Personal Brands Be Yourself or Create Yourself - The Writers For Hire

PERSONAL BRANDS: BE YOURSELF OR CREATE YOURSELF? Marketing is about image – and in this world of social media marketing, personal branding is paramount. But how do you walk the line between being yourself and creating yourself? It’s a question that’s been plaguing marketers (check out this blog on businessgrow.com). And you know what? No one wants to buy into another slick marketing campaign – there’s real value by just marketing you as you. Being Yourself Good marketing copy reflects a true representation of you. Don’t hold anything back – really think about what defines YOU. Are you brutally honest? A real nice guy (or girl)? Smart and aggressive? By being yourself in copy, you’re more likely to attract customers that are a good match for you. Like attracts like, plain and simple. What’s more – being yourself is often a better way to get attention. Perez Hilton, gossip blogger, has one of the most popular blogs on the Internet. There are lots of celebrity blogs out there, but Hilton’s success lies in one thing: his personality. He’s brash, he’s bold, he’s downright mean. And people love it. The problem a lot of businesses or businesspeople have is that they try to attract EVERYONE in their copy. You just can’t do it (see my previous blog on finding an audience). You need to position yourself, and accept the fact that not everyone is going to be interested in what you have to say, and not everyone is going to buy one of your widgets. So instead, try attracting clients and customers that ARE interested. Clients that are a lot like you. There’s a couple of ways you can do that. Some ways to express your personality and build your personal brand through copy include: 1. Always using an easy, conversational style. Skip all the words you used in college, people appreciate simplicity. 2. Finding the appropriate tone. What are you like? Are you hip and cutting edge? Honest and old fashioned? Friendly and forthcoming? Tone will help you connect to clients on a personal level. 3. Be transparent and honest. If you don’t work with small businesses, explain that to potential clients. If you don’t think you can deliver on a particular project, let them know. Finding the right client match means that both parties should be honest, open, and communicative. 4. Don’t try to people-please too much. Of course, clients should always get what they want †¦ within reason. If you’re an expert, then be the expert – if you can tell off the bat that a potential client isn’t a good fit with your personality (are they too demanding? Not open to new ideas?), then you might be better off passing on that client. You’ll often find that clients who don’t mesh with your personality won’t make lasting relationships. Personal branding is all about creating and maintaining relationships. The best way to create lasting relationships? Just be yourself – you’ll get along with your clients much better. Creating Yourself Now, there’s nothing really wrong with projecting an image. Ed Schipul, author of http://eschipul.com blog, is one proponent of creating a brand. Creating a brand often means putting your true personality aside and trying to appeal to what you think people want. If you want to branch out and grab high-end customers, you may need to completely rewrite all of your marketing materials, get a flashy web designer, and move into an upscale office. That’s creating a brand: you may feel more comfortable in jeans and T-shirts, but the clients you want to attract are more the suit-wearing type. Now, I would contend that â€Å"creating† an image isn’t always the best way to go – especially if you’re running a business or social media enterprise. Why? Well, you’re likely to attract the wrong kind of clients and develop the wrong kind of relationships †¦ which can lead to a lot of frustration on your part. Often, when you’re not being â€Å"true to yourself† in your branding, you may start to feel dishonest. You may feel like your business and your clients are running you – not the other way around. Maybe all your energy and passion gets sapped because suddenly, you’re not doing what makes you happy, and your business has taken on an entirely different direction. Before going out and â€Å"creating† a persona to brand yourself, ask yourself: 1. What’s more important – owning your business and being true to yourself, or letting your clients tell you how it is? 2. What’s more important – providing a great product or service, or providing a great brand? 3. What’s more important – developing a large client base to sustain your in the future, or making a sale now? Developing an image isn’t a bad thing – but when it starts to overshadow good business practice, like making a good product, delivering a great service, honesty, and your own personal happiness, that image can certainly hurt you. What do you guys think? Do you work to create an image, a story, or a brand that matches up to your target audience? Or is settling into your natural personality a smarter way to go?

Mount Kilamanjaro essays

Mount Kilamanjaro essays Mount Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain of Africa, NE Tanzania, but it wasnt always a mountain it was a volcano but now it is extinct. Mt. Kilimanjaro has two snowcapped peaks, Uhuru (Kibo) (19,340 ft/5,895 m, Africa's highest point) and Mawenzi (17,564 ft/5,354 m), these two peaks are connected by a broad saddle which has an altitude of 15,000 ft/4,600 m. Kilimanjaro has a number of different vegetation zones on its steep slopes. Coffee and plantains are grown on the lower slopes of Kilimanjaro. The mountain was successfully scaled for the first time in 1889 by German geographer Hans Meyer and Austrian mountain climber Ludwig Purtscheller. This volcano/mountain highest and youngest cone is named Kibo. Shira to the west and Mawenzi in the east are older cones that make up Kilimanjaro. Kibo has not been active in modern times, but steam and sulfur are still emitted. At the top of Kibo's summit is a 1 1/2 mile wide crater. Shira is topped by a broad plateau, perhaps a filled caldera, and erosion has cut deeply into a remnant rim, but Mawenzi's summit is a steep rocky peak surrounded by cliffs 1,600 ft. to 4,900 ft. high. The original crater was removed by erosion, and a horseshoe resembling ridge opens to the northeast. In conclusion, the mountain/dormant volcano is Africa's largest volcano and among the largest on the Earth is indeed a beautiful and fascinating volcano of the world. ...

How Women Directors Influence Corporate Governance and Firm Dissertation

How Women Directors Influence Corporate Governance and Firm Performance - Dissertation Example Women have been shown to have a positive influence on a board, from aspects of participation such as attendance and dutiful diligence, to higher rates of pay for directors because of observable increases in performance which denote higher rates of return. The female presence on a corporate board provides a variety of advantages to the overall performance of a firm. Male Domination in the Board Room According to Gomez and Moore the statistics of female representation on corporate boards â€Å"show a disproportionate representation of women on boards in relation to their roles in society as consumers and employees†. According to Sparrow, only 15% of the board members in the United States are women, with only 1% being CEOs. In comparison, Sweden has 23%, Norway has 29%, Finland 20%, and Denmark 18%, because of Scandinavian policies that are encouraging the expansion of roles for women at the corporate level. However, in other European companies there is a lesser representation than in the United States. However, the problem with the statistics is that it does not reflect the number of female board members who are no more than a ‘trophy’ member, who holds several positions on the boards of multiple companies, decreasing the actual percentage of women who hold these positions. According to Reeves â€Å"Women’s lack of representation on boards is signific ant because boards make high level policy decisions that affect large numbers of people, including shareholders, employees, and ultimately consumers† (19). When women are represented on boards, there seems to be a ripple effect as more higher level management positions are then held by women within an organization. According to Reeves, the increases in CEO’s that are women have gone from nine in 2006, ten in 2007, twelve in 2008, and 13 in 2009, so the power balance is shifting, but by 2009, that number of 13 still only represented 2.6% of all corporate CEO’s. Reeves reports that while the average corporation has 21.8 corporate officers, only 3.6 of these positions are held by women. In 2006, 75% of the companies on the Fortune 500 had no women in top-earning positions within the corporate structure. An example to the social deficit that this creates can be seen where â€Å"women are more involved than men in the healthcare decisions for themselves and for their families†¦(however) more than one third of the world’s top 500 healthcare and pharmaceutical companies have no women on their corporate boards† (20). According to Peterson and Philpot, the professional backgrounds of board members on corporate boards shows that women are just as qualified in experience and background as are the men, but that they serve less frequently on executive committees than do men. Peterson and Philpot also find that gender is related to the way in which members are assigned to boards, and that the resource dependent theory provides for the phenomenon of women serving on more human and socially oriented boards, with men providing more representation on financial and budgetary committees. They suggest that there is â€Å"some relationship between committee assignment, gender, and the resource dependence role of directors† (193). Using the theory put forth by Nussbaum, the capabilities based approach, the nature of female representation should not be considered by the nature of gender but

WHAT IS PLAGIARISM WHY DO YOU THINK PLAGIARISM IS A PROBLEM IN Essay

WHAT IS PLAGIARISM WHY DO YOU THINK PLAGIARISM IS A PROBLEM IN ACADEMIC WORK HOW CAN YOU AVOID COMMON CAUSES OF PLAGIARISM - Essay Example It is a serious problem in the academic work because it defeats the valuable essence of education, which is to make students grow intellectually and prepare them to all the challenges life may bring. Also, educators cannot fully perform their duties because they cannot thoroughly assess the potentials of their students as they are deceived by the output of plagiarism. There are many common causes of intentional and unintentional plagiarism, and experts believed that there is no common antidote for all these grounds. For instance, stress and time pressure are among the common causes of plagiarism; therefore, to avoid these causes, I need to start doing my research papers/assignments as early as possible so that I will have ample time for researching and for rechecking proper citation usages and documentation (e.g., using quotation marks for a direct quote & paraphrasing). Another cause is ignorance of documentation; hence, I need to take notes carefully, understand not the words but the information so that I can use my own words/ideas, and be keen on using quotation marks for a direct quote. Also, I need to put automatically all the sources that I have used in my research paper in the reference page for me to avoid neglecting those. I can also check my paper to the school’s online plagiarism software to make sure that I did not fail to cred it some sources or if I have copied words/ideas of someone else without any

Effective Market Hypothesis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Effective Market Hypothesis - Essay Example This format requires the changes in book value. This makes equal earnings after reducing dividends and provides the net of capital contribution. This relation according to Ohlson is a clean surplus relation as the changes in assets and liabilities are passed through the income statement. It is better to use this theory without connecting it to a user’s perspective on accounting data. The numerous methods followed in valuing derivative securities include valuing an option on a stock or index that can pay continuous dividends. The unfamiliar or foreign contracts will have no closed form of the solution. This needs Monte-Carlo simulation, numerical integration, analytical and series approximation. The probabilities of a jump process by Schwartz in 1998 are to underlie the diffusion process corresponding to the coefficients of the difference equation. The trinomial tree is termed as equivalent to the explicit finite difference. This generalized multinomial jump process equivalent to a complex implicit finite difference in approximation. The two-state lattice approaches have proved to be the powerful tool and can be used to value a wide variety of contingent claims. The standard binomial approach is generalized and was included in the main existing models as particular cases of the alternative approach. There are alternative analytical approximations for continuous time valuation like CRR model in case of the single state variable. The lattice approach in evaluating the option was based on a moment matching methodology. The introduction of the numerically optimized parameter the non-negativity of the risk-neutral probabilities was ensured. 11099995. In this manner, the book value of a particular year depends on the book value of the previous year and the expected discount of the present year. The book value may decrease if the expected dividend is more.

Treaments for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Treaments for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Posttraumatic stress disorder occurs when individuals experience intrusive effects of a disturbing event that they have experienced for more than one month. PTSD is also marked by an individual’s determined avoidance of any stimuli that might remind them of the aforementioned event, along with a marked shift in mood and behavior which is distressing to the people around them. Over the years, a number of therapeutic techniques have been used to treat PTSD. Due to their effectiveness, exposure therapies and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) are two of the most widely used of these techniques. These have been utilized to treat soldiers as well as civilians who have experienced trauma. However, the nuances of their application, in terms of their effectiveness against specific demographics have yet to be determined. This paper will critically evaluate a number of different studies conducted using exposure techniques, EMDR, or both and determine their effectivenes s in treating individuals with PTSD. Even though EMDR has its roots in exposure therapy, for the purposes of this study, EMDR and exposure therapies will be regarded as two distinctive therapeutic techniques (CITE). One of the biggest issues faced by PTSD treatment research is a large number of studies with subpar methodologies. Due to this, Foa and Meadows (1997) published seven standards that should be present in any research that deals with treatment outcomes of PTSD. They are known as the â€Å"Gold Standards† for treatment outcome studies. According to Foa and Meadows, every suitable PTSD research should have clearly defined symptoms; reliable and valid measures; use of independent evaluators; trained assessors; manualized, replicable, specific treatment programs; treatment adherence; and an unbiased assignment to treatment. Ready et al. (2012) provides an effective utilization of group-based exposure therapy which sets the precedent in favor of exposure techniques among veteran soldiers. Their decision to divide the participants into three groups of ten ensures that every individual can form personal connections with other members of the group given the limited time of the treatment program. The small group size also allows the participants, who would typically avoid social situations, to not feel overwhelmed when asked to share their experiences. On the other hand, the lack of any gender diversity within the sample group reduces external validity and adds to the stereotype that only men who have been in combat suffer from PTSD. Given the comorbidity of PTSD and substance abuse (CITE), using drug abuse as exclusion criteria further decreases its external validity. Allocating the first part of the program to forming support groups among participants is an effective use of the small sample size. It also helps in prolonging the social and emotional support that participants get during the program so that they will continue to support each other after its conclusion. Using each individual’s presentations as a form of exposure allows for a highly personalized exposure treatment while allowing them to understand that others have faced the same situations that they have. However, since they are required to listen to it as homework, it can only be effective with highly motivated participants. Seeing the long-term effectiveness of this type of exposure technique, Ready et al. (2012) proposed that the number of times that participants are required to listen to the presentations be increased from 10 to 20, which would theoretically increase the rate at which symptoms of PTSD would disappear. Overall, group based exposure therapy (GBET) is shown to be an effective short-term and long-term treatment for PTSD. Through research conducted in a Ugandan refugee camp, Neuner et al. (2008) demonstrated that, even with laypersons with minimal training in psychotherapy, exposure techniques such as narrative exposure therapy (NET) can be used to treat PTSD. Just nine research assistants, all laypersons, were employed to conduct this study among a sample size of 277 individuals. While they were given a 6 week crash course on therapeutic techniques and communication skills, the use of unqualified personal to treat psychological disorders is unethical and could have negatively affected the participants being treated. Furthermore, it would have been better to use research assistants who weren’t from the camps that the study was being conducted on; this would have decreased threats to the validity of the study such as demand characteristics and participant expectations. However, the subject of PTSD wasn’t alien to the laypersons since all of them had been diagnosed with it at one point or another, meaning that they could empathize with the participants via personal experience. Since follow-up assessments showed that 70% of the participants who underwent NET can no longer be diagnosed with PTSD, this type of psychotherapy can be used in war-torn regions where professional help isn’t readily available. But the validity of the final results can be questioned due to the large number of participants who could not be located for the post-test and follow-up sessions, even though the study had adjusted for attrition during participant selection. Another exposure technique, known as imagery rescripting and exposure therapy (IRET), was used by Long et al. (2011) to treat nightmares associated with PTSD. Like in the aforementioned case of Ready et al. (2012), this program also suffered from the issue of being all male. Furthermore, the temporal relevance of the study can be questioned since the participants were primarily veterans of the Vietnam War and none of the participants had participated in active combat since the early 1990s. While IRET had great success in decreasing the frequency of nightmares and increasing the quality of sleep, it wasn’t shown to have any effect on other symptoms associated with PTSD. The validity of these findings can be further questioned by the fact that the mean age for the participants were 62.1 years; meaning that their sleep disturbances may be the result of factors other than PTSD. Despite all of this, the self-employed and individualized exposure techniques used in this study, along with the extensive psychoeducation that preceded it, makes it a highly effective tool to treat nightmares associated with PTSD, even in individuals who have been suffering from it for decades. Rothbaum, Astin, and Marstellar (2005) attempted to compare the efficacy of prolonged exposure therapy (PE) to EMDR with respect to the treatment of rape victims. One of the things that stood out from this study was the fact that every assessment and evaluation that is required during the course of the study was conducted by independent, blind evaluators. In addition to that the integrity of the specific therapies was measured by assessors who rated them highly. The sample size used was appropriate but a high dropout rate, combined with a few peculiar additions to the sample groups negatively affects the validity and reliability of the study; three participants who would not have otherwise been able to pass the exclusion criteria were allowed to participate in the study. It also used the participant’s subjective opinion on the most significant events in their lives, on which the treatments were focused on, which stands out due to the lengths they went to make the results of th is study independent and objective. Furthermore, the remarkable success at which both PE and EMDR was able to treat the participants, raises questions on the reliability of the treatment process; 95% of the PE group and 75% of the EMDR group of patients who have been suffering from PTSD for over a decade, were no longer diagnosable as PTSD patients after a treatment process that lasted a few weeks. Despite all that, the efficacy of both exposure techniques and EMDR in treatment compared to no treatment cannot be questioned. Ahmad, Larsson, and Sundlein-Wahlsten’s (2006) study, which was conducted using participants between the ages of 6 to 16, demonstrated that PTSD is prevalent even among children. The randomized controlled nature of the study along with the independent assessments makes it high in internal validity. Participants on the control group of this also showed improvements; they however, improved in non PTSD related symptoms. Moreover, the inventory that was administered had been modified in such a way that it can be understood and used easily with children. Furthermore, a more extensive evaluation can be carried out in the form of longitudinal studies or case studies regarding the relationship between PTSD in children and the history of mental illness in their family. Like many other programs which tested different treatments of PTSD, this study lacked a larger sample size, and utilized extensive exclusion criteria; this could affect its generalizability. In addition to this, they fai led to make independent assessments of their follow-up evaluations, affecting its claim of having blind assessments. Similar to Rothbaum, Astin, and Marstellar’s (2005) study which used the victim’s subjective opinion of their worst experience in order to conduct their PTSD assessment, this study also decided to focus on one single incident that the young participants or their guardians deemed significant. This is an effective method of administering EMDR, since it is more efficient in treating specific memories that are distressing to the participants. However, in a broader perspective, while a case can be made to the point that subjective opinions of individuals’ most distressing events are relevant to treating PTSD since it’s the individuals themselves who are experiencing them, it should also be pointed out that what an individual considers to be the most significant event in his/her life need not be the most significant event in terms of psychological and emotional trauma. Therefore, it should be best to conduct extensive background checks before any kind of decisio n is made regarding the significance of any life events. In a study published by Taylor et al. (2003), a side by side comparison of prolonged exposure therapy and EMDR with respect to specific symptoms of PTSD was conducted to determine which technique was more effective against each of them. Compared to most other studies conducted regarding PTSD, this study had a fairly large sample size (n=60) with the majority of them being Caucasian and women. While the study employed an impressive sample size, since the participants were primarily diagnosed with chronic and severe forms of PTSD, the external validity of the results can be brought into question. However, since most of the participants of the study had chronic PTSD, it reduces the possibility that the changes that were observed in the pretests and posttests are purely due to temporal changes. The validity can be further questioned due to the difference in educational qualifications of the two therapists who administered these therapeutics techniques. However, independent expert assessm ent of their interrater reliability produced high scores, disproving these doubts. Moreover, the treatments were administered using standardized manuals which increased the validity of the study by ensuring that all participants received near as similar treatments as possible. This study is the first study to have achieved the aforementioned â€Å"gold Standard† for PTSD outcome treatment research (CITE). This study’s observed reductions in PTSD symptoms for all three subject groups were determined by the authors as a result of the effect of unintended exposure during relaxation training and EMDR techniques. This contradicts with the belief that in EMDR, eye movement â€Å"enhances the retrieval of episodic memory and increases cognitive flexibility† (CITE). While exposure techniques and eye movement desensitizing and reprocessing (EMDR) are similar to each other in many ways and are efficacious in their treatment of PTSD, their approaches, implementations, and goals are quite different from one another. EMDR treats PTSD by asking the patients to subjectively choose the memory or experience that they think is causing them the most distress and treating them so that they are desensitized to this particular experience. The root of their PTSD is determined to be their most distressing memory and by desensitizing them to that experience and the re-experiencing that follows it, they are shown to have significant decrease in symptoms of PTSD. While some specialized exposure therapies employ similar approaches, others such as the NET and GBET explores an individual’s whole life or a particular period in which they were susceptible to distressing experiences respectively. This method allows the therapist to play a part in determining the most significant event in an individual’s life and adjusting the treatment process accordingly. In addition to that, since Taylor et al. (2003) showed that prolonged exposure therapy was more effective than EMDR in reducing the levels of re-experiencing and avoidance, the authors of the study concluded that it is the superior therapeutic technique. All in all, both exposure techniques and EMDR are very good at what they are supposed to do; but exposure techniques are better at it. Therefore, a hypothesis can be derived from the above discussed studies which states that specialized exposure techniques are more efficacious in the treatment of PTSD than EMDR across social and temporal demographics.

Defying the Disney Image: The Testimony of Walt Disney Essay -- House

Walt Disney was born in 1890 to a woman named Seà ±ora Isabelle Zamora. His father, Elias, met Isabelle in California of that same year and the two carried on an affair that ended with the birth of Walt. Later, Elias brought the two back to Chicago, Illinois where Isabelle became a housekeeper for the Disney family. Walt was assimilated into the Disney household and treated as the biological son of Elias and Flora Disney. Isabelle was with the family for years, being passed on from the Elias and Flora household to the Walt and Lillian family years later (Eliot 152-157). This account of Walt Disney’s birth poses many questions about myths, legends, and rumours that encircled the life of the â€Å"man behind the mouse†. Biographies and documentaries attempt to give accurate chronicles of his life and delve into the mind of this genius. Even people who make a career of studying the man’s life can only make theories about his actions from oral descrip tions given by those who knew Disney personally. However, On Friday, October 24, 1947, Walt Disney testified in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and left his legacy on record for the entire world. While the testimony was documented and cannot be questioned, Disney’s motives for testifying, impact it had on his animated features, and how the ordeal affected his image are issues that are still scrutinised and debated. The strike of 1941 at the Disney Studios was one of the prime purposes for Disney’s testimony in front of HUAC years later. The problem is that historians cannot agree on the exact specifics of the strike. Leonard Mosley and Marc Eliot are two biographers who have both written versions of Disney’s life. The two biographies a... ... the animated feature film and brought entertainment to family audiences during the Great Depression and WWII, a dark time when American morale was low. This created an image of Disney that could never be ruined and to this day he still remains one of the most highly respected men in Hollywood. It is not common knowledge that Disney even played a part in the HUAC hearings, as it has been long forgotten in the chaos of honours he has achieved. Leonard Mosley, an acclaimed historian, even left his cowardly testimony out of the biography. However, Disney’s testimony is documented and will always be available to critics searching for the truth about the man Disney really was. Works Cited Eliot, Marc. Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince. Great Britain: Andre Deutsch Limited, 1994. Mosley, Leonard. Disney’s World. Lanham, MD: Scarborough Press, 1985.

Individualism in “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Essay

Individualism is a very important thing in everyone’s life, its part of our personality as portrayed in the story called, â€Å"Harrison Bergeron† by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Taking away that individualism is taking apart some of that person. The book in many ways shows what would happen if no one was different and all the people in the world were the same, or basically how disastrous. One example is when the Bergeron’s were watching TV and the announcer came on to announce. He started out enthusiastically and with fire, but automatically got a shock. He tried to act out and be the announcer man with energy, but since everyone was the same he just gave up and let the ballerina read the announcements in monotone voice. Now I for one would never want to hear n announcer that talked in one tone the whole entire time. I addition Vonnegut shows another example is how all the smart and beautiful people have to wear mental and physical handicaps. They wear those handicaps because the government wanted to make everyone equal. So basically if you were even a little bit smart, you would get a handicap and that went with physical attributes too. Finally, the author uses the character Harrison as how most people should act, but being someone different. He acted out and rebelled against the government when they were forcing everyone to be the same. Instead of going with the flow he chose to be himself, and literally broke the chains that the government was using to handicap him. Overall, being you is the best thing to do in life, but society today is portraying the perfect kid that everyone is trying to be.

FCS 3215: Observation Assignment Essay

Dr. Isabella, this project requires that you observe two preschool-age children in the Child and Family Development Center (ground floor of the Alfred Emery Building) and, on the basis of your observations, report on a particular aspect of their development. In the following pages, three options will be presented–you may focus on either language development, play, or emotional behavior. Thus, the option you select will determine the nature of the observation you conduct, but it is also true that all projects must follow the same guideline. First, you must decide which of the three options you will pursue. Second, you should become familiar with the objectives of your observation (based on the descriptions presented in the following pages as well as any reading from the textbook that would prove useful in this regard). Third, you should begin planning your observation; this should include decisions regarding what you will focus on during your observations (e.g., behaviors, specific features of the physical and social context), what kinds of things you will try to take notes on in the course of your observation, which preschool class you will observe, and when you will plan to conduct your observation to assure that you will leave yourself enough time for a second chance should you fail to gather all of the necessary information on your first observation attempt. Fourth, you should conduct your observation, paying very careful attention to the behaviors and situations that you have (beforehand!) decided are most importan t–in all cases, you will have to observe two children for 15 minutes each. Take notes and remember that these notes are all you will have to work from when writing your paper. I also would recommend that you allow yourself approximately 1 hour for your observation. This would allow you at least a few minutes at the beginning of the observation to get a feel for the classroom and the children in it and to identify the two children you will observe; ample time to observe each child for 15 minutes (which may be split into 5 minutes now, 5 minutes in a short while and 5 more minutes at the end of your hour); and even some time to make up for observations that don’t result in any useable information. Fifth, you must rely on your notes and the details of the assignment to  prepare your paper. In all cases, I am asking that you provide some general, objective information about what you observed in each child, and that you interpret your observations in terms of what youâ₠¬â„¢ve learned about preschooler development. In addition, the introduction of your paper should provide a brief description of who you observed, when you observed them and what was going on in the preschool classroom during your observation period. Finally, at the end of your paper, briefly comment upon your experience as an observer. For example, How easy or difficult was it? What did you learn? How confident are you in the representativeness of the behaviors you observed for each child? As usual, all papers MUST BE TYPED. You are limited to 3 typewritten pages so think carefully about how best to organize all of the information you wish to present. Papers are due at the beginning of class on Tuesday, April 15. The preschool schedule is as follows: There are three different preschool classes (children ages 3-5): one meets Mon/Wed/Fri, 8:30-11:30, one meets Tues/Thur, 8:30-11:30, and one meets Mon thru Fri, 12:30-3:30 pm). In all cases, there should be no problems if you observe (quietly) from the observation booths attached to each classroom, or from outside the playground fence. If you wish to observe from within the classroom, or if you wish to go onto the playground with the children, you will need the permission of the head teacher. Simply tell them about the project, mention the class and instructor’s name, and there should not be a problem (do this ahead of time!). Following are descriptions of the three options, each focusing upon a different feature of preschoolers’ development. [Adapted from Bentzen, W.R. (1985). Seeing your children: A guide to observing and recording behavior. Albany, NY: Delmar Publishers Inc.] I. LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT A. Background Information Language is one of the more prominent behaviors in the preschool child. The preschooler is rapidly acquiring speech vocabulary and is refining his grammar to conform more closely to adult speech patterns. For many people, language is an indication of intellectual and social progress. In this exercise, you will be concerned with describing and analyzing the child’s speech and determining such things as the depth and variety of his/her vocabulary. 1.It is important to look at the child’s speech in terms of Piaget’s concepts of egocentrism and sociocentrism. Egocentric speech is speech that does not take the other person into account; it is speech that, for all practical purposes, is private. There is no real effort to communicate with the other person; therefore, whatever is said is meaningful only to the speaker. Piaget identified three types of egocentric speech: (a) monologue, in which the individual talks only to himself and with no other persons present; (b) repetition, in which the individual repeats words and phrases over and over again as if to practice them or as if he simply enjoyed making the sounds; and (c) collective monologue, in which two or more persons are talking together but none of them is paying attention to what the others are saying. Each â€Å"conversation† is independent of the other conversation. Socialized speech, on the other hand, is public speech. It is intended to communicate with someone and each person takes into account what others are saying and responds accordingly. Q1: 2.Does the child engage in egocentric or socialized speech? What are the circumstances under which these types of speech are used? Vocabulary is the foundation of speech. We communicate by putting individual words together into properly constructed sentences and paragraphs. Presumably, the greater the number of words in our vocabularies, the greater the number and variety of sentences and ideas we can utter and transmit to others. Words have different meanings and serve different purposes. Moreover, words must be placed in the correct position within a sentence; thus, there are rules of grammar and syntax. Q2: What do you observe about the child’s vocabulary? In particular, examine the child’s speech for words that express relations and oppositions, for example, words such as and, or, not, same, different, more, less, instead, if, then, and because. Also, how varied or rich is the child’s vocabulary when he/she talks about the world and the people/things in it? Think in terms of general classes or categories of objects, persons, and events, then assess how many different words the child uses to discuss those categories and/or how many different categories the child uses. B. Observational Objectives To learn about the language production abilities of preschool children, and how children of preschool age use language as a means of social interaction. C. Procedure For this exercise, your purpose is to observe and record the language behaviors of children as they are engaging in social exchanges. Basically, you will need to write about the vocabularies demonstrated, the ways in which children use their language for the specific purpose of communicating with others (either adults or other children), and the degree to which language appears to be influenced by the setting in  which it occurs. For this purpose, select two children and observe each of them for 15 minutes during a time when they have opportunity to interact with others in a small group setting–free-choice periods are probably best. (Do not try to observe two children at the same time!). As you observe, take notes regarding the nature and variety of words used by each child (writing down exactly what the child says would of course be very useful), the child’s specific use of language to communicate with others, and the context in which all of this is going on. For each child, your paper should include a brief description of the language used (including information about vocabulary, communication and context) as well as an interpretation of each child’s language behavior in terms of what you’ve learned about development during the preschool years. II. PRESCHOOLERS’ PLAY A. Background Information Play is considered by some psychologists to be the most important activity in which the young child engages. Indeed, play activities pervade the lives of children from infancy throughout childhood. Some play seems obviously linked to the child’s observation of adults; other play seems to stem from the child’s fantasies and from experiences that she finds particularly enjoyable. There are a number of explanations of the major purposes of play. These range from play as getting rid of excess energy to play as a means of socioemotional expression. Play can be a group or an individual activity. Play is distinguished from non-play by its special characteristics, the most important of which are its voluntary nature and its complete structuring by the participants, with little regard for outside regulation. When play is governed by consistent rules, we say children are playing games. These rules give play a social dimension. The participants must put their own personal wishes i nto the background and abide by the requirements of the game and the wishes of the larger group. It is important to note that not everything children do is play, although they will sometimes try to make play out of what adults intend to be serious. Parten (1932) has identified six types of play, which are given in an accompanying list (next page). Remember that play, like all behavior, occurs in a physical and social context. Therefore, include in your report information on the equipment and materials the child was using in his play and who the child was playing with, if appropriate. B. Parten’s Six Classifications of Play or Social Interactions 1. Unoccupied Behavior: Here the child is not engaging in any obvious play activity or social interaction. Rather, she watches anything that is of interest at the moment. When there is nothing of interest to watch, the child will play with her own body, move around from place to place, follow the teacher, or stay in one spot and look around the room. 2. Onlooker Behavior: Here the child spends most of her time watching other children play. The child may talk to the playing children, may ask questions or give suggestions, but does not  enter into play. The child remains within speaking distance so that what goes on can be seen and heard; this indicates a definite interest in a group of children, unlike the unoccupied child, who shows no interest in any particular group of children, but only a shifting interest in what happens to be exciting at the moment. 3. Solitary Play This is play activity that is conducted independently of what anyone else is  doing. The child plays with toys that differ from those used by other children in the immediate area within speaking distance, and she makes no effort to get closer to them or to speak to them. The child is focused entirely on her own activity and is uninfluenced by other children or their activities. 4. Parallel Play: Here the child is playing close to other children but is still independent of them. The child uses toys that are like the toys being used by the others, but he uses them as he sees fit and is neither influenced by nor tries to influence the others. The chid thus plays beside rather than with the other children. 5. Associative Play Here the child plays with other children. There is a sharing of play material and equipment; the children may follow each other around; there may be attempts to control who may or may not play in a group, although such control efforts are not strongly asserted. The children engage in similar but not necessarily identical activity, and there is no division of labor or organization of activity or individuals. Each child does what he or she essentially wants to do, without putting the interests of the group first. 6. Cooperative or Organized Supplementary Play The key word in this category is â€Å"organized.† The child plays in a group that is established for a particular purpose: making some material product, gaining some competitive goal, playing formal games. There is a sense of â€Å"we-ness,† whereby one definitely belongs or does not belong to the group. There is also some leadership present–one or two members who direct the activity of the others. This therefore requires some division of labor, a taking of different roles  by the group members, and the support of one child’s efforts by those of the others. C. Observational Objectives To learn about the distinguishing characteristics of different forms of play, specifically according to Parten’s classification of play behaviors. D. Procedure Familiarize yourself with Parten’s classifications of play as described above. Select two children in the preschool and observe each of them for 15 minutes, preferably during a free-choice period when the children are free to move about the room and play with who or what they wish. (Do not attempt to observe both children at the same time!) As you observe each child, look for examples of each type of play or social interaction as described by Parten. Also, in addition to classifying each child’s play behaviors, observe whether there are any patterns to their play. For example, are there particular situations in which a child tends to be an onlooker, but in other situations he/she engages in parallel or cooperative play? As you observe, you should take notes regarding these relevant issues so that you will have something to work from in writing your paper. For each child, your paper should include a brief description of the types of play exhibited (including information about which type(s) are exhibited most frequently) and the social context which characterized each type of play. Additionally, you should provide an interpretation of your observations based on what you’ve learned about development during the preschool years. III. EMOTION BEHAVIOR A. Background Information Emotions are such a basic part of our psychological beings that we sometimes take them for granted. Some of our emotions are clearly identifiable by us. We know when we are angry, frightened, or joyous. At other times, however, we can have feelings that are not so clear; we may not be able to label what we feel. Whatever the case, emotions are internal experiences that are private and directly accessible only to the individual experiencing them. This being so, we cannot state with certainty what emotion another person is feeling. She   must tell us, or we must infer the emotion on the basis of the individual’s behavior, facial expressions, and the event that preceded and might have caused the feeling. A child’s emotional behaviors become more refined and extensive as she matures. Therefore, a four- or five-year-old will typically be more emotionally expressive than a two-year-old. In this exercise, you will be trying to gain some understanding of the child’s emotional behaviors, of the range of her emotions and the kinds of situations that prompt these behaviors. Again, you can only infer what the child is feeling and cannot observe emotions directly. Therefore, be cautious in your interpretations and concentrate on the child’s obvious behaviors and the contexts in which they occur. 1.There are several emotions that are commonly found in preschool children: aggression, dependency and fear. Aggressive behavior is frequently defined as behavior that is intended to physically or psychologically hurt another person (or oneself) or to damage or destroy property. An important issue is whether a behavior is intentionally aggressive or simply an accidental occurrence. Further, it is argued by some that in order for a behavior to be termed aggressive, the aggressor must feel anger or hostility toward the â€Å"victim† and must derive satisfaction from hurting the victim. This kind of aggression is called hostile aggression. In contrast to hostile aggression, there can be cases where the aggressor is interested only in getting some object from the victim or achieving some goal. This is called instrumental aggression, and it need not involve anger or hostility. Q1: Q2: 2.Observe the child’s behavior for instances of aggression, either toward  another child or an adult, or towards objects in the environment. Be certain to differentiate between intentional, hostile and instrumental acts of aggression. What kinds of situations or frustrations make the child angry? What behaviors by other people anger the child? How does the child express his/her anger? Dependency consists of such behaviors as clinging or maintaining proximity to adults or other children, seeking approval, recognition, assistance, attention, and reassurance, and striving for affection and support. It is important to recognize that all of us are dependent. The issue is to what degree and under what circumstances we show our dependency. It is also useful to distinguish between two basic types of dependency: a) instrumental dependency, which essentially is the necessary reliance we have on others for certain things that are beyond our capacity to do; and b) emotional dependency, which is a need to be near others and to have their support, affection and reassurance. It can also be the unwillingness or the selfperceived inability to do things for oneself that one can or should be able to do. It is important that, where possible, you distinguish instrumental dependency from emotional dependency behaviors. It is also important to note that as children mature, the character istics of their dependency behaviors change. Very young children are likely to show clinging and proximity-seeking behaviors, whereas older children, who also have greater cognitive abilities, will likely seek attention and approval. Q3: 3.Fear is demonstrated by such behaviors as crying, withdrawing, seeking help, and avoiding the fear-producing situation. Fear can promote both dependency and aggressive behaviors. Nonetheless, fear can be expressed in such a way that it, and not aggression or dependency, is the primary emotion. Q4: 4.In what situations or activities is the child dependent, and, for example, seeks the presence, direction, or assistance of others? In what situations is the child independent and does not seek direction or assistance from others? What kinds of objects or situations appear to scare the child? In what ways does the child express his/her fears? How does he/she deal with his fears (e.g., by withdrawing, confronting the fearful situation, seeking help)? In addition to the emotional behaviors just discussed, there are other feelings that children are capable of experiencing and expressing. You should be alert to as many of the child’s affective states as possible. For example, there are the feelings of pleasure and displeasure, frustration, boredom and sadness. Like adults, children will differ as to how accurately they can identify and/or express what they feel. Q5: What kinds of things does the child find pleasant? What activities, play materials, stories, games and so on, seem to be particularly attractive to the child? How does the child express that pleasure? Q6: What kinds of things are unpleasant or uncomfortable for the child? In what situations does the child appear to be ill at ease? How does she express her displeasure? Q7: Are all or most of the child’s feelings expressed with equal strength, or does their intensity vary with the particular feeling or situation? B. Observational Objectives To learn about the differences in children’s emotional behaviors and the range of emotional responses in preschool children. C. Procedure Select two children, observe and record each child’s behavior for a 15-minute period (do not attempt to observe both children at the same time!). Record behaviors in as much detail as possible (attending to the kinds of things that would help you answer the above questions) and be sure to include descriptions of the physical and social context as they apply to the emotional behaviors observed. IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOU OBSERVE CHILDREN DURING THE VERY BEGINNING OF THEIR PRESCHOOL CLASS SO THAT YOU WILL BE ABLE TO SEE THEM AS THEY ARE BEING DROPPED OFF BY THEIR PARENTS AND THEN MAKING THEIR INITIAL ADJUSTMENT TO THEIR PRESCHOOL SETTING. Your paper should include a brief description of each child’s behavior (including the different kinds of emotions, the contexts in which they occurred and the relative frequency of each expression) as well as an interpretation or comment on each child using some of the questions and background information provided above. Finally, compare the two children, looking at the range of emotional expression, intensity of expression, and what evokes the emotional responses. In short, summarize how the children differ from each other in this area of functioning.

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