidians, jihadist suicide bombers, kamikaze pilots, Manifest Destiny, Heaven’s Gate, the Tea Party movement, and so on.   You could also consider founders of religions and heroic culture bearers who have mythic biographies or quest stories in their histories. Think of scriptural material, such as the New Testament gospels, which tell about the life of Jesus of Nazareth; and hero myths that have inspired courageous action, such as the story of Percival and his quest for the Holy Grail.

The methods/results paper will be based on a short survey study of Counterfactual Thinking, or “If only” statements we often make to mentally undo an outcome. Students will view the reported data on SPSS, analyze the data, and write a paper that incorporates a title page, methods section and results section for the study.

 

You will need to login to SPSS to view and report the data collected from this study.

This is the website to use: https://elabs.fiu.edu/Citrix/eLabsWeb/

 

I will give you the login information once a handshake has been created.

 

 

Please view the attatched links. If you have trouble opening ELabs (also known as SPSS) I have attatched a helpful step by step guide to assist you. Another link is instructions for how to properly format the paper (APA) and the other is an example paper for you to reference while writing this one. There is also an attatched word document with the frequencies of the participants that you will need to view as well.

All essays need to be 500 words and be well supported with textual evidence.

You will be graded on the following:

1) your ability to come up with a thesis;

2) your ability to prove that thesis by using textual evidence;

3) your ability to use textual material smoothly (i.e. introducing quotes, explaining them, and showing HOW they prove your thesis);

4) your ability to organize your essay in climatic order (motivate your reader for the intro and provide your thesis and/or blueprint, use topic sentences for main points, transitions to link ideas and paragraphs, build to an exciting conclusion) ;

5) your ability to answer the question asked in sufficient detail and length (500 words); and

6) your ability to use the standard practices of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and MLA documentation.

 

Choose one of the following:

1. The setting is often very important in a story and can serve as a symbol or in some cases, as a kind of character. Using the short story, “Hills Like White Elephants” and “The A & P” formulate a thesis that argues why the Valley of the Ebro and the grocery story, A & P, play a major role in the meaning of the stories. How do those settings ultimately contribute to the themes of the stories? Use key words and phrases from the stories to serve as evidence. Create a coherent 500-word argument.

2. We have discussed how the codes of both femininity and masculinity have changed since the days of Hemingway. Using one work from the past that we’ve studied including poems and one piece from the current time (including video lectures, TV Shows, or other cultural evidence), provide a thesis that argues that these codes have either changed greatly, stayed the same, or changed slightly using literature and cultural artifact to back up your assertions in a coherent, argumentative 500-word essay.

3. In a 500-word essay, discuss how race functions as an obstacle to the American Dream in two of the following poems, “Let America Be America Again,” “I, Too,” “Harlem,” “The Incident,” “ Yet do I Marvel,” or “The Lynching.” Be sure to discuss whether or not you think the poet holds out hope for the future or if he sees this as a permanent barrier to success. Demonstrate your knowledge of the Harlem Renaissance and the cultural milieu. Provide evidence and support for your conclusions from the poems.

Final Research Project

The topic of your project needs to be a contemporary societal problem, such as healthcare reform, immigration reform, privacy rights, euthanasia, First Amendment Rights, stem cell research, capital punishment, corporate prisons, legalizing drugs, ageism, animal rights, cloning, prayer in schools, racial profiling, recycling/conservation, sexism, outsourcing jobs, workplace bullying, etc. The topic must focus on a single aspect, as in “How far do corporations intrude into the private lives of their employers?” or “The social costs of financing the distribution of custom-designed drugs.” You may suggest another topic to use, but the instructor must approve the topic during the Week Two Discussion.

The Final Research Project will present research relating the responsibilities of a critical thinker to contemporary society. In this assignment, you will do the following:

• Research one aspect of a contemporary social problem.
• Define the problem.
• Propose a possible solution for the problem.
• Create an argument that supports your thesis position. You should take on the perspective of a critically thinking researcher. The argument must present a thesis statement and evidence to support the thesis statement.
• Evaluate the ethical outcomes that result from the position you take on the issue and explain how those outcomes would influence society and culture.
• Interpret statistical data from at least two peer-reviewed scholarly sources.
• Evaluate evidence using the following standards: validity, reliability, and bias related to the chosen topic and accurately identify strengths and weaknesses.

Research and Define the Problem

You must take on the perspective of your major field of study and explain in your paper what that perspective is and how it informs your view of the topic. The topics listed above are far too broad to write about in 10–12 pages (3,300–3,900 words). Instead, you must choose a narrowly defined thesis and approach it from the perspective of your field.

Example: If you are an economics major, and you are interested in immigration reform, you should approach a very specific aspect of immigration reform through the lens of economic theory and practice. A specific thesis question would not be, “How does illegal immigration influence the U.S. economy?” One could write thousands of pages on such a topic. Instead, a better question would be, “How do illegal immigrant hotel workers in Chicago impact the economy of Northern Illinois?” You would then want to do the research and determine the positive and negative impacts they have, ultimately trying to conclude how illegal immigration in this area should be approached ethically.

How to Hone Your Thesis: It is important that you start your research early in this course. Try to find the most important contemporary questions and theories in your field of study and then align the most important questions with a very specific aspect of the general topics above. For example, if you are a psychology major, you might want to start thinking within the realm of healthcare reform or aspects of mental health and criminality in the prison system.

Your Argument

You must present a complete argument, including a major claim with at least five points of evidence, information, or data that will prove the claim.

• The thesis statement must be
  • A clear, simple declarative sentence as the first or last sentence in the opening paragraph of the essay.
  • Of such a nature that it can be substantiated, corroborated, verified, and proved through appeal to primary or secondary academic research source materials.
• The introductory paragraph must
  • Present the thesis statement, an explanation for the importance of the topic, and its relation to the student’s field of study.
• Beliefs, opinions, and personal opinions must not be introduced at any point in the essay.
• All beliefs and opinions should be supported with academic evidence. Sweeping generalizations with no supporting academicevidence do not reflect adequate critical thinking skills.
• Do not include rhetorical questions in your essays. All the questions that are pertinent to your project need to be answered in your essay and your answers again need to be supported with evidence from peer-reviewed journal articles and academically published books.

Attributes of Good Critical Thinking in Papers

• Your paper should include academic sources that explain multiple sides of the issue.
• The evidence that you use should come from high-level researchers engaged in your field of study.
• Your interpretations of the evidence should be objective and state the conclusions and theses presented in the evidence clearly and fairly.
• Your paper should place the various forms of evidence in relation to one another and demonstrate why one form or perspective is stronger than the other positions that one could take on the issue.
• Your paper should point out the limitations of current evidence and attempt to indicate areas for future research.

Ethical Outcomes of the Position You Take

After you have defined the problem and created an argument about how one ought to respond to the issue, you need to explain the ethical outcomes of the position you have taken. This should again be in relation to the field of study in which you are working. There might be different ethical outcomes that result from your analysis. For example, going back to the example issue above, from an economic standpoint, illegal immigrants might contribute positively to the economy of Northern Illinois in a specific number of ways. Thus, an economist who believes that positive impact to the economy is the greatest good would say that one should promote the use of illegal immigrants. However, because these workers are often paid less than others and eliminate jobs that could be done by residents of Chicago, there could be other negative ethical outcomes that would outweigh the positive impacts to the economy. It is your goal to draw out the ethical implications of your thesis and explain the underlying rationale that is the foundation for your claim that one action is better than another.

• Critical thinkers are those who can outline the positive and negative ethical impacts of their positions. In addition, they are able to provide a rationale for why they believe a specific position is the right position, even when it leads to negative outcomes.
• Critical thinkers are also able to be honest and objective about the limitations and gray areas that pertain to their theses.

Final Research Project Requirements

The Final Research Project may be presented as a formal research paper (essay format), a PowerPoint presentation, a video, or a podcast equivalent to a minimum of 10 – 12 pages in APA format (approximately 3,300 – 3,900 typewritten words, excluding title page and reference pages). Written essays must adhere to all APA formatting standards and requirements, as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

PowerPoint presentations must include the full text (at least 3,300 words) in the speaker notes portion of the slides, with appropriate citations, and full reference pages. PowerPoint presentations must adhere to the basic principles of PowerPoint presentation design and must include citations and references according to APA standards and requirements.

Videos and podcasts must include a full transcript, in APA format, including appropriate in-text citations and a references page.

Quotations:

There must be no more than 15% quoted content in the body of your essay. All quoted material must bear quotation marks and a full quotation citation.

Source Documents:

• There must be 10 or more source documents used, cited, and referenced.
• Multimedia sources (such as videos) may be used, but no more than two such sources may be used. If multimedia sources are used, then they must be authored and distributed by credible sources, such as universities, law schools, medical schools, or professors, or found in the Ashford University Library.
• Where print documents are used for source materials, those must be peer-reviewed, scholarly journal articles, and academically published books. Popular media sources (e.g., newspapers, magazines, television and radio shows, etc.) may not be used. Materials from advocacy groups (e.g., Greenpeace, Human Rights Campaign, National Organization for Women, etc.) may not be used.
• Two of the peer-reviewed scholarly sources used must include statistical evidence, which must be accurately interpreted.
• Sites such as ProCon.org and Wikipedia should not be used.
• Religious texts are neither peer-reviewed nor scholarly and so may not be used in any way.

Summary Conclusion:

You must have a summary conclusion as the last paragraph(s) of the project, presenting the major point of the essay and the evidence supporting that point.

Word Count:

The content body of the project must be 3,300 words or more. The word count does not include anything in the title page, running header, or reference list. It is expected that you meet all logistical requirements of this paper.

Reference List:

• The list of references must include only those source documents that are cited within the body of the project.
• The project must fully comply with APA formatting standards and requirements as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center: title page, running header with page numbers, font face and size, line spacing, citations, and reference page(s).