Auditing Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Auditing - Research Paper Example This paper is a discussion of what the staff a company should expect auditors to do. The staff of a company should expect the auditors to engage in rendering an opinion of the company’s financial statement being presented fairly. The opinion is arrived at after gathering of appropriate and sufficient evidence and observation tests in accordance with GAAS. Sarbanes-Oxley Act section 302 states that the signing officers of the financial reports must review it first. According to the act also the signing officers are responsible for internal controls and must have evaluated them within the previous ninety days. This is in accordance to the financial reporting framework and all material aspects (Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 2002). The staff should expect the audit to provide information to investors and lenders that will boost the degree of confidence in the financial statements. Auditors have the responsibility of understanding and evaluating the internal control system. The staff in an organization should adopt sound accounting policies for establishing and maintaining internal control (Cangemi & Singleton, 2003). This will help to process and report transactions that are consistence with management assertions embodied in financial statements. As per the Sarbanes-Oxley Act section 401, the staffs are expected to publish accurate financial statements and present them in manner that is correct. The auditors are thus able to determine the practices established by the company are implemented as planned (Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 2002). Auditors are also responsible of observing the inventory count and performing analytical procedures on expected variances in accounting balances. Some of the procedures that auditors use are interviewing the leadership of an organization. This entails the senior management and the board of directors. The purpose of the interview is to ensure the top level management has an understanding

The five functions of management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The five functions of management - Essay Example The five functions of management This function enables the managers to distribute authority to individual job holders or other employees (Martin and Fellenz 1-75). Controlling can be seen as a four step process of establishing performance standards based on the company’s mission and objectives, measuring and reporting of actual performance, comparing the two and taking of other corrective or preventive actions that may be deemed necessary to solve a particular problem. The main purpose of controlling is to identify deviations from the objectives and taking corrective action (French, Rayner and Rees 12-25). Directing refers to the ability to influence people’s behavior through the motivation, communication, group dynamics, leadership and discipline. The aim of directing is to channel the behavior of all the personnel to accomplish the organization’s mission and objectives while at the same time helping them accomplish their own career objectives (French, Rayner and Rees 12-25). Staffing is fillin g and keeping filled with qualified people all the positions in the business. Some of the specific activities included in this function include recruiting, hiring, training, evaluating and compensating employees. In order to carry out this function properly a manger will liaise with the human resource department. The use of incentives has been seen as advantageous because they encourage and promote appropriate safe behavior among employees at the work place. It is a way that companies are able to demonstrate that they care for their employees and recognizes those who work safely. Secondly long term behavior can be changed through awareness and the provision of financial rewards for proper behavior and this will result in improved morale and reduced worker compensation costs. Third safety incentive programs reduce accidents at the work place as they encourage employees to work in safe conditions (Princhard). The disadvantages of safety incentive programs are that, first they do not o bligate any changes in the existing processes or procedures. Accidents are generally as a combination of some unsafe conditions and therefore by giving employees rewards they try to minimize accidents but the sane processes are still in existence. Incentives also ignore reasons such that they deflect attention from real issues and can disguise genuine deficiencies, flaws or safety management process within the organization. Third incentives are based on a wrong assumption that is unsafe acts. They assume that accidents are intentional acts and that these incentives will cause employees to stop behaving improperly which is wrong (Princhard). Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory is a theory of motivation that is used to explain the spectrum of human behavior. He proposed that motivation is a function of five basic needs – physiological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualization. He said that these categories are arranged in a hierarchy- that human needs emerge in a predictable stair-step fashion. When one need is satisfied another need up in the ladder emerges or is activated. The process continues until the need for self-actualization is activated (Harold Koontz 290-98). Physiological needs include the following: food, water, warmth, rest and shelter. Safety needs include the

Can We Trust Our Senses? Essay

Can We Trust Our Senses? Essay The absolute truth is a journey that leads to never-before experienced realms. The end of this road could never be reached and even the best man will only go a few steps in the right direction. To determine what the truth is and what it is not, a reliability is placed upon what we identify from our senses. This is the standard approach that we as humans take but, it is not necessarily the correct one. Many problems came up when establishing the truth based on our senses and thus they can rarely be fully trusted, this is what we can say when taking bad decisions. Sense is scientifically defined as any of the faculties by which stimuli from outside or inside the body are received and felt, as the faculties of hearing, sight, smell, touch, taste, and equilibrium.  [1]  Senses are important in our lives. We are born with them and we would not be able to live without them, but we have a problem with them we can not identify whether they are true or not. Whether they tell us the truth. We are able to see, hear, touch, smell but we are not aware how much these senses matter to us, we are not able to use them properly. Our senses work best in trying to prove if something stimulating our knowledge of reality, not if what we know is absolutely true, but rather if a new truth stimulates known truths, and the old ways remain the same way. Experience that has been done with our senses previously lets us know that something is not working quietly good. Our actual senses convey the physical world to the extent they can do it without being tricked they are mechanisms, they do not understand and interpret, they give us complete information. Our sensory areas in the brain immediately start to simplify this information till we can attach meaning to it. From that point on the information is interpreted as truth( not counting the wavelength, certain pitches, because this would make a minor difference to our understanding of truth). There has always been a problem in distinguishing between something that is true and  something that is not true, because how exactly do we know if its true or if its not. In this  essay truth is going to be defined as conformity with fact or reality; verity.  [2]  Truth can be  defined by senses, however it is very hard to say that form the definition. For example lets  have two brothers Andy and Harry. Andy and Harry have the same perfumes and wear the  same clothes. Harrys friend thought he saw and smelled Harry passing by but actually it was  Andy. We can now say that our senses are not right, because as the friend smelled Harrys  perfumes and saw the clothes of Harry his senses were wrong it was Andy which passed by. This example is showing that senses can tell us truth, only on certain grounds. So there are five definite senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. Going back to the essential question, When should we trust our senses to give us truth? In other words, in what aspects of our life can we trust ourselves to understand the true reality of what we believe is happening? Must we really rely on our sense perception for everything? The functioning of all the senses may give us true, but isnt true based on our perception A good example of the above statement is the belief in God we believe in him but actually we dont see him. So do we really trust our senses if we believe in God. We can not see him we can not hear him we can not touch him and we believe in him, also here is the truth in that. So do we really relay on our senses and do they really tell us the truth? Now what causes that is that the faith and for us that becomes the ultimate truth. Another example would be when you have a cold or you are sick can you still trust your senses? If you have a blocked nose then you can not smell anything, so should you still trust your sense of smell? Or should you just ignore that and trust the other senses. A well known philosopher A.J. Ayer. A.J. Ayer (1910-1989) was only 24 when he wrote the book that made his philosophical name, Language, Truth, and Logic (hereafter LTL), that was published in 1936. This book defines, explains, and argues for the logical positivsm, sometimes referred to as the criterio n of significance or criterion of meaning  [3]  . It explains how problems might be solved by the principle of verifiablity. In these views Ayer saw himself as continuing in the line of British empiricism established by Locke and Hume, whose representative was Russell. Throughout A.J Ayer subsequent career he remained with his traditions rejection of the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge. He saw philosophy method to be the analysis of the meaning of key terms, such as causality, truth, knowledge, freedom.  [4]  . He has investigated the concept justified true belief. Ayer has argued that existence is not a predicate( what is a predicate? In the sentence. Alex is slow is slow is the predicate) A persons sense of perception isnt exactly true that the object exists. Using the above example is Alex exists or not this does not change the fact that the perceive of Alex is slow. Basically what he was trying to say that for something that has to be known, it has to be beli eved, justified( senses for example) and true. The difficulty is proving if something is true or not for example in science we dont prove something we just support it. There is also the question how to test for accuracy which also can make our true different, so for example if we have a really accurate results for testing truth this can lead us to finding out what is truth actually. There is another theory of knowledge known as justified racialism this thory is about that where in order for a knowledge claim to be knowledge it has to be believed, true and justified according to a reliable cognitive process there is a lot of debate over what constitutes a reliable cognitive process and in particular about whether the senses are trustworthy enough to be this process  [5]  . Summarising your senses are the inner being of our souls and that is what needs to be used fist. Trust can be broken our senses tell us when something is wrong and if we chose to ignore our senses and trust what someone is telling us we can end up being hurt and if we go on emotions boy, children get hurt many times when they feel that bad and trust that a bad person with a sob story will tell them. This is when they do not trust their senses for example if their hand is hurting and their friend tells them to play they ignore their senses and just continue playing then they sib at home, due to the fact that the hand is hurting and they cant play football any more, because their hand is broken. So we do need to trust our senses. But our senses as I said before never give us true they give as data which we can use or ignore as the kid in the story above. Truth is not something we sense, it is something we recognize. The data that our senses give us is pretty accurate, we just have to k now how to use it correctly. On the other hand our interpretation of that data is many times in error. Emotion is the bodys reaction to thought, I will again use the example of the boy playing football he didnt trust his senses he kept playing football and after when he came back home he couldnt lay any more football, his body reacted to his emotion, the hand was hurting. We can trust the information that emotion imparts only as far as we have been able to become aware of how it operates in our lives. All emotion is giving us information about ourselves and the best way of accepting that is to know our way of living. If we know our reaction to emotions we know ourselves. Concluding we can not identify if we should trust our senses or not, sometimes we should trust our senses and sometimes there are situations that we should not trust our senses.

Essay example --

In the analysis of environmental samples, advances in instrumentation have allowed laboratories to routinely report sample results into the parts per billion (ppb) range, but this is sometimes insufficient to meet project goals. This article will illustrate a technique that can be used to increase the sensitivity of the mass selective detector, and thereby lower the reporting limit of GC/MS methods such as EPA 8260 for VOCs, or EPA 8270 for SVOCs. The technique is called selected ion monitoring, or SIM, and is specific to the operation of the mass selective detector (MSD). Before describing the advantages and disadvantages of the SIM technique, a brief overview of the principles of operation of the MSD is in order. The MSD is a two-part instrument, comprised of a filter stage and a signal processing, or detection stage. Analytes that have been separated on the gas chromatograph (GC) enter the MSD and encounter a beam of electrons that ionize the analyte molecule into reproducible fragments, each having characteristic properties of mass and charge that allow them to be separated in the filter stage of the MSD. At any point in time, only fragments with the allowed mass to charge ratio (m/z) will pass through the filter and are counted in the detector stage of the MSD. In scan mode, the filter operates dynamically, sequentially scanning m/z ions between the upper and lower limits of m/z specified by the analyst. A full-range spectrum of several hundred m/z ions (specified as atomic mass units, or AMU) is typically scanned in this way. The filter cycles through the m/z range at radio frequencies (109 cycles per second), so each ion in the fragmentation pattern is counted billions of times. The sens itivity of the detector is directly ... ... quant ion. The analyst must be aware of this in order to avoid reporting false or inflated values. Another disadvantage is that the analyte list must be drastically reduced from the 50+ analytes typically reported in a GC/MS analysis. In SIM mode, the detector must be programmed to look for a specific m/z ion (the quant ion) at any particular point in time. Each unknown analyte that is separated on the GC and enters the MSD may potentially have a unique quant ion, so detector limitations come into play for any analyte list that has more than 15 to 20 analytes. Finally, the MSD detector operated in SIM mode is not capable of identifying unknowns or tentatively identified compounds (TICs). SIM analysis is a powerful tool, but one that must be used carefully. Please contact your project manager at Kiff Analytical if you would like further information on SIM analysis

Public Administration and Management Essay

Introduction Public administration in Britain takes place through a variety of state agencies with varying histories, functions, as well as patterns of political control and accountability. These comprise the civil service; a large number of local bureaucracies serving an elective system of local government; another massive organization administering the National Health Service (NHS) and, under the acronym ‘quango’, a diverse range of organizations responsible for a assortment of administrative, consultative, advisory in addition to regulatory roles. In addition there is a compound of tribunals, inquiries, an ombudsman system and the judiciary, which together dispense administrative justice. The architecture of the modern state was drawn mainly in the nineteenth century, when the rising industrial bourgeoisie required a means of supporting the emerging capitalist economy. A number of major reports and Acts of Parliament offered blueprints for a competent and meritocratic modern civil service and the system of carefully managed municipalities. Reconstruction following the Second World War added a new layer to the modern state with the making of a inclusive welfare state, including the NHS, and the nationalization of a number of chief industries in the form of public corporations. From the 1980s an additional chapter was opened, as the post-war Keynesian beliefs were challenged in the rise of neo-liberalism under the government of Margaret Thatcher. The bureaucratic terrain was re-landscaped, part of a procedure distinguished as a ‘hollowing out’ of the state (Rhodes 1994; 1997). Even though talk of reform had long featured on the political program, the public bureaucracies had established a renowned capacity to resist change. However, this time the thoughts were backed by resolute political will. A significant intellectual dynamic came from interpretation based on rational individuality under the name of public choice theory (Niskanen 1973). This was usually suspicious of public bureaucracies, which were seen as principally self serving. Much of the practical reform in structure and management was stirred by the model of the private sector, where it was reasoned that the restraint of the profit motive secured greater efficiency, effectiveness as well as economy. The oratory spoke of ‘reinventing government’ (Osborne and Gaebler 1992); though to critics it emerged as abandoning government in an anti-statist crusade. A program of privatization cut sheathe through the state industrial sector while giving rise to a new generation of regulatory agencies. Much of the civil service was recast into a compound of agencies with a greater level of autonomy from the centre, and the collection of quangos began to grow as responsibilities for a variety of functions were transferred from the realm of elected local government. Indeed, processes of market testing as well as compulsory competitive tendering saw the stipulation of certain services passing from the state altogether and into the hands of the private sector. The arrival of a Labour Government in 1997 did little to stem the tide of change. Furthermore, this new government occasioned further seismic shifts through devolution to Scotland and Wales. Great Britain includes the nations of England, Wales and Scotland, while the United Kingdom extends the embrace to Northern Ireland. These cultural forms were recognized in an outline of administrative regionalism. For long this motivated little political feeling; only in Northern Ireland were separatist tensions felt. Nonetheless, during the 1980s, nationalist movements gathered speed in both Wales and Scotland; this sequentially generated some pressure towards English regionalism. Thus the state has been forced to concern itself with issues of territorial management and make some chief allowances to diversity (Thompson, 1997). Rooted in a history dating from the take-over of Ireland by the Tudors and re-conquest first by Cromwell and later by the Protestant William of Orange, Northern Ireland dwarfs all other territorial problems of UK Government. Coming to office in the year 1997, Tony Blair’s first official journey was to Ulster and Sinn Fein was invited into new peace talks. After indirect negotiations, which included some mediation from US President Bill Clinton, an agreement was reached which included: A Northern Ireland assembly of 108 elected by PR with legislative powers under an all-party executive A North-South Ministerial Council to reflect on issues for instance cross-border co-operation The Irish Government to give up constitutional claims to Northern Ireland and Westminster to reinstate the Government of Ireland Act A Council of the Isles comprising members from the north and south of Ireland and the Scottish and Welsh assemblies There were also to be releases of prisoners in addition to a decommissioning of arms. The agreement was effectively put to referendums in Northern Ireland and the Republic in May 1998. Elections were held, but advancement began to slow down. Scotland and Wales In the UK mainland, Wales and Scotland had been governed as provinces from London, with Secretaries of State in the Cabinet and Grand Committees in Parliament. Public administration in the provinces came under Whitehall outposts, the Welsh and Scottish Offices. Nonetheless, from 1979 an extremely centralizing government heightened a mood of separatism, placing strains on the veracity of the state which were to go off in tectonic constitutional shifts in 1998. The configuration of the two new assemblies was intended to release a safety valve on the separatist pressure. On the other hand, opinion polls began to show rising support for the SNP and its objective of complete Scottish independence in the background of the EU. Comparable murmurings were heard in Wales, a country that had done very fine from its European involvement (Jones 1997). Labor’s central machine showed an enthusiastic concern to have its chosen men as the leaders of the provincial parties (and hence first ministers in the assemblies) representing a keen aspiration to keep the provinces under the Westminster wing. Nonetheless, when the elections by the additional member system (d’Hondt version) to the new assemblies were held on 6 May 1999, the Labour Party, with 28 of the 60 seats in the Welsh Senedd, and 59 of Scotland’s 129-seat assembly, failed to win unconditional majorities in either province. A future of alliance government loomed. furthermore, with 17 seats in Wales and 35 in Scotland, the nationalists were second placed in both cases, possibly presaging further separatist pressure (Drewry, & Butcher, 1991). England Devolution debate reverberated into England with requirements for regional independence. A political split was opening as from the early 1980s voting patterns gradually more revealed the Conservatives as a party of the southeast. past the ballot box an economic split yawned as huge deindustrialization and the collapse of mining confounded communities in the north. The economic forecasting organization, the Henley Centre, found per capita income in the south-east to be 20 per cent higher than in the rest of Britain (Wagstyl 1996). A European Commission report of November 1996 established that, while post-war economic revival had closed the poverty gaps between Western Europe’s states, wide dissimilarities remained between regions, the greatest being within the UK.   The British public sector, with numerous of its customs cast in the nineteenth century, has for long been criticized as managerially incompetent. The post-war era saw repeated efforts at reform all through the public sector, though few made any lasting notion before the 1980s. Ever since this time there has been something of a revolution as what was phrased a ‘new public management’ movement became a familiar international influence (Hood 1991; Lowndes 1997). It was to send shivers to the very foundations of the state, reforming structures as well as practices. The nineteenth-century reforms recognized a custom of elitist generalism and social superiority in which Oxbridge graduates schooled in the classics were to lead the upper reaches of the state bureaucracy. This was to stimulate substantial post-war debate. The onset in office of a Labour Government in 1964 pledged revolution and the 1968 Fulton Committee set up by Harold Wilson criticized the ‘cult of the amateur’. It resulted in the formation of a Civil Service Department (CSD) in Whitehall to supervise managerial reforms all through the service, and the establishment of a Civil Service College to offer continuing operating training. One proposal which failed to stimulate was that entrants should hold relevant degrees: the place of the ‘generalist’ administrator remained unassailed. In the 1990s, Richards (1996) initiated the generalists’ promotion prospects still significantly brighter than those of the specialist. In the interim, the Civil Service College had fallen well short of the determined position envisaged for it and the CSD had been ignominiously wipe out from the bureaucratic map. Not until Thatcher took the bit between her teeth did a grave breakthrough come. In her first year of office an Efficiency Unit was set up headed by Sir Derek Rayner of the retail giant Marks & Spencer. He initiated a system of ‘scrutinies’ in which competence teams studied recognized practices and suggested reforms, an initiative which achieved more than anything before (Hennessy 1990:619). Even so, the reforms did not go far enough for those of a fundamental bent. An even greater culture shock was to come when Robin Ibbs took over the Efficiency Unit and produced the 1988 report, ‘Improving Management in Government: The Next Steps’. This was the report which led to the recasting of the Civil Service as executive agencies. Despite its structural impact the intent in this initiative was essentially managerial (Elcock 1991:236-42). Once established, the new chief executives were given a free rein to introduce a wide range of management practices such as performance-related pay and short-term contracts in the quest for efficiency. A special unit was created in the Cabinet Office to maintain the reforming impetus. The government also assisted developments by abolishing the Northcote-Trevelyan model of centralized recruitment through the independent Civil Service Commission for some 95 per cent of appointments. Responsibility was to lie with the various departments and agencies themselves. A Recruitment and Assessment Service was created to offer central assistance if required although, amidst heated controversy, this itself was privatized in 1991. The result was a variety of terms and conditions of employment throughout the service. There were limits to the revolution. Government radicals had wanted the reforms to reach the senior mandarins, subjecting them to short-term contracts, market-testing and large-scale appointments from the private sector on the ‘revolving-door’ principle. For most civil servants, anticipating a life insulated from the chill winds of the market economy, much of the managerial reform process was demoralizing. While academics in the right-wing think tanks applauded the changes, many other academic critics saw in the quest for efficiency serious threats to the fundamental public service ethos (Elcock 1991:188; Chapman and O’Toole 1995). There was some feeling that the reforms reflected governmental antagonism towards civil servants as much as a quest for improved management; the term ‘deprivileging’ was sometimes heard. The Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee noted that in 1992/3,  £768 million worth of activities out of the  £1.119 billion subjected to market testing were contracted out without civil servants even being allowed to make in-house bids. The traditional management structure in local government entailed separate departments responsible for the provision of various services, each headed by a chief officer and responsible to a particular council committee. A legion of post-war critics saw this as slow, cumbersome and diffuse. A major debate in the 1960s concerned a corporate management model in which a powerful chief executive would displace the traditional town clerk to give strong leadership at the centre. Councilors, faced with a palpable loss of power, proved resistant and traditional practices persisted, although often under the camouflage of some changed nomenclature. New impetus came with the Thatcher regime and was elaborated under John Major (Kingdom 1999). Looking as always to the private sector, much was made of the concept of the ‘enabling authority’; the emphasis was not on the direct provision services but on contracting them out to the private and voluntary sectors. Such a practice was by no means new but, from the late 1980s, it became central to government policy, with compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) introduced for an ever-widening range of functions, from refuse collection to professional, legal and accounting responsibilities. A policy of care in the community, coming into force in April 1993, added impetus by requiring local authorities to make use of private and voluntary-sector residential homes for their widening community care responsibilities. In opposition Labour had poured scorn on the policy; in government it maintained the contracting out principle under the term ‘Best Value’. The managerial implications in CCT were profound. Although local responses varied with political complexion, few authorities could remain untouched by the culture shift. Even where there was no stomach for contracting out, teams of officials had to endure considerable stress in producing competitive in-house bids in order to keep their jobs. Colleagues found themselves in competitive relationships with each other, some becoming contractors and others providers (Audit Commission 1993). Moreover, the drawing up and monitoring of contracts required the skills of lawyers and accountants rather than elected councilors. Major’s Environment Secretary Michael Heseltine produced a consultation document, The Internal Management of Local Authorities, stressing that the control and co-ordination of large workforces would no longer be the central management task. The paper looked for speedy decision-making and strong leadership, advocating local cabinets, appointed council managers or, most radically, directly elected US-style mayors with high public profiles. The latter had held little appeal to Heseltine’s party but, in a February 1998 consultation paper, Modernizing Local Government: Local Democracy and Community Leadership, the new Labour Government declared itself ‘very attracted’ to the model of a strong directly elected mayor (para 5.14). The promised Greater London Authority was seen as a suitable flagship for innovation. Here the mayor, served by three or four deputies and a small bureaucracy of around 250, would set policy objectives and an annual budget (of some  £3.3 billion). The role of the councilors in the assembly would be approving rather than determining the budget. Responsibilities of the new mayor would include public transport, the fire brigade, strategic planning, trunk roads, traffic management, the ambulance service and possibly the arts. In addition, responsibility for the Metropolitan Police Force would be taken over from the Home Secretary. The potential power of the new office would be considerable, and both main parties showed alarm as the names of some of their more maverick members were canvassed. For Labour leader Tony Blair, the nightmare candidate appeared to be the left-wing Ken Livingstone, ex-leader of the old GLC and extremely popular with Londoners. The nightmare became reality in May 2000. There was an expectation that this model would be extended to other major cities. All 494 councils were asked to submit plans to central government showing how they would separate the decision-making role from that of representing constituents. Three options were offered: †¢ a leader elected by the council who would appoint a cabinet from the council A directly elected executive mayor who would appoint a cabinet from the council A directly elected mayor working with a full-time manager appointed by the council Conclusion The general election of May 1997 saw the end of an 18-year period of Conservative rule during which the administrative landscape of the state had been radically recast. Few corners of the public sector could be said to have escaped some aspect of the winds of change which included privatization, agencification, CCT, market-testing, public-private partnership ventures, the emergence by stealth of the ‘new magistracy’ and the general spread of a private-sector managerial ethos. In opposition, the Labour Party had maintained a prolonged crusade against most of the reforms, and many supporters had looked forward to the advance of the political bulldozers to level the ground. In power the party kicked off with a number of significant constitutional moves over devolution, the electoral system, the ECHR, the House of Lords, the Bank of England and the reform of local government. However, the party in power termed itself New Labour and preservation orders appeared over the recently privatized sector; indeed further privatizations were soon mooted in the cases of the Royal Mint and Air Traffic Control, and the remodeled Civil Service and NHS. In local government grant-maintained schools remained under the term ‘foundation schools’, and the replacement of CCT with ‘Best Value’ was, in the eyes of critics, little more than cosmetic (Theakston, & Fry, 1998). Moreover, there remained something very much like a capping regime over local government expenditure. In managerial terms, the three Es of effectiveness, economy and efficiency continued as the holy trinity. As the millennium closed it was safe to say that, while the British public sector would remain in the state of flux allowed by its vague and unwritten constitution, the substructure had seen some tectonic shifts from which there would be little reversal.   Reference: Audit Commission (1993) Realising the Benefits of Competition: The Client Role forContracted Services, London: HMSO. Birkinshaw, P. (1997) ‘Freedom of information’, Parliamentary Affairs, 50, 1:164-81. Chapman, R.A. and Toole, B.J. (1995) ‘The role of the civil service: a traditional view in a period of change’, Public Policy and Administration, 10, 2:3-20. Elcock, H. (1991) Change and Decay: Public Administration in the 1990s, Harlow: Longman. Hennessy, P. (1990) Whitehall, London: Fontana.   Hood, C. (1991) ‘A public management for all seasons’, Public Administration, 69, 1: 3-19. Jones, B. (1997) ‘Wales: a developing political economy’, in M. Keating and J. Loughlin (eds), The Political Economy of Regionalism, London: Frank Cass. Kingdom, J. (1999) ‘Centralisation and fragmentation: John Major and the reform of Local Government’, in P. Dorey (ed.), The Major Premiership, Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp 45-7. Klug, F., Starmer, K. and Weir, S. (1996) ‘Civil liberties and the parliamentary watchdog: the passage of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994’, Parliamentary Affairs, 49, 4:536-49.   Lowndes, V. (1997) ‘Change in public service management: new institutions and new managerial regimes’, Local Government Studies, 23, 2:42-66.   Mandelson, P. and Liddle, R. (1996) The Blair Phenomenon: Can New Labour Deliver? London: Faber.    Nicholson, E. (1996) Secret Society, London: Indigo. Osborne, D. and Gaebler, T. (1992) Reinventing Government, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Rhodes, R.A.W. (1994) ‘The hollowing out of the state: the changing nature of the public service in Britain’, Political Quarterly, 65:138-51. Rhodes, R.A.W. (1997) Understanding Governance: Policy Networks, Governance,Reflexivity and Accountability, Buckingham: Open University Press.   Richards, D. (1996) ‘Recruitment to the highest grades in the civil service-drawing the curtains Open’, Public Administration, 74, 4:657-77. Wagstyl, S. (1996) ‘Nice work if you can get it’, The. Financial Times, 18 December, 23. Theakston, K. and Fry, G.K. (1998) ‘Britain’s administrative elite: permanent secretaries 1900-1986’, Public Administration, 67, 2:129-48.   Ã‚   Thompson, B. (1997) ‘Conclusion: judges as trouble-shooters’, Parliamentary Affairs, 50, 1:182-9.   Drewry, G. and Butcher, T. (1991) The Civil Service Today (2nd edn), Oxford: Blackwell.

The Third and Final Continent Essay

Joel Wilson Wilson1 Ms. Lewis English 112 (3) 17 October 2012 Critical Response Throughout â€Å"The Third and final continent† by Jhumpa Lahiri, arranged marriage can be the best thing that can happen to some people, but sometimes in another case it might not be the best idea, in the â€Å"The third and final continent, the arranged marriage was a good idea because at the end they fall in love with each other and make a good family after all.The man might not be thinking about getting married because he will be preoccupied by other thing like getting a job or taking of he’s mother and maybe little brothers. â€Å"It was a duty expected of me† (Lahiri, P. 181) He did what he’s family wanted him to do, or maybe the woman’s family might be concern about the daughter getting married, â€Å" †¦Had begun to fear that she would never marry†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Lahiri, P. 181) The narrator did what he’s family’s wanted him to do, not only be cause it’s a family duty, but the wife’s family has begun to worry about her getting married.Arranged marriage can make a happy family just as normal marriages, the narrator and he’s wife live a happy life after getting adapter to each other’s presence. The arranged marriage in â€Å"The third and final continent† was a successful, they even â€Å"†¦ had a son who attend Harvard University† (Lahiri, P. 197) arranged marriages are not the worst thing that can happen it just need to people to love each other and get adapter to the new situation.

The Drum Dulce et Decorum est Essays

The Drum Dulce et Decorum est Essays The Drum Dulce et Decorum est Paper The Drum Dulce et Decorum est Paper Essay Topic: Jessie Pope War Poetry Poetry War poetry is written either by those who want to promote war as a glamorous adventure or by those who want to depict war as a painful experience causing horror and despair to those involved. Poetry was used in some newspapers during World War one as a means of recruitment for soldiers. One journalist Jessie Pope was famed for this type of War poetry and was criticised by many poets who focused on the horrific truths war of for them and all soldiers. War poetry often gives us a accurate impression of the suffering soldiers had to endure. Poetry is also a valuable source of information on war. In most historical books and reports we are given only detached, objective and factual information. War poetry from the likes of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon give us their own personal feelings of war and the death as reported through their eyes. The two poems I will be comparing will be John Scotts pre 1900 poem The Drum and Wilfred Owens post 1900 poem Dulce et Decorum est. Both of these poems are anti-war but are written by people who have had very different experiences of war. John Scott who was a Quaker and opposed to all violence wrote The Drum in 1782. Wilfred Owen was a soldier in the First World War. The things that he witnessed during this time left him deeply scarred; he expressed his feelings in his poems. The title of the poem The Drum refers to the recruiting drum played around the countryside by the army. The Drum is associated with war and in this poem as well as in the poem On The Idle Hill its use is clear. The first verse gives us the background to the drums use. We are told of how thoughtless youths are attracted to its sound and the glamorous side of war it portrays. The poem begins with I hate, immediately stating the poets feeling. We are told of the drums discordant sound as if the sound of the drums spreads displeasure and disorder. The second line uses the word parading followed by the phrase and round being repeated. This gives the impression that this happens again and again. It is also possible that this is like a childs rhyme emphasising the involvement of youth. The focus on the young being victims of the drums attracting sound is shown with he use words like thoughtless and lures. The phrase To sell their liberty for charms sums up Scotts belief that the young are giving their freedom away to seek wars mistaken glory. Their search for glory is displayed in the phrase Ambitions voice commands. This Personification shows us that the call for glory is part of military life but at the end of the first verse we are given the first example of what thoughtless glory will lead to. Alliteration is used to describe how the recruits will go on to fight and fall in foreign lands. This demonstrates how terrible it was as the soldiers will die in lands that mean nothing to them. The second verse also begins with the words I hate reinforcing Scotts personal feelings. In this verse he concentrates on the inevitable suffering caused by war that, he starts a list of horrors with To me, again personalising the poem. The listing with and repeated over and over makes it seem that the litany of destruction is just being added to continuously. To end the poem Scott Personifies the word Misery as if it was living in the hearts and minds of the soldiers. The title Dulce et Decorum est is part of the old Latin saying that it is a fine and honourable thing to die for your country. By using this as a title Owen is making a statement to his intended audience who he resented deeply. The first verse describes nothing but absolute horror and exhaustion. Words like haunting describe the horror while a lot of Alliteration is used in phrases such as knock-kneed and the trudge of troops to show the level of tiredness. The phrases are used along with others like Bent doubled like old beggars and coughing like hags to reinforce the hellish conditions even the Five-Nines are spent from exhaustion. The word all is used twice to show that no one escaped the torment. The second verse begins frantically reflecting the panic of the men as shells of Gas fall around them. The men are in a life and death situation and the use of just in time demonstrates how lucky they have been to survive. But one man has not been so fortunate and his death in the sea of green is described in great detail. We are told how the was drowning as he watched helplessly. In verse three the idea of suffocation from the gas is reinforced. The inhumane situation is described when we are told the man body was flung on a wagon, this is not the heroic death that people believed they would have. Owen tells us that the sight of the dyeing man still haunts his dreams. The man is described with words like plunges, choking and drowning. The thought that even though the event has past the horror still lives with him again showing things which are very personal. In the final verse of the poem Owen is addressing the readers mostly likely those at home who still promote the war. He again refers to the gas attacks by using the smothering but he also talks about his own dreams asking the reader by using the you if only they could witness what he has. Owen uses the word flung to describe how they treated the mans body, this word shows that the mans death had no meaning. He then goes on to describe graphically the mans appearance as he lyes dead on the wagon. Phrases like devils sick of sin, froth corrupted, Obscene as cancer and vile incurable sores send forth strong imagery of horror. In describing these things Owen in the sense to make a greater impact. Sight is incorporated through the use of the word watch then the word hear is used and finally taste by using the phrase bitter as cud. The poem ends with Owen addressing those at home such as Jessie Pope who readily tell youth who seek glory that war is a great and honourable thing. He uses My friend when addressing these peopleperhaps an element of sarcasm but the poems end line is the most significant of the poem. Owen calls the saying Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori the old lie, not just a lie the lie that every youth at that time would have known. Owens title for the poem is only have the saying the rest he tells at the end maybe so that people will understand what dying in war is like so that they can make their own minds up on how honourable it is. Both of these poems send out a clear message that war is a terrible and horrific thing for all involved. Both poets are very resentful of those who recruit the young to fight. Scott speaks of the thoughtless youth who sell their liberty for charms and in a similar vain Owen tells of children ardent for some desperate glory. In both poems we are told of wars misery but in must be said that Owen has used far more brutal and horrific imagery. I also think that because Owens war experiences helped to produce such a hate of war that there is more passion and personal feeling n his poem. Scott gives a very general view of war that although is quite true is not as striking or as affective. Scott does make good uses of poetic techniques such as Alliteration and Personification to make his feelings come alive to the reader. He uses a rhyming scheme of couplets to make the poem like a nursery rhyme reinforcing the feeling that youth are the victims. Owens Poem is full of his own personal life at war. He demonstrates his hate of war and the horror of it which haunts his sleep time and time again. This poem would have made a strong statement to those who supported the war and made Owen unpopular with many but the graphic imagery would have made many stop and think about the reality of war.