Research Articles Base: Explanations

EXPLANATIONS OF THE VOCABULARY WORDS FROM THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE

VOCABULARY WORDS FROM THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE           MISTRESS               Mistress in the Black history of slavery in 19th century America referred to the wife of the master who bought the slaves for labor and owned them.  The master and the mistress were wealthy people who owned the plantations where most slaves worked.  Most of them were cruel to the slaves as they treated them as their property.  However, some mistresses were motherly to the slaves and even initiated to educate them.  Born into slavery, Harriet Jacobs was happy with her family’s status. She was never treated with cruelty and her parents provided the needed protection.  This protection continued even after her mother’s death when her kind mistress let her into her home and nurtured her.  The mistress taught her to read, sew and did her part to ensure that she grew up into a normal person (Harriet Jacobs, 2006).  Also born into slave parents, Phyllis Wheatley was sold to John and Susanna Wheatley in Boston.  She was seen by her owners, especially her mistress, as having talent in poetry writing. They supported her skills by teaching her to read and write. Though she never had formal education, she was well-versed in Latin and Greek and was recognized as the first African American to publish a book as well as earn a living thru writing (Women, 2006).             SLAVE               The word “slave” can be traced back to the history of early Africans in the American soil during the time when developing territorial colonies were emergent and Christopher Columbus discovered the New World. There was a need to keep the economy of the new country solvent. Therefore, in 1619, the first Africans were brought to America in slave ships as indentured servants in a contract that was said to last from 4 to 7 years and then they would be free. Slaves served their masters by working and running errands for them. However, most of them were beaten, terrorized and treated inhumanely by the White masters.  Still, some of them were able to free themselves and advocated the resistance against slavery (Obadina, 2000; Sylvester, 1998). Some famous slaves who were brave enough to fight its evils were Olaudah Equiano and Frederick Douglas. Equiano was born in the late 18th century and became a slave as a young boy when he was taken from his home in the absence of his parents, sold into slavery in another village, moved to another one as again a slave, sold to European slavers and forced into a slave ship along with many other captured Black people. He experienced many horrible experiences in slavery including seeing his fellow slaves beaten to death and commit suicide to escape. However, he managed to struggle for freedom and acquire learning to become a major advocate of putting an end to slavery (Brians, 1998). Frederick, on the other hand, was born a slave at Holmes Hill Farm owned by Aaron Anthony, one of the wealthiest men in Maryland, in 1818 to a Black mother and a white father whom he barely knew. He was taken cared of by his grandmother but eventually fell into the Master’s cruel hands when the latter died. He learned to read and write though personal efforts and eventually knew about the abolitionists.  He started to detest slavery and was encouraged to fight for emancipation. He became the first black citizen to hold high rank in the United States government as United States minister and consul general to Haiti (Frederick, n.d.).   SLAVE TRADE             In 1492, the Spanish navigator Christopher Columbus discovered for Europe a New World which was America. The discovery marked the beginning of an organized triangular trade between Africa, Europe and the New World. European slave ships, mainly British and French, took people from Africa to the New World and initially placed them to the West Indies to supplement local Indians decimated by the Spanish Conquistadors. The slave trade which lasted until the 1800s was a systematized practice of turning Black slave workers into prized commodities in a system of manual labor (Obadina, 2000; Sylvester, 1998). FIELD HAND               The American Heritage Dictionary defined “field hand” as an outdoor worker on a farm (Field, 2004). Most Africans were skilled in agriculture, farming and mining. The need for manual laborers in American plantations and farms owned by wealthy Americans gave rise to the entry of African laborers into American soils. Slaves in the northern American region labored on small farms and as skilled and unskilled workers in factories and along the coast as shipbuilders, fishermen, craftsmen, and helpers of tradesmen (Sylvester, 1998). Slaves were in the fields from sunrise to sunset and at harvest time they did an eighteen hour day. Women worked the same hours as the men and pregnant women were expected to continue until their child was born. Only a month’s rest was allowed for recovery from child-bearing. The women then carried the child on their backs while they worked in the fields. Around the age of five, slave children would also be expected to work on the plantation (Overseers, 2006).   DISCRIMINATION               Discrimination is defined in the dictionary as the act of making a distinction between people on the basis of class, race, religious background, gender, disability, ethnicity, and age without taking into account individual merits and uniqueness (Wikipedia, 2006). Discrimination can be regarded as one of the roots of the story of Black struggle for freedom against slavery in the early America.  According to Sylvester (1998) colonial America in that period saw the Blacks as people of inferiority, subhuman category and were born to become slaves and subordinates to White people. Slavery was a form of persecution and justification of this belief. Many of the slaves were kidnapped from their homes in Africa and sold to villages and European traders who brought them to the American territory. They were treated as property and were forced to bondage. Most of the women were raped and their children were also treated as slaves. Some of these children were prevented from being educated since the knowledge that they would acquire can be used to escape and struggle for freedom. However, most of these children were the ones who persevered to free their people from the terrors of slavery through literature and public persuasion and mostly in uprisings.   OVERSEER               Some synonyms of the word overseer are superintendent and supervisor.  It typically means someone who has the responsibility to lead and direct a group of people who work for or under him/her. In 1860 it was calculated that about 88 per cent of America’s slave-owners owned twenty slaves or less. However, large landowners would usually own over 100 slaves and relied heavily on overseers to run their plantations. These overseers were under considerable pressure from the plantation owners to maximize profits. They did this by bullying the slaves into increasing productivity. The punishments used against slaves judged to be under-performing included the use of the cart-whip. Not surprisingly the mortality-rate amongst the slaves was high. Studies have shown that over a four-year period, up to 30 per cent of the slave population in America died (Overseers, 2006).   COLORED               Colored and Colored People are North American terms that were commonly used to describe Black people, but also included Asian (brown)/(yellow), Chicano (bronze or brown), and Native American (red). Sometimes the term has a derogatory connotation to it that its usage is controlled (Wikipedia, 2006).  The slavery system was a manifestation of prejudice against color. The Negro race, being colored, suffered cruel servitude to wealthy Whites, was deprived of basic rights to education, peaceful living, sufficient food and rest, forced to obey the will of the white man by the lash and chain, and sold to the highest bidder when there was no more use for them (Thomas, 2006).   LYNCHING               Lynching is basically defined as the illegal execution of an accused person by a mob. The term lynching is probably derived from the name Charles Lynch (1736-96), a justice of the peace who administered rough justice in Virginia, USA. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, lynching was one of the many varieties of American brutality in the history of the USA. It became an institutionalized method used by Whites to terrorize Blacks and maintain white supremacy in the Southern and border states. Several Black leaders responded to this heinous crime through literary persuasion. W.E.B DuBois, a bright Black scholar and author, encouraged his fellow Blacks to fight back against the mob attacks. His pages in The Crisis were filled with persuasion that the Black people should not let themselves die without first trying to save their lives and countering the attack.  Ida Wells-Barnett, editor of the Memphis Free Speech, had a more non-violent approach. She pioneered anti-lynching sentiments in the United States and England, served as the chairman of the Anti-Lynching Bureau of the Afro-American Council and published numerous pamphlets exposing the evils of lynching (Gibson, 2006).       AFRO-AMERICAN               An Afro American, also called Black or African American, is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. Many African Americans possess European, Native American and, to a lesser degree, Asian ancestry as well. The African American means an American of African descent (African, 2006). Africans were brought to America as slaves.  Most of female African slaves bore children through marriage or rape and raised their children in American soil. Africans were a visible and significant portion of the population in colonial times and now constitute a large portion of the American population (Cottrol, 2006).       MULATTO               Child-bearing among slaves started around the age of thirteen, and by twenty the women would be expected to have four or five children. To encourage child-bearing some plantation owners promised women slaves their freedom after they had produced fifteen children. The fathers of these children were sometimes the slave-owner or his white friends. As slaves were the property of the plantation owner, the rape of a black woman by whites was not considered a crime. First-generation children of mixed race were called mulattoes. Two of the most important mullato slaves were Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington. Frederick’s slave mother was named Harriet Bailey and was the daughter of Isaac and Betsey Bailey, both colored, and quite dark. His father was a white man but he never knew or saw him. Booker Taliaferro was born a mulatto slave in Franklin Country on 5th April, 1856. His father was an unknown white man and his mother, the slave of James Burroughs, a small farmer in Virginia, later, married the slave, Washington Ferguson. When Booker entered school he took the name of his stepfather and became known as Booker T. Washington.  (Mullatoes, 2006).   PLANTATION               The Online Dictionary defined plantation as an estate where cash crops are grown on a large scale. In the United States and West Indies, it is an estate appropriated to the production of crops and cultivated by local laborers (Definition, 2006). In the Black history of slavery, plantation was the venue of manual labor and many accounts of cruelty, suffering and deaths. The quest for more land and an economy based upon profit were two of the major points that escalated the demand for more slaves in America and the consistency of the slave trade system. Black slave workers became were regarded as commodities and property to be sold and owned. The entire southern American economy and the states in that warm region needed laborers to work on the plantations dealing with rice, indigo, tobacco, sugar cane, and cotton (Sylvester, 1998). Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

EXPLANATIONS OF THE VOCABULARY WORDS FROM THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE

VOCABULARY WORDS FROM THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE MISTRESS Mistress in the Black hi...

Annotation the Nursing Issues and Challenges in Hong Kong

Task 1   Article 1             This 5-page article is titled “Nursing Knowledge: Defining New Boundaries.” It first discussed four types of nursing knowledge, namely aesthetic knowledge, empirical knowledge, personal knowledge, and ethical knowledge. These types of nursing knowledge are generated through research in the nursing field through such approaches as quantitative and qualitative research. The paradigms or methods that are used to generate nursing knowledge include (a) scientific knowledge/positivism, reductionism, and (b) philosophical or naturalistic enquiry. Performing research and doing it into practice are not enough. There must be critiquing of the research before it can be trusted and considered reliable. However, the generation of knowledge has become more complex. There has been an increasing emphasis on postmodernism, shifting away from the usual modernism. The reason for this shift is said to be due to the increasing complexity of scientific methodologies coupled with the nurses’ lack of ability to express scientific knowledge in any other way aside from complex research methodologies. Thus the nurse has to go farther than understanding nursing in the traditional way in order to redefine nursing knowledge. Those with power are the ones who decide what and which information counts as knowledge. This includes funding bodies. However, using science through research is not sufficient to generate the needed nursing knowledge. The practical application of science has its own boundaries and sometimes even has its own failure in promoting effective practice. On its own, science cannot solve all the problems that the nursing profession faces. Nursing therefore needs to be the one to describe their own perspective and their own idea of what constitutes knowledge. In practice, the nurse only uses technological hardware and scientific knowledge as simply tools which they combine with the element of nursing, interpersonal skills, and manual dexterity so as to create it into what is called nursing. Nurses need to look for new ways by which nursing knowledge can be generated.             This article concluded that a postmodern identity is needed for nursing in order to be able to come up with new knowledge that will enhance the nursing practice. Nursing knowledge is considered evolving and thus whatever improves or updates nursing practice can be justifiably identified as a unique body of knowledge for nursing.   Article 2             “Deconstructing Nursing: From Theory to Practice” is the title of this second article. In this article, it has been emphasized that many people think nursing is an easy profession. But what we see and know of the nursing profession is just the tip of the iceberg. In this article, three nurses were asked about their observations of other nurses and of the nursing profession as a whole. These three nurses are Stephen Wright, David Benton, and Dame June Clark.             Stephen Wright is a professor and in this article is observing Kerri Tweddle, an E grade staff nurse. According to Wright, Kerri is fully attentive, tuned in, and focused. Kerri is acting out her nursing duties in an effortless manner. She does the right things as a result of experience and knowledge about the nursing profession. She is able to make the right decisions on situations at a speed that would sometimes leave people wondering how she did that. This ability is not out of accident or chance but rather because of education and training as a nurse. In Kerri’s case, there is an integration of skill and knowledge which in turn transforms the work at hand from a limited task to a complicated craft which is being dealt upon in a very effortless manner.             The next nurse observer, David Benton, is a nurse director and observed a theatre staff nurse named Janet Mitchell. Janet’s case shows an understanding and awareness into the complicated nature of the specialist area and how education is able to support nursing practice, where breaks in education lie, and how they might be acted upon. Theatre nursing practice involves the use of intense, complex, and sophisticated knowledge and skills by the practitioners.             Dame June Clark is a former RCN president and emeritus professor of nursing; she spent one day observing a district nurse. Her observations focus more on a nurse’s autonomy to do what he or she thinks best for the patient. For a nurse, the decision has to be made hastily or else the life of the patient would be the one in danger. District nurses face this issue of autonomy day to day which could be scary, considering that the life of the patient all but rests on the decision of the nurse. If the nurse is not able to make the right decision, chances are that the patients as well as other health care professionals will lose trust in her and that would be a very hard thing to build up once again.             Task 2 The article is titled “Nursing in Hong Kong: Issues and Challenges” by . Nursing as a science means that it is a body of knowledge systematically organized, and like all bodies of knowledge is dynamic and subject to change. New perspectives in health and illness appear. Nursing as an art pertains to the aspects of knowing in nursing that are not discovered by scientific investigation. Nursing is thus considered as both a science and an art. The purpose of this article is to provide a discussion on the challenges and issues that are being faced by nurses and the whole nursing profession in Hong Kong. Nurses face a continuing variety of dilemmas which involves clients, family members of the client, health care professionals, and other nurses. every one of the situations that nurses face pose new experiences and problems involving the care of the client, the variety of approaches to decide and settle problems, and different outcomes as to whether approaches provide significant achievements. Four specific issues that were tackled in the article are workforce issues, educational issues, practice issues, and leadership issues. Workforce issues focus specifically on the changing roles of the nurses, as well as the need for a nursing workforce that possess competence to be able to deliver the best possible quality of care for the patient. Self awareness and personal growth of practicing nurses’ are considered the basic building blocks for their assurance as a nurse. By way of this improvement, nurses learn to inquire and develop proficiency regarding situations that they encounter during their work. To help solve the problem in Hong Kong, an option would be to allow Hong Kong nurses to work with international nurses. Through this way, the nurses are exposed to new ways of working and as a result would expand the nurses’ personal growth, experience, and knowledge. Working with nurses from other countries can also help in client care issues or ethical considerations, which are often embedded in various cultures (2003). Nursing shortage is another problem faced by the nursing population in Hong Kong. With this shortage, delegation of tasks became affected and even the quality of care can show negative effects.             Nursing practice can now be found in multiple care settings, including health care institutions and foundations, the community, and the home. In addition, nurses are active in political and lobbying groups, social and not-for-profit agencies, and work on establishing social health care policies. These activities increase nursing’s public viability and, at the same time, increase the public’s awareness of professional nursing (2004). These multiple roles can create more workforce issues in the field of nursing. Educational issues about nursing in Hong Kong include schools being too theoretical, use of research and continuing education. Reflective and lifelong learning are two very important aspects of professional nursing practice ( 2003). As a nurse, it helps to think back on a client situation, to make sense of the experience, and to therefore gain insight as to the meaning of the situation that the nurse has been in. With reflection, the nurse seeks to understand the relationships between concepts. Time deficiencies are a reason as to why some nurses are not able to continually learn, and is referred as a common reason for not executing or retrieving clinical supervision ( 1999). The nurses are often expected to study and enrich their learning at their own pace and time. This is in contradiction to the encouragement that organizations must be a learning institution. However, given the many tasks that are being delegated to the nurses, they are not able to study on their own. Additionally, because there is no funding that is allocated to this, the problem is compounded on how such lifelong learning can be promoted and implemented in a system that lacks both staff and funds ( 2003). Assessing and adapting educational information and approaches to the needs and preferences of the health care support workers enhances the success of educational efforts. Not all individuals are comfortable in class settings or in support groups. Educational programs that use these methods should have other educational opportunities available to the health care support workers that needed to be educated. Nurses must at all time also remain creative and responsive to other health care workers when providing education. When it comes to practice issues, each clinical situation that nurses face everyday requires thorough decision-making and critical analysis in order to provide correct and logical clinical decisions and plans to be developed for each client.             It could be argued that critical thinking is indeed an essential part of the nursing profession. It is not enough that a nurse has abstract knowledge; he or she also has to develop the intellectual capacity to contextualize and to adjust what he/she knows in particular cases. Every clinical experience becomes a lesson which will serve as a guide and information for the nurse. Nurses are responsible for making accurate and appropriate clinical decisions. Critical thinking is very important as no two clients have the same needs. The nurse after assessment and diagnosis has to employ critical thinking skills for a client’s particular condition. A nurse is always challenged to observe each of his or her clients closely, search for and examine ideas and judgments about the problems that the clients face. Additionally the nurse has to consider scientific principles that he/she have learned and relate this to the clients’ problem, recognize the problems, and develop the right approach to nursing care as appropriate to the situation and problem of the client. Nurses must not make snap judgments just by their intuition alone when at practice. This could jeopardize the client’s situation and perhaps affect the nursing quality of care for the patient. There are also other issues that nurses face in their clinical practice. This includes differences in the client’s culture, structure of the health care system, and even the growing shortage of nurses can affect clinical practice of the nurses.  Hong Kong nurses face the issue of the need for strong visible leadership. Effective leadership style is a significant aspect of the creation of an environment that promotes the holistic development of nurses.  (1997) defines leadership as “a process of social influence in which one person is able to enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task.”   Leadership and planning are two very important points when providing quality care to the clients. Nurse leaders must create a work culture that supports continuous quality improvement beliefs and practice in the nursing profession. in nursing care areas, home care sections, or clinics, a nurse manager who serves as the leader is responsible for supporting a program.  The individual staff are also responsible for monitoring practice, making decisions about ways to improve practice, and evaluating results. This mirrors the definition above that leadership is a collaborative activity ( 1997). On the other hand, individuals who help the nurses can also restrict practice and provide a form of control over nurses. It is plausible to infer from this that power is being exerted over nurses and by nurses in many situations. Thus representation has now become a key issue for the status and future of the nursing profession.             The article also points out that the Hong Kong population deserves the best quality nurses and nursing care. However, this is not easily done. The issues that have been mentioned here in the article have to be resolved first if the nursing profession as well as Hong Kong’s health care system is to advance. To achieve this, collaboration among key stakeholders is needed.     Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Annotation the Nursing Issues and Challenges in Hong Kong

Task 1 Article 1 This 5-page article is titled “Nursing Knowledge: Defining New Boundaries.” It first discussed four typ...

Tutorial Work Questions and Answers

Hand in Page – Tutorial 2, Week 3 		Your 		Name: 		  		Student 		No.: 		  		Tutor’s 		Name: 		  		 		Tutorial Day & Time: 		    Complete answers to the following question and submit it to your tutor, in class, in Week 5.    1. Consider the concept of peak oil and comment on the potential it has to affect the Australian economy. Briefly outline some strategies for dealing with this new threat from the perspective of a small business owner, in a small business of your choice. 		Peak oil is a condition 		wherein the demand for oil outpaces its production. Peak 		oil signifies the point in 		time which worldwide oil production is at its greatest. 		After the peak is reached 		oil production declines. The significance of the peak is 		for the first time. 		Worldwide supply will be unable to meet the growing demand 		for oil. Australia and the 		world have operated in an environment of increasing 		oil supply where we have 		always been able to meet oil demand growth created 		by increases in population 		and technology. Reaching the peak in oil production 		marks a new era where the 		world will be operating in an environment of 		constant energy scarcity. 		This condition will cause 		severe economic difficulties as the price of oil will 		significantly increase. 		Oil dependent countries such as Australia will crumble 		and countries will engage 		in resource wars in order to halt economic downturn. 		peak oil can shatter the 		economy of an oil dependent country like Australia. The   		combination of declining 		oil production, increasingly more expensive oil 		production, and increasing 		world-wide demand for oil will generate enormous 		price increases in 		gasoline, diesel, heating oil, transportation, construction, 		manufactured goods, food, 		and all products that use oil for their production and 		transportation. Gasoline 		and diesel provide 95 per cent of the energy for 		transportation, Rising 		inflation, high unemployment, and instability in financial 		markets will persist and 		deepen over time. Economic, social, and political chaos 		will result from the 		inability to address expanding problems. A small business 		can deal with the threat 		of peek oil by supporting the national and local 		governments policies and 		strategies to reduce oil consumption. The small 		business can also explore 		oil alternatives and make sure that the business’ oil 		consumption is reduced. 		       Hand in Page – Tutorial 1, Week 2 		Your 		Name: 		  		Student 		No.: 		  		Tutor’s 		Name: 		  		 		Tutorial Day & Time: 		    Complete answers to the following three questions and submit them to your tutor, in class, in Week 3.    1.     Explain in your own words what you think ‘corporate sustainability’ means. 		Corporate sustainability 		is the ability of an organization to grow and to increase 		long-term shareholder 		value through the integration of economic environmental 		and social factors into 		business strategies. Commitment to corporate 		sustainability leads and 		organization to invest in product and service 		innovations that focus on 		technologies and systems, which use economic, 		natural and social 		resources in an efficient, effective and economic manner. 		An 		organization that seeks corporate 		sustainability implements the highest 		standards of corporate governance, 		including management quality and 		responsibility, organizational 		capabilities and corporate culture. An organization 		that values corporate sustainability 		meet the demands of shareholders for 		sound financial returns, long-term 		economic growth, long-term productivity 		increases, sharpened global 		competitiveness, superior intellectual capital and 		reputation. The overall aim of 		corporate sustainability is to achieved growth and 		success for the company 		while satisfying the different stakeholders.         2. Consider the organisation within which you work (or use QUT). Do you think it is ‘sustainable’? Briefly explain your analysis. 		I believe that General 		Electric is sustainable because it is successful and 		considered as one of the 		largest companies in the world. It is sustainable 		because it recognizes that 		it has obligations to its stakeholders and 		shareholders and at the 		same time to the society and the environment. The 		company satisfies the 		demands of its stakeholders and it seeks to do so in a 		manner that does not 		endanger the environment and the communities in which 		it operates in. The 		company is also committed to fulfilling its social 		responsibilities. It 		incorporates environmental issues in its strategies. I can say 		that the company is 		sustainable because it is able to achieve growth and 		financial success while at 		the same time satisfying environmental and 		social demands. It also 		provides products and services that improves the 		lives of its customers.     3. In the tutorial reading, Friedman argues that, “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits”. Do you feel he is justified in saying this, why / why not?   		I think that Friedman in 		justified in saying that the social responsibility 		Of business is to increase 		its profits. The organization has different obligations 		to society. Corporate 		social responsibility is an organization’s obligation to 		engage in activities that 		protect and contribute to the welfare of society. One 		of the most important 		social responsibility of an organization is to make a profit 		in order to survive. The 		organization is obliged to its shareholders to maximize 		earnings, and operate 		efficiency. This forms the foundation on which all else is 		built. Before the 		organization fulfils its other social responsibility it has to 		 		increase its profits 		first. The organization needs to earn because it needs 		financial capabilities to 		fulfil its social responsibilities. An organization cannot 		satisfy the expectations, 		demands, and needs of the stakeholders if it has no 		financial means. 		The economic view of corporate social 		responsibility also looks 		at the organization as an economic unit 		that has a fundamental obligation to the 		society of which it is a part and has 		an obligation, other than to the 		shareholders, to the consumer.     Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Tutorial Work Questions and Answers

Hand in Page – Tutorial 2, Week 3 Your Name: Student No.: Tutor’s Name: Tutorial D...

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