Category: Entertainment & Media 1830

In America, Europe, Asia, or elsewhere there are festivals, concerts, election rallies, sporting events, small or large gatherings, at any time of the year. Special events usually include many participants, to the tune of thousands. These participants might include politicians, civic or community groups, government bodies, social and cultural movers and shakers, business leaders, local media etc. Normally, these Special events go uneventfully and there are no problems. (Goldblatt, 1997)

However, not all problems can be foreseen, problems can occur due to natural hazards or man-made dangers. Multiple deaths or casualties have taken place with regular consistency over a wide spectrum of countries and different types of events. For example, most of the football events taking place anywhere in the world are peaceful. Though there are reports of football fans clashing, is not uncommon. In changing world scenario and emergence of terrorism aftermath of 9/11, the world at large is not a secure place any more. In addition, these mass gathers become potential targets for terrorists as they can extract maximum mileage from such an incident. (Masterman, 2004)

In few cases, the advance assessment of planning for these events fails to occur, and even when they did, the event organizers failed to assess the scale of disaster and failed to cope with it. This is where security requirements become an essential part of Event Management. The sole purpose being to reduce response times to deal with contingencies and fatalities.

The planning includes preparedness in worst-case scenarios including ordinary crimes to petty incidents like drunken brawl. In certain cases, high profile visits of politicians or controversial figures, requires high security. So, security measures include, taking permission of the concerned authorities to federal agencies, as the case is. In addition, the fundamental and constitutional rights of the participants are also taken into consideration. Provisions for proper street closures and exit routes are also looked over. When these events occur, there should be cooperation between emergency service personnel, health professionals, and appropriate security staff to make certain that they address wellbeing, safety and security issues for the event. (Berlonghi, 1996)

There are many components for planning for a security event, like as crowd management, crisis management, law enforcement, security guards, seating and controlling of large localization of public, path flow of entry and exit of crowds, possibilities of terrorist attacks, evacuation in cases of natural calamities etc.

Crowd management is the effort exerted by usher, ticket takers, group security, medical teams and facility managers to provide safety and security for the people attending the special event.

Crowd management must first categorize the event type like circus, election, sporting, theatrical, concert, public meeting, procession etc, and then make out the distinctiveness of each event based on capability and character of the crowd, methods of entry, communications and queuing. (Sennewald, 2003)

Crowd types can be ambulatory, disability/limited, movement cohesive, expressive, participatory, aggressive/hostile, demonstrator, escape/trampling, dense/suffocating, rushing/looting or violent. Crowd composition also needs to be taken into account. They can be organized behavior, leadership, cohesiveness, unity of purpose, common motive for action, psychological unity, emotional intensity, volatility, individual behavior, group behavior, degree of lawlessness, level of violence, level of property damage etc. Facility management should be aware of the behavior of the crowd. Problems not only can arise from the attendees but also from a crowd from outside, environmental disaster, rumor etc.

In addition, one more critical point is defining the responsibilities of the parties concerned in organizing the event, intelligence available and resources available. Parties concerned in the context means local government, Police, Fire department, Facility managers, show promoters, private security, peer security, patrons etc. (Sennewald, 2003)

Law enforcement in crowd control is essential, and it is necessary that the fundamental and constitutional rights of the participants be also taken care of. From leadership authority structure, legal authority of assisting agencies, facility management organization structure needs to be understood and their defining role in the process. Proper law enforcing authority should gather intelligence in case of high profile attendees. Therefore, phone numbers or contact numbers should be at hand before event. (Masterman, 2004)

Facility management organizations has to ascertain the type of security to be provided and the scope of the security in the event. It includes the jurisdiction of the security services. Providing security services and the arranging event are vital to public safety, particularly within the event. Essentially three types of security can be provided at large public events. These are:

1. Peer security  It consists of security roughly of the age of the participants, like that in rock concerts. Usually unarmed and concentrates on rough crowd behavior.
2. Private uniformed security guards  They are usually suited in places where participants are submissive and expectedly less violent. They are cheap compared to uniformed police and often involved in places like ticket checking, parking cars and possess less confrontational roles.
3. Uniformed police officers  They perform duties like in traffic control, in-house event protection to private workers employed by the event organization agency. Usually one police officer is needed per 1,000 spectators, which consist of families or participants that are more docile. For more dynamic crowd two police officers are needed every 1,000 spectators. In special cases, with history of volatility numbers can vary. (Wagen, 2004)

The composition of all three security forces required services will vary according to the type of event.

Most special events need seating other than those provided by the venue. This event seating policy is often dictated by the type of the event. This seating arrangement can be a useful tool for the event organizers to segregate the type of people attending the event and localizing them will help security staff to control the particular section rather than the entire crowd. For example, seating fans of opposite teams of a football club will help control them. There can be different seating for disabled, with easy access to exit routes, as in emergencies disabled are the top priority for rescue. This also includes path flow of the entry and exit plans, for suitable and incident free entry and exit. (Sennewald, 2003)

In a special event, there can be many different type of crises arising. They can typically be of types such as fires, explosions, natural disasters, opposite fans violence. Alternatively, it can be due to small group creating trouble. At worse One of a Kind Crisis, for which perhaps no body can ever be prepared. Here the work of the crisis management starts whose job is primarily to minimize injury or loss of life. Crisis management includes ability to assess the situation from inside as well as outside, procedures to direct actions in an event, improved awareness among facility management staff, better management of small incident before they spiral out of control, compliance of regulatory and ethical bodies, better work flow management like workflow of evacuating a victim from the event to hospital etc. (Wagen, 2004)

Terrorism is a real possibility after math 9/11. In event of terror attack, the leading agency in the country, like in U.S. FBI, and the local police needs to be involved. The facility management should plan along with local, state and country jurisdiction, in pre-incident planning and threat forecasting.

In a disaster situation, like natural disasters, the responsibility of the facility managers is to plan in advance and define responsibilities for conduct and control of evacuation, prescribe priorities for evacuation, establish hazard free assembly areas, prescribe evacuation routes. It should provide timely and effective warning of the need to evacuate, provide transport for evacuees and their personal items, safely and efficiently conduct an evacuation and secure the evacuation area. (Wagen, 2004)

Standard Operating Procedures for evacuation are Abandon, Withdraw and Evacuate. Abandonment here means the facility management organization should immediate ask the participants to leave their equipment or materials, and not attempt to secure valuables. Then they along with the participants should withdraw from the structure. Finally evacuate to safer places deemed secure and hazard free. During the whole process it should be taken care that entire procedure from abandoning to evacuating should take place as per the protocol laid down in advance. So that evacuees reach the evacuation points faster and hassle free, and get required medical attention, designated at the evacuation points. Finally, it should be remembered that good planning and managing in advance, even in unforeseen circumstances, would reduce fatalities in the event of crisis. (Wagen, 2004)

References

Berlonghi, A. (1996). Special Event Security Management, Loss Prevention, and Emergency Services: The Guide for Planning and Documentation. Vancouver: Bookmasters Inc.

Goldblatt, J. (1997). Special Events: Best Practices in Modern Event Management. Ed. 2. LA: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Masterman, G. (2004). Strategic sports event management: an international approach. London: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Sennewald, A. (2003). Effective security management. Ed. 4. New York: Elsevier.

Wagen, V. (2004). Event Management. London: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Executive Summary

The project involves creating The Ballad Singer, a unique role-playing videogame developed by a group of Italian designers, which has elements of a visual novel. It provides players with opportunities to play according to multiple (about 1700) paths or stories that have 40 endings. This videogame primarily depends on the players choices that influence the development of the whole story (the Domino System). This approach to creating visual novels is innovative for the video-gaming industry. The videogame is almost completed, and only a few steps are required to finish the project. This proposal requests for funding two final phases of this project (¬25,000).

Introduction

The Ballad Singer is a unique role-playing videogame presented in the form of a visual novel that allows a player to experience about 1700 paths or stories with 40 endings. The story takes place in the fantasy world of Hesperia, where a person can choose to play as one of such main characters as Daragast, Ancora, Leon, and Ancalimo (The Ballad Singer, 2017). This videogame completely depends on a players choice and decisions, and each decision influences the development of the story as a reaction to a players choice. As a result, the story develops for all main characters, and it ends when each character of this visual novel is dead.

Rationale

This project is necessary because The Ballad Singer proposes a unique experience for a player to create his or her own story in a fantasy world that depends on all personal choices, decisions, and actions, as it is in the real world. The key principle of the game is that a player cannot go back and change a decision, choose another action, and correct his or her mistakes. Furthermore, decisions made for one of the characters also influence the whole universe of the game and the lives of other characters according to the principles of the Domino System. The exclusiveness of this game is also in providing the concept of a rather realistic universe where the laws of science are important, and magic can be used only to a certain extent. Therefore, this videogame is necessary to be realized because it will provide a potentially new experience for players who will make decisions in the game depending on their strategy, ethics, wisdom, and knowledge.

Project Plan

The Ballad Singer is developed by Curtel Games, a group of game creators from Italy. The partners of Curtel Games will work in the United States. The project realization is divided into four phases. The first phase includes the idea development, planning, the development of characters and story plots, and the development of the first draft of The Ballad Singer. This phase has been completed. The second phase includes the development of details regarding the story plot, characters, the improvement of graphics, and the development of the second draft of The Ballad Singer. This stage has also been completed, and funding is not required for these two stages.

Currently, the project is in the third phase. Graphics are improved, and the pre-final draft of the game has been prepared and tested. Funding is required to cover expenses associated with the realization of this phase. Furthermore, funding is needed to support the fourth phase associated with adding extra features to the game, producing the final version, and marketing. The project is planned to be completed in November 2018.

Problem Analysis

The development of a videogame is a prolonged and complex process that requires a lot of time and resources. We have faced and overcome the following barriers: the discussion of graphics, the development of a perfectly illustrated visual novel with a range of paths for characters, and the creation of music to support the narration. At the current stage, tasks include further work on narrating the story, the development of additional graphic elements, translation, and the development of more paths to achieve the target of 1700 alternative stories (The Ballad Singer videogame, 2017). The key barrier is the lack of financial resources at this phase that can cause the prolongation of the project development.

Budget

Personnel

Key developers of the project are Riccardo Bandera, the CEO of Curtel Games, Edoardo Bandera, a project web designer, Alberto De Stefano, a writer, Federico Musetti, an illustrator, and Francesca Cassani, a graphic designer. The team also includes a professional social media manager, a sound designer, and two composers Michael Firmont and Gianluca Ferro (Kickstarter project, 2017). In addition, an Italian narrator and an English translator also work on the project as part of this team.

Conclusion

The Ballad Singer is a unique videogame based on the visual novel concept that allows players to experience up to 1700 alternative stories with 40 possible endings. As a result, this project differs from other games associated with gamebooks. The realization of the Domino System in the game, impressive graphics, and an exclusive soundtrack add reasons for supporting and funding this project because of its potential attractiveness to players.

References

The Ballad Singer. (2017). About the game. 

The Ballad Singer videogame. (2017). 

Kickstarter project: The Ballad Singer  Write your own fantasy story! (2017). Web.

Introduction

The commonly used term mass media encompasses numerous institutions and individuals that differ in method and purpose. In general usage, the term has been considered to define groups who make up the communications profession in both the entertainment and news industries. The specific role of the media in society is often debated but what is not argued is that access to information is essential to the health of a democratic society. Newspapers, radio, television and the internet allow citizens the opportunity to make informed choices and serves as part of the checks and balances of a society, a fourth branch of government. The media also serves to entertain as the line drawn between news efforts to amuse and sources of entertainment attempting to inform is crossed continuously. Media acts as the link between peoples personal lives to events outside what they encounter in their everyday routine.

Because of this connection, it serves as an important vehicle in the understanding of how society functions. The media reflects and reports, shaping and defining society at the same time, thus an understanding of these venues of information is vital to the understanding of our civilization itself. However, how one goes about accomplishing this is not as easy as it might seem as there are various different perspectives one might take. David Lodges suggests that there are six perspectives one might take to a given media format. These include personal, historical, technical, ethical, cultural and critical. While one of these perspectives might lead one to different conclusions than another, it is largely true that directors and producers remain focused on communicating a basic idea that is relatively consistent throughout the presentation which strongly suggest a specific conclusion. By applying these six perspectives to a single episode of the popular television show Law and Order, this tendency to communicate a basic shared idea might be discovered.

Analysis

The specific episode of Law and Order to be analyzed for this discussion, Melting Pot, originally aired on February 16, 2007. This episode was selected because of the strong messages it contains in a number of different areas. The plot of this episode begins with the discovery of an actress hanging by the neck in an otherwise barren apartment. Although it appears to be a suicide, there is no note and no evidence of what might have caused the woman to take such drastic action. As the investigation progresses, it is discovered that the woman was happily married with two young children and likely did not commit suicide. Further investigation leads to two primary suspects. The first of these is an illegal worker from Colombia who was in the womans apartment that morning. His motive is to keep the woman quiet regarding his position.

Although he admits to having been in her room that day and to having laid his hands on her in order to keep her quiet, his description of the activity that took place indicates that the woman accidentally hit her hand during their struggle over the phone and went unconscious. This frightened the worker and he left, but she was still alive. The second suspect is a sound engineer who had been working on the womans latest film in which she had included video of a Muslim woman masturbating while listening to a man reciting the Koran. The sound engineer is a Muslim and therefore is presumed to have been incited to murder by her inflammatory film. The plot twists around these two men, first indicating they are guilty and then finding they must be innocent and then going back to guilty again before it is finally discovered that the sound engineer truly didnt have anything to do with her murder and the illegal worker was protecting his boss as a means of protecting the company that provided so many of his friends and other immigrants with the means to support their families. In the end, it is revealed that the boss killed the woman as a means of

The first perspective one must consider in analyzing a text is the personal perspective. This is essential because it provides one with a sense of how the presentation was received, which might have an effect on how the various images and symbols are interpreted. My own perspective is that of the dominant culture. I really have no idea what it might be like to be accused of something based mostly on the color of my skin. I can gain some sense of this process in remembering the various ways in which I have been expected to perform based upon someones assessment of my physical appearance, but this only provides an approximation, not a true empathy. It was very easy for me to believe that the Muslim sound engineer might have killed the woman and difficult to give up the idea that he didnt.

Even when he decided hed accept the punishment and go to jail for nine years instead of going to trial because he was sure he would not get an impartial jury, I was convinced he was pulling a fast one to get the attorneys sympathy. In retrospect, this seems to reinforce the ideas he was expressing, that in post-9/11 America, a person of Arab descent practicing the Muslim religion would not be capable of receiving a fair trail in any sense of the word. It was not as easy for me to believe that the illegal immigrant killed the woman, perhaps because he was very young and seemed very innocent. However, I had an easier time believing that he was protecting someone else than that the wealthy white boss had anything to do with it. At the end of the episode, even though the sound engineer and the illegal immigrant both had strong motives for wanting to kill the lady, it turned out that the guy without a strong motive killed her. I struggled with this concept and still have difficulty accepting the idea that he killed her simply because he thought hed be able to get away with it.

A historical perspective requires some background knowledge into the history of the major issues involved in a given presentation. There is a great deal of history involved in this particular episode as it plays strongly on the issues arising from 9/11. One of the contributing factors behind this plot is a sudden influx in the late 1900s of southern immigrants. The fundamental reason for the flood of immigration from Latin America, specifically Mexico, is the disintegration of the Mexican economy predominantly resulting from free-trade strategies employed by the North American Free Trade Agreement and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The rampant corruption within the Mexican government has also contributed significantly to the collapse of the Mexican economy. Due to IMF policies regarding Mexico, its economic output dropped 33 percent in the past two decades (Small, 2005). During this period, its foreign debt rose 359 percent because of widespread looting of the national coffers. These factors caused the collapse of all areas of productive economic activity and employment, is the primary driver of the flood of emigrants desperate to leave Mexico, to find some livelihood for themselves and their families in the United States (Small, 2005). This influx is directly addressed within the Law and Order episode as the immigrant tells the story of how the farm he worked on collapsed, taken over by drug lords, and he fled to America to try to earn money for his mother back home.

The episode was also filmed six years after the terrorist attacks that took place on September 11, 2001. On that day, four U.S. airliners were hijacked by suicide bombers working for al-Qaeda and turned into flying bombs. Two of the planes struck the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, igniting fires that destroyed the 110-storey landmarks, while a third crashed into the west wing of the Pentagon in Washington. A fourth plane, which was believed to be heading for the White House, crashed in a field 120 kilometres southeast of Pittsburgh (What happened, 2009). This history also plays a significant role in understanding the cultural climate in which the story takes place.

For both of the primary suspects in the crime involved in the Law and Order episode, issues of culture play a key role in understanding how things occur in the way that they do. The prevailing anger and resentment against those of Latin descent within the city plays a key role in causing the immigrant to defend his white boss just as the resentment and anger built up against Muslims following 9/11 convinces the sound engineer that he will never be able to get a fair trial. It is thus in the case of the Muslim sound engineer that the cultural element comes into strongest focus. Discrimination, no matter how it can be rationalized, causes the victimization of certain minority groups. It leads to malicious stereotyping and generalizations regarding race, religion, gender, etc. which civil liberty loving Americans have decided is morally reprehensible but still act upon. Had the terrorists not been of obvious Arab descent, the profiling of airplane passengers and the widespread fear of this particular ethnic group would not be a matter of discussion (Polakow-Suransky, 2005). Whether official or unofficial, the sound engineers understanding of the American legal system reflects the prevalent modes of thinking in which Arabs are considered suspicious characters regardless of the context (Hall, 2004). Law officers are quick to label him a suspect because of his religion while he remains strongly aware of the cultural climate in which a jury of his peers would be able to see nothing but their own suspicion and blame.

However, the Arab is also convicted to some degree through the technical aspects of the episode not only in the story line, but in the production. Within the plot of the story, it emerges that the controversial film produced by the murdered woman had been rendered unusable by the sound mixers. Although there were two of them, only the Arab sound mixer was ever suspected of having caused this issue. The portrayal of this character is also somewhat adversarial as he is immediately defensive when the police approach him and frequently portrayed in lighting that darkens half of his face, as if he were hiding something. Social scientists have long identified the media as one of either bringing about social change by pointing out the social problems that are contributing to a declining society or of bolstering existing ideologies and social structures (Viswanath & Demers 1999).

In this portrayal, the impressions of the audience regarding the sound engineer will depend heavily upon how they originally felt about the Arab nation. Those who concur with the general impression held at the time in New York will automatically judge him as contentious, overly defensive and suspiciously guarded as the camera flashes back and forth between him and those interrogating him. However, direct references to the tendency of the rest of the community to place the Arab in the position of the scapegoat as well as consistently neutral color schemes used in the shots in which he is featured attempt to soothe these impressions while the storyline emphasizes the degree to which he is wrongly accused and the effects this has on his personal life.

There are strong ethical issues involved in the episode as well, such as the ethical questions involved in the type of business run by the white boss and the relative merits of alerting immigration services about the nature of this business. The white boss in this episode runs a very successful construction company that makes its profit by hiring a majority of illegal immigrants at a fraction of the cost it would take to hire legal citizens. Despite this, his workers see him as a benefactor because he provides them with work and money that they can send back to their families at home. They look to him for guidance and support, as when the immigrant suspect runs to him for advice on what to do about the woman who was lying unconscious in her office apartment.

With the continuously surfacing scandals in corporate America, the idea that any form of ethics exists in business is suspect. We are also seeing similar situations within the ranks of government and religious leaders (Arcement, 2007). This is seen as the attorney takes it upon himself to turn in the construction company to the immigration authorities as a means of shutting it down and thus neutralizing the reason why the immigrant was keeping quiet. As the show finishes, it is revealed that the immigrant was keeping quiet about the white bosss involvement in the womans murder as a means of protecting the jobs of his cousins as well as to protect all the other immigrants that were working for the company as the only means of securing an income for the family. Although this action is called into question because of all the harm it causes to the families and individuals that will be directly affected, the attorney determines it is justified to establish justice over the powerful man who continues to take advantage of immigrants and perhaps would continue to commit such crimes.

There are a few critical comments that must be made about the show. The first of these is that the show seems to be strongly driven by its plot with little time devoted or available for any kind of significant character development. While this is considered to be a strength by some critics (Holcomb, 2008), it has a tendency to reduce the characters to caricatures and make some of the drama seem melodramatic. Another problem discovered with the show is the message it sends that all cases can be solved within a relatively short period of time. The show is deliberately structured to cover the investigation by police detectives during the first half of the hour-long program and then reveals the prosecutorial element to end with a solved crime and punished criminal. There is little or no carry-over from one show to another which makes the show appeal to first-time viewers as there is no need to catch up with the story, but this also limits the shows ability to work into greater development of issues or characters. While some characters carry from one episode to another, they dont seem to share the kind of in-depth working relationships they should have if theyve been working together for long periods of time. There is evidence of suspicion, personal agenda and distance between the characters that is almost equal to these elements expressed between the regular characters and the guests.

Conclusion

By analyzing the episode using each of the six different perspectives, Law and Order is seen to address controversial and important issues within the greater community. By analyzing the episode from a personal perspective, it is possible to discover the various ways in which I myself have fallen victim to the stereotypical thinking. Understanding the history of the area and the people involved helps to inform the viewer of the various sentiments that are brought forward from a cultural perspective. This analysis also helps to inform one of the technical elements of the episode that serve to convey these types of ideas as well. In some ways, these technical elements support the ideas suggested by other perspectives, while other technical elements suggest something different, such as the use of neutral colors to prevent too harsh a judgment on the Muslim character. Ethical questions brought forward through the episode are introduced but not actually explored and thus are unable to spark any real consideration. As this perspective suggests, there are plenty of elements within the show to be analyzed from a critical perspective.

References

Arcement, Billy Med. (2007). EthicsThe Conscious of Decision Making Self Growth.com. Web.

Hall, C. Margaret. (2004). Public Roots of Sociological Practice: Social Intelligence. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. San Francisco, CA. Web.

Holcomb, Brian. (2008)> Law and Order: Season Eighteen. Slant. Web.

Polakow-Suransky. (2005). Racial Profiling Goes Beyond Black and White. What Matters in America. Gary Goshgarian (Ed.). New York: Longman.

Small, Dennis. (2005). Whats Behind the Hispanic Immigration Crisis? EIR Economics. Web.

Viswanath, K. & Demers, David, (Eds.) (1999). Mass Media, Social Control, and Social Change: A Macrosocial Perspective. Ames: Iowa State University.

What happened? (2007). CBC News In Depth. Web.

Introduction

One of the clearest indicators that blogs are here to stay is the fact that so many famous authors, writers with published works to their names, and journalists from the old-school paper and print era have all taken up blogging to some degree. In the words of Tom Ferrick, a veteran reporter, what he loves about blogging is, the chance to report and comment in real-time and the ability to link to the good work of others.

Such writers have, in many cases, years of experience at the craft to inform the process. How can bloggers still on the uphill side of the learning curve learn from these more experienced polished writers?

Writing seminar

Well, I recently was fortunate enough to attend a writing workshop led by a working journalist. It was delightfully different from the poisonous atmosphere and internecine nonsense that is so wittily skewered in the contemporary stage play about such events, titled Seminar. It was, instead, uplifting and affirming and, due to the generosity of a major university, free to a small group of community members. Such a luxury is not, of course, available to most of us, for reasons of geography, logistics, time, and a myriad of other factors. Can we not, however, find ways to benefit from the wisdom of veterans without the inconvenience or expense of attending a pricey workshop somewhere?

There is some wonderful writing about writing out there. If you want some fast and inexpensive inspiration for your blog writing, the list at the bottom includes wonderful resources. Check out your library to avoid the purchase cost. The best known may be Stephen Kings On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. He is self-deprecating and very generous with his advice. Some of it boils down to just doing it. He points out that, The scariest moment is always just before you start. How crucial this is to anyone committed to a regular posting or under deadline! Try some of the exercises recommended by journalist Janet Falon to loosen up your brain and get mobilized.

King also hints rather strongly that, If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. Theres no way around these two things that Im aware of, no shortcut. This applies equally to bloggers. King also notes, You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you. He has little patience with those who ignore this imperative. Consider this observation from his many book tours: I am always chilled and astonished by the would-be writers who ask me for advice and admit, quite blithely, that they dont have time to read. This is like a guy starting up Mount Everest saying that he didnt have time to buy any rope or pitons. What more powerful impetus to read widely and become familiar with the greats of all genres could one imagine?

Read in the field that you hope to blog in, and in other fields as well. If you can manage it, you should be reading something in your subject area at all times, and have at least one of the books out there about writing on hand to keep you jazzed up about your craft. It can be so lonely, and unless you have affirmation, even from the author of a book you are reading, it can be tough to keep going as a blogger (or any kind of writer, for that matter).

King also urges us to write plainly and straightforwardly. The master of horror says, Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. In this, Mr. King is echoing the advice of an earlier writer, George Orwell. He famously counseled writers to avoid hackneyed phrases, foreign words, jargon, or scientific words. Instead, Orwell advised, use short words, cut anything extraneous, avoid passive voice, and break these rules rather than sound barbarous.

This set of guidelines can be tough to follow when you are dealing with a specialty such as health care, where the correct use of scientific terminology is key to your credibility and the usefulness of your writing to your readers. Consider this bit from the exceedingly popular and well-regarded Motley Fool blog:

I like to be fully invested because Im greedy, and I like to have a pile of cash because its so darned handy when a great opportunity comes up. I squared that circle by selling some stock, buying in the money calls, and leaving the cash I raised sitting there. The calls control the upside on somewhat more stock than I sold, so in one sense Im now long with leverage. In another sense, my portfolio has a 1/3 cash allocation. Perhaps this is the worst of both worlds, I dunno.

Personally, even having taken a fair amount of Finance, this writer can barely understand most of these terms. However, I can nonetheless get a sense of the meaning because the blogger has used plain English where possible. The guys who run Motley Fool had stringent expository writing instruction in high school, and it shows.

Here is another example from John McTigues blog on marketing. He has been specializing in the use of online resources for increasing sales since well before Facebook. He makes his living this way (pretty slick for a fellow who started out studying Forestry).

Marketing works with Sales to establish key criteria for lead segmentation and scoring. Hopefully, you have already created a comprehensive list of buyer personas and a detailed buyer journey for each persona.

Here again, this could be nearly impenetrable gobbledygook. However, John makes sure that he uses only those jargon terms that allow him to get more ideas across in less space. He is using shorthand, just as did the writer for the Motley Fool. He is not deliberately trying to confuse or show off. He had the same high school exposition teachers as the Motley Fools writers, the Gardner brothers, by the way.

These samples prove, one hopes, that even when you are dealing with a topic with dense and arcane jargon, you can avoid obfuscating (hows that for a breach of at least one rule?). Try consciously to write simply and with short, Anglo-Saxon words, in between the technical terms.

King also advises writing concisely. He points out that, In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it got boring, the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling. In counseling thus, he reflects the good counsel of Ernest Hemingway, that giant of spare, direct writing. Hemingway commented, It wasnt by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short. The laws of prose writing are as immutable as those of flight, of mathematics, of physics.

For a blogger, this is extremely important advice. The format of the blog can lead writers to ramble on and on. The blog may be one of the few remaining spots in the writing marketplace where the long-format article is even welcome. Some of the other places, for the moment, include Playboy, The New Yorker, Foreign Affairs, and The Atlantic. Good luck, and Mazel Tov to any who can break into those markets! For the rest of us, a blog is a place of apparently nearly unlimited length horizons. Thank goodness for this! However, this can be very seductive. Writers need to respect their readers time. Make sure that if you are writing at great length, you are providing vital and important content. Justify the length with the quality of the information, humor, commentary, or other deathless material you include. Your rule of thumb should be that you would be willing to plow through to the end of what you have produced, not because you are in love with your own words, but because it compels and challenges, and informs. That is a high bar to surpass.

Just because blogging seems so easy, and there is seldom much of an editorial board in place as a barrier against poor work, this does not mean that bloggers are exempt from the need to edit, edit, edit. Many writers have discussed the challenges involved in perfecting what you have (perhaps long since) created. Childrens book author Karin Gustafson describes the difference between new projects and ones that demand revision this way:

Now that I think about it, working on a new piece is remarkably like a new relationship. In the charge of fresh pheromones, we feel somehow certain that well fix any problems, the person too. Later. (Note to selffat chance.)

Rewriting, in contrast, tends to bog down. The flaws are about all we are conscious of; the flow feels like a house on stilts rather than any kind of river.

Sometimes we want to change the whole thing, start almost from scratch. This may be the best approach, but its also important to stop and take a breath. Are we just trying to do something new, different? Something whose flaws we dont have to deal with just yet?

I just have a hard time beginning and sticking to the work:

because I have no faith that I can/will complete the task, meaning spending any time at all on it is a waste.

because I have no faith that even if I do complete the task, it will be very good, or even if good, will be read, or liked. (Meaning spending any time at all on it is a waste.)

because I hate making decisions and revising is a non-stop decision-making process& Meaning that its not all that fun, meaning spending any time on it is a waste.

Heres where discipline comes in.

Meaning &that if I want to do this, I have to just make myself do it, even when I dont want to.

Meaning&. better get back to it.

Many have recommended a comprehensive and aggressive approach to revision. Hemingway recommended, If you write with a pencil you get three different sights at it to see if the reader is getting what you want him to. First when you read it over; then when it is typed you get another chance to improve it, and again in the proof. Writing it first in pencil gives you one-third more chance to improve it. These days, with the ease of word processing, there is simply no excuse for not revising. This makes Stephen Kings dramatic advice all the more important. He urges, kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribblers heart, kill your darlings. This means that even the most elegant turn of phrase must go  Ctrl X- if it does not propel the article along. Be ruthless with yourself. They are only words, and you have plenty of them if you are a writer. If you are not a writer, then dont even attempt to blog. It will always be like a dog walking on its hind legs  uncomfortable and ultimately unproductive.

Let the material rest a bit before revising, even if you are under a deadline. Give your mind a chance to cool down, like an internal combustion engine, with its tiny metallic ticks and pops indicating that it has come to rest. Your work will sound different when you have been away from it, if only for a few minutes. Do something else entirely. Hemingway recommends exercise or love-making  are we surprised? He reports, I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.

If you know why you are blogging and what you want to say, you are well on your way. With some of the advice from folks who have published and (sometimes) prospered from the craft of writing, you will be better prepared to succeed in the brave new world of the blogosphere. Let me end with a thought from novelist Katherine Towler  although she is referring to all sorts of writing, this could apply to what motivates many of us towards blogging: writing local feels right for now  a celebration of what I see each day out my windows, a celebration of stepping out my door

Books on Writing

Brande, Dorothea  Becoming a Writer

Brown, Rita Mae  Starting from Scratch

Dillard, Annie  The Writing Life

Epel, Naomi  The Observation Deck: A Tool Kit for Writers

Friedman, Bonnie  Writing Past Dark

Goldberg, Natalie  Writing Down the Bones

King, Stephen  On Writing

Lamott, Anne  Bird by Bird

Lerner, Betsy  The Forest for the Trees

May, Rollo  The Courage to Create

Rico, Gabrielle  Writing the Natural Way

Simon, Rachel  The Writers Survival Guide

Slonim Aronie, Nancy  Writing from the Heart

Ueland, Brenda  If You Want to Write

Welty, Eudora  One Writers Beginnings

Altruism is the philosophical term the video clip Spider Man speculates about. The video explicitly shows the implementation of altruistic concepts held by the hero. This is incredible how the movie clip unveils the philosophical meaning of a person who possesses altruistic features, and the foremost message is that every person of our society should have one, maybe not to the same extent but doing good to people is not hard you just have to try. Spider Man movie trailer speculates about philosophical concept altruism  as a form of saving the world  can be an answer to many questions and problems humanity is up to.

The reason I chose this movie clip is that it reflects societys disorder nowadays. People stopped trusting and caring about each other. Although there are hundred support services throughout the state, those do not address altruism as it is, since an altruist is one who cares about people more than about oneself. The trailer starts out with the words Who am I? (Spider-Man Trailer, n.p.) as if drawing the viewers attention to the further explanation of a notion of altruist saying that Spider Man is presented as a care in the world (Spider-Man Trailer, n.p.). Moreover, later on the movie clip reveals the notion of altruism even better: It was time when my life was a lot less complicated, though the protagonist does not regret about helping others, however, having much more troubles in his life than ever before. (Spider-Man Trailer, n.p.)

The altruist Spider Man feels that was he does is right, namely  doing good to people is right. As altruists present selfless donors, Peter Parker does the same in the movie trailer. Being an altruist means taking responsibility but not thinking you have nothing to do with others problems: Whatever it is, somebody has to stop it (Spider-Man Trailer, n.p.). The authors voice states: With great power comes great responsibility, and this is what the altruists are doomed to (Spider-Man Trailer, n.p.). Spider Man is the one who gives because he feels like it without any compensation except for self-assurance and feeling of his societal necessity: Do I get to say thank you this time? (Spider-Man Trailer, n.p.). He places his philanthropy on social issues when saving the boy from a crashing ride in the amusement park. The movie clip conveys the meaning that the altruistic concept is about thinking of others, moreover, forgetting about own problems because the interests of others are much more important.

Te clip arouses the best altruistic feelings one may have. Of course, at some point you get completely stuck thinking if you could ever repeat the same deeds if you had such powers and remain unknown, but the altruists do not know the world fame. Whether it is a hint on the imperfectness of society or just a message to become better, the trailer shows the role of altruism in the harmonious world.

What matters within the clip is the attitude of Peter towards his new powers and role. Although everyone has their own microclimate, own environment still people are what populate the Earth, and the clip gives an understanding that the hero has come in order to show the best of altruism and the best of Spider Mans skills.

References

Spider Man Trailer. 2006. You Tube.