Plastic Essays - Water Conservation, Dielectrics, Plastic, Recycling

Plastic Many individuals today have civilized bodies and barbarous souls. Many are blind to the real sights of this world and deaf to its voice. However, no matter how ignorant one may be, he or she cannot disregard the significance of plastics in his or her life. Although they were not recognized as such, many materials used centuries ago for clothing and elements of construction, were natural polymers based on starch and cellulose. Then, ever since Alexander Parkes concocted the first man-made plastic in 1862, people utilized plastics in everything?automobiles, homes, entertainment, clothes, and even medicine. In addition to its many uses in everyday products, plastics can perform functions at a cost lower than other materials, and perhaps more efficiently too. Where would humanity be without the use of plastics? Although there is no way that anybody can deny the fact that plastics enhance everybody's lives, many are unaware how important plastics are to the society. While some people may argue that the invention of computers is the most important development in the last 2,000 years, plastics allow the manufacture of computers to occur. The more obvious use of plastics is Tupperware, which makes mothers happy all over the world by making the preservation of leftovers more convenient. Along with satisfying the adults, plastics bring smiles to the younger generations with Barbie dolls, footballs, Frisbees, and Hula Hoops. Then, in order to assure that the little girls and boys are playing without the risk of hurting themselves, producers gave rise to safeguards such as helmets and kneepads. Furthermore, in the fashion industry, the discovery of nylon in 1920's created a big craze. Instead of animal hair in toothbrushes and silk stockings, chemists replaced them with nylon; this caused American women to storm department stores across the country to purchase this latest in women's hosiery. From the first moment a man opens his eyes in the morning to laying his head down on the pillow at night, he is constantly surrounded by the wonderful world of plastics. Besides ameliorating the quality of many lives, the widespread use of plastics also became one of the major contributors to the economy. For instance, in United States, or the largest consumer and producer of the plastics in the world, shipments of plastics totaled $274.5 billion in 1996. Also, due to plastics' light weight and durability, consumers can purchase economy-size products, inducing cheaper shipping-and-handling fee and yet extremely convenient. Moreover, in plastics industry accounted for 1.3 million jobs, helping every family to expand their employment opportunities. Less people would have to sleep on the streets; with the steady increase in the past two and a half decades, the plastics industry grants those in poverty another chance to pick themselves off the streets and start new lives. A lot of people believe that plastics are hazardous to the environment. However, it is not the material that is dangerous to nature?it is the people that utilize them. Many will be surprised to hear that plastics are derived from natural resources, and in addition, because plastics are so efficient, their function often conserves other resources. As a result, plastics create less pollution and employ fewer substantially poisonous ingredients. Moreover, plastics toughness permits many products to be reused over and over again, and therefore decreasing the quantity of trash disposed. Similarly, plastics recycling program grants access to communities to collect plastics products. Therefore, plastics are only precarious to the environment if the users recklessly dump them in the garbage can or throwing it on the streets instead of reusing them. Other than commonplace uses of plastics, most people does not obtain the knowledge that plastics aid in such matters as preserving the great historical remains. A polymer coating protect the Statue of Liberty and other famous monuments worldwide. Another use of plastic that is not usually known would be billiard balls. Before plastics, hundreds and thousands of elephants were killed for their ivory to make billiard balls. Instead of slaughtering the innocent animals and purchasing the billiard balls for an enormous amount of price, plastics allow people to play with plastic billiard balls with equal amusement. Furthermore, beginning with the dawn of the space age in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I into orbit to the Hubble Telescope at the end of 1999, plastic has permitted man to travel the far reaches of space, fulfilling the scientists' dreams. Without plastics to construct vehicles and other equipment that the astronauts need to survive, space exploration would be confined to the use of a land-based telescope. Plastics will definitely be a huge part

How to Improve Professional Writing in the Field of Political Science

How to Improve Professional Writing in the Field of Political Science How to Improve Professional Writing in the Field of Political Science In professional writing, one of the tough parts about developing your writing is understanding where you need to improve, and how you might work towards addressing your shortcomings. 1. Learn how to Read Critically Dont trust everything written in the newspapers or shown on TV. Political writers cannot afford it, they need to boost their skill of critical reading. Pay attention to nuances and compare what it is said about the issue by different stakeholders. Most political science writers follow the similar system in their writing: introduce an observation or a puzzle, which lead to them asking a question; investigate other researchers’ work to come up with an argument in response to the question asked; and use proof (qualitative or quantitative data) to test their argument. 2. Get Used to Credible Sources of Information Professional political writers care about their reputation, thus they don’t utilize information taken from sources with questionable credibility. When looking for sources, especially websites, think about whether they are reliable or not. What you want is your paper containing   sources from professional and unbiased experts, rather than from businessmen with commercial interests. 3. Deep Assessment and Critical Thinking When writing, analyzing the topic can encourage making a reasonable outline for your paper.   Make use of empirical evidence, numbers, facts, and history, to back up your argument. Sometimes, purely deductive argument may be appropriate, however, but a more persuasive argument is that backed by evidence. Argue against yourself. After establishing your argument, identify questions or objections that may be raised by a skeptical reader, and address them quickly. This demonstrates to the readers that you were thorough, careful, thoughtful, and paid due respect to alternate interpretations or possible objections. 4. Generate New Ideas One of the greatest challenges that political writers face is coming up with new ideas. It is a common problem called â€Å"writer’s block†. It surprises many new writers. Without too much effort, most people can think of a bunch of creative ideas about familiar topics. Most people who start to write articles begin with those simple topics, and the writing goes quickly. They naturally expect all their writing to be that easy. It won’t. Writer’s block is a common problem. Every writer gets to a point where they come up short on ideas. That is why the ability to generate new ideas is quite essential. 5. Humanize Your Writing Keep the writing in your voice. It’s really easy to take on the voice of the topic rather than your own when you’re out of your comfort zone. Strive to make it your own and what your readers are stylistically used to seeing from you. You may use a picture, video or an official statement to launch your argument. As daunting as it sounds, you don’t necessarily have to call a press officer to get information, dozens of press releases are posted on the website of almost every governmental agency each week. 6. Get Feedback along the Way The feedback or what we call â€Å"bouncing ideas† between friends, both positive and critical, help shape self-evaluation of analytical skills to work on honing and enhancing them. Ask a friend or two to take a look at your Political Science paper. Two heads are better than one. You can have a discussion about the gaps in the argument that needs addressing, or the transition sentences that may help the argument â€Å"flow† quite logically. Some of the most efficient feedbacks comes as early as brainstorming on your approach to the topic or when drafting your paper’s research question. You may have brilliant political ideas, but if you cannot get them across with sound arguments, your ideas won’t get you anywhere! Improve on them, and see how good you’ll get.

Moneyball. Sabermetric-Based Player Evaluation by Beane Term Paper

Moneyball. Sabermetric-Based Player Evaluation by Beane - Term Paper Example Some of the major baseball teams in the world include the Pirates, Red sox, Yankees that play in the Major League Baseball, the American League, or the National league. Subject to the publicity, stiff competition, and economies of money involved in this sport, team managers adopt various strategies to win most games. Moneyball by Michael Lewis is a book that seeks to divulge information on how baseball teams should conduct their businesses in order to remain effective. However, a review article â€Å"Who’s on First?† by Thaler & Sunstein (2003) draws some criticism on the book. This paper will hence examine and evaluate the review article â€Å"Who’s on First?† by Thaler & Sunstein (2003). Sabermetric-Based Player Evaluation The sabermetric-based player evaluation used by Beane was a great shocker to other executives in baseball. In his evaluation, Beane took interest on how much a player was likely to contribute to his team's chances using scientific anal ysis (Thaler & Sunstein, 2003). In doing this, he relied on objective evidence rather than subjective evidence used by other executives. With the limits of human rationality and inefficient labor markets, Beane chose to ignore baseball's conventional wisdom in evaluating the performance of players to the surprise of other baseball executives. Indeed, in a conflicting situation between Beane and DePodesta's statistical methods of evaluation and other evaluation strategies by other baseball experts, statistical methods proved efficient to conventional statistics that were inefficient and often misleading (Thaler & Sunstein, 2003). As a result, Beane produced an amazing performance despite working on lower payrolls compared to other baseball teams. Indeed, Beane’s team, the Athletics was ranked eleventh in payroll(out of fourteen teams) and fifth in wins in the American League in 1999 but jumped to twelfth in payroll and first in wins in 2002 to the shock of other baseball execu tives. Ideally, Beane evaluation on players proved that players drafted out of high school are much less likely to succeed than players drafted out of college. Hence, against the practice of other executives, Beane did not recruit any talent from high school. Nevertheless, the new recruits that other teams neglected became great performers and other teams ended up buying them from Athletics thus improving its payroll. His ability to evaluate and recruit first-rate talent without a lot of money and using statistical methods to replace the lost players was also a great shock to other executives. In addition, the way Beane evaluated the performance of players in the field was also intriguing to other executives. He notes that the use of errors to evaluate the fielding ability of a player is so crude (Thaler & Sunstein, 2003). To this, he argues that a player may accumulate errors due to luck and thus in appropriation in evaluating his ability based on this. In addition, he notes that t here might be luck in batting many runs subject to playing in good teams or having many opportunities. All this was a negation to the conventional beliefs adopted by other executives. Most shockingly, is the fact that Beane’s statistical evaluation of players led to his team’s greater success on the American League although Athletics had a low pay roll. Subsequently, major teams in the league like Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays are now hiring general managers who adopt Bean’s mode of evaluation (Thaler & Sunstein, 2003). Why Beane is Much More Effective in His Success Beane was much more effective in his success as compared to other baseball executives. This was subject to his statistical evaluation of players, disregard of the conventional wisdom in baseball, and