The Advantages of teamwork Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

The Advantages of teamwork - Essay Example According to Hosftede, we get ourselves in life situations where we are dealing with people from diverse cultures and we have to work together for a common course. Hence, one needs to have knowledge of the cultural dimensions as illustrated by Hosftede. They include power, individualism, gender, uncertainty and long term orientation. Teamwork is a better illustration of the famous ancient phrase that says two heads are better than one. Teamwork enables people to share ideas among their team in relation to the shared task. It involves each person giving an idea and participating in decision making of the way forward in doing an activity or in the process of problem solving. Teamwork also saves time. Things get done much faster and efficient. When a group or team is assigned a task or responsibility, it is more likely that it will be done in less time with so many areas covered all at one time. Another merit of teamwork is the ability to account for weak areas. People are diverse; different cultures and each has their strengths and weaknesses that differ a lot. When people come together to do a similar task, it is easier to get solutions through each stage since there are possibilities of having one or two persons who are conversant with an identified area of weakness (McMillan & Reynolds, 2002, p. 23-34). In addition, teamwork is able to break the cultural differences that may present during a task. At workplaces, teamwork improves relationships among the work mates and the management of an organization. These relationships results to teamwork not only in the workplace but also outside work and across cultures (West, 2012, p. 56). In additions, it brings about job satisfaction and morale to engage in even bigger tasks. One thing that is essential for any manager to invest on in business or organization is teamwork. It saves a lot of time and dependency on the

Fact Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Fact Paper - Essay Example Baking soda is generally naturally occurring because it is mined from trona ore, although it can also be chemically made (â€Å"Soda Ash† 1-1; â€Å"What is Baking Soda?†). Baking soda is an alkali that can be applied on conditions or materials that need pH levels to be adjusted by decreasing the quantity of acid in it (Garvin). It has a gritty structure, and it gives off carbon dioxide when heated (â€Å"What is Baking Soda?†). Because of these properties, baking soda can serve numerous beauty, cleaning and health purposes (Fassa; Halvorson; Mercola). Baking soda can be used for beauty purposes. Baking soda can be put in one’s underarms to serve as a deodorant (Marvin). It does not stop sweating, but it can prevent the production of body odour (Marvin). Doctor Joseph Mercola recommends baking soda as a deodorant because it does not have harmful parabens and aluminium that are usually found in commercial deodorants. Apart from baking soda’s deodoriz ing effect, it can also exfoliate the skin. Doctor Mercola states that a â€Å"paste [can be] made from three parts of baking soda combined with 1 part water [and it] can be used as an exfoliator for your face and body. It’s natural, inexpensive and gentle enough to use every day.† Baking soda can exfoliate the skin gently and naturally, so it can be used as a facial and body scrub (Marvin). In addition, baking soda can be used as a teeth whitener. Doctor Mercola suggests that people can crush a ripe strawberry and mix it with half a teaspoon of baking soda, spread it on their teeth, and leave it on for five minutes. People should brush their teeth and rinse after (Mercola). He recommends for this to be done only once a week for teeth whitening because baking soda can corrode tooth enamel (Mercola). Wendy Michaels reports that Julia Roberts only uses baking soda as her toothpaste, and she has white teeth, which could be proof that baking soda can whiten and clean teeth . Furthermore, baking soda can make skin feel softer (Marvin). For those who want a baking soda soak or baking soda bath, they can use a cup of baking soda and mix it with their tub, and they can have soft skin afterwards (Marvin). Baking soda can also be used as shampoo. People can add a teaspoon of baking soda to their shampoo bottle to help eliminate build-up of chemicals from conditioners, mousses, and sprays and to better manage hair (Halvorson). Some people also use baking soda as shampoo, also called as no ‘poo method (Oxenreider). Tsh Oxenreider advises adding one tablespoon of baking soda to one cup of water and to use that as shampoo. She explains that shampoo products mostly have chemicals that actually dry scalp and hair, but baking soda will not because it is a naturally occurring substance that adjusts pH levels of hair and scalp (Oxenreider). These are some of the beauty uses of baking soda that people can try. Baking soda can also be used as a purifying and cle aning agent. Baking soda is often sold as an air purifier that can be used inside refrigerators, cars and other containers (Fassa). It can also deodorize many things, such as carpets and shoes (Fassa). Just sprinkle them on these objects, let it sit for fifteen minutes, and then remove it to minimize odour (Mercola). Baking soda can be sprinkled on slippers, boots, shoes, and socks to get rid of foul odour too (Marvin). Moreover, baking soda is a cleaning agent in the kitchen and bathroom. Baking soda can

Performance And Reward Management Commerce Essay

Performance And Reward Management Commerce Essay Performance management means measuring criteria for organizational progress helping to accomplish their set target and goals by taking suitable actions for the improvement of the company. Performance management system aims to achieve the following target: Enabling each employee to know what is actually been needed and what should be his role in achieving those targets. It helps to maintain an honest relationship between the employees. Enabling each individual employee to feel motivate at work and make him know about his valued contribution in the project. Enabling organization to reward the employees for his exceptional contribution to the company. Performance management system is being designed to successfully achieve the set objective as well as it also focus on helping the employees to understand what is being needed from them and how they could deliver it to the company. Three components of performance management system Initially setting up the required aim which is needed to be target and making the employees to clearly know what should be their contribution towards achieving the required target. Distinguishing between the areas where the performance is strong and the area where there is a need for improvement therefore suggesting ways to improve the service delivery action. Rewarding the employee with the best performance outcome. Relation between motivation and performance management Motivation refers to strengthening of internal activities which drives or boost the performance of man. There is a direct relationship between performances to motivation; if an employee is highly motivated then he/she is expected to perform better at job. Theories suggesting the following implementations are: Reinforcement theory of motivation this theory describes the effect of present behavior onto its future consequences, focusing on changing the employee behavior according to the surrounding situation through four types of operational conditioning: Positive reinforcement Motivating employees by the means by increasing wages, giving him bonus or either promoting him, all this reinforcement is being provided as a reward to the employee to repeat the desired behavior adapted by the employee at the workforce. Negative reinforcement Strengthening the employee behavior and raise it up the baseline attempt like avoidance or ignorance if the employee is not been working as he/she should be working. Extinction It is like not providing the employee neither with the positive reinforcement and nor with the negative reinforcement, if an employee is working then also he is not getting a thanks or a reward for his work. Punishment It is for decreasing the continuity of behavior which the employee is being following at the workplace. The reinforcement theory on the management side: Managers should be informing the employee about the things which they are doing wrong and shouldnt be repeated while directing them to the way which could help them to receive positive reinforcement. Managers should also understand it is important to reward employees for their performance because if the deserving candidate is not getting the reward then he/she may not be performing to the level previously used to. Equity theory of motivation supposing two employees worked equally at office but an employee A gets 20% percent increment while employee B gets 10 percent increment. Employee B is pleased with his performance because where other employees are getting only 6 % increment he got 10% but while comparing to A he will be rather disappointed therefore people compare their reward to the ratio of the reward what the other person is getting to the input applied. Therefore in such a case managers must be very careful while they are rewarding and provide each employee with a specified target to motivate them and even this removes the indifference attitude within the employees about others. (analytictech website) Four factors that need to be considered when managing performance It is very crucial to review employees performance level which includes their behavior they should be exhibiting in the company.Factors that are needed to take in consideration when managing performance are: Planning It means setting up the performance goal and expectation which is required to be followed by the employees in line to achieve the set target, involving employees in the planning action to make them understand what the organization is targeting and what should be their contribution in the achieving the target. Monitoring Projects and assignment are monitored continuously for consistently measuring the performance and then giving them with feedback about their actions which is needed by them to follow for achieving the target, this regularly checking method helps to meet the determined standard as pert the organization requirement. Developing Developing in the terms means increasing the performance capacity through giving them assignment, regular training session which helps the employees to introduce new skills and perform well. Rewarding Rewarding employees for their talent and contribution to the company procedure result in better effect on to the company performance. (US office for personnel management ) The relationship between performance management and reward Two purposes of reward within a performance management system In any organization the main purpose behind rewarding employees is to motivate them, retaining them to the company and reducing the turnover costing. Employees are the most important valuable possession of the company and it is very important to continuously encourage them for their contribution to the organization. These reward systems are mainly been introduced into the companys environment to give a recognition and encouragement to the committed employee of the company for his extraordinary performance in the company by this Staffs understand what they are expected to do. Contribute to effective performance and reward management in the workplace Components of a total reward system Rewarding system is being used as a tool by company owners to attract the talent they have been looking for their company and to retain the talent with company and from seeing the employees perspective rewards are the payback for their commitment and loyalty towards the company. Components of rewarding system are: Individual growth It includes with investing in people, learning opportunities through training programs and career opportunities through new job openings, promoting or handling oversees assignment project. Compelling future It is very critical component of the rewarding system including companys growth and success, its reputation and image in the market and in front of the employees, stakeholders, companys vision and values. Positive workplace This category includes leadership, commitment and thrust towards the company, working attitude towards his colleges and outside people, his communication inside the company and involvement of the employee. Total pay This category includes the performance criteria, recognizing the employee talent and giving him base pay, variable pay according to his work, providing the employee with additional benefits and pay for his performance in the company. This recognition gives a special entity of the employee in front of his colleges for his actions and performance in the task given to him. (schuster zingheim , 2012) Sources of data (1 of which should be external to the organisation) required by individuals involved in performance and reward management processes. Gathering performance information through quantity or sources helps to ensures that the objective is in line with the ongoing employees behavior and company is performing well. Types of information included are employees call record, sales report or the project deadline report while important information sources include getting feedback through others, personally observing the employee, and reviews on the employees. Getting data from feedback process involves with asking all the subordinate employees, manager about the employee any specified skill and while comparing that data to the final report submitted and based upon that judging the performance and rewarding process. Other data sources which are helpful in determining the performance chart are: past performance report, what are the current objectives of the organization and a standard documentation relating to the career goal. To be able to conduct and reflect upon a performance review and How to support good practice in performance and reward management Frequency, purpose and process of performance reviews Considering performance management review system for an oil spill company, there is an annual cycle system which combines together with the budgeting process and business planning process. It is a three stage process beginning annually in the month of January and ending in the same over a year cycle. Stage one: It is the initial phase starting in the month if January consisting of planning of work agreement, setting up occupational standard, meeting to the required competencies and assigning of the personal development planning in line with the organizational aim. Stage two: This second phase is being carried out throughout the financial year going in a form of regular ongoing process aiming at keeping the information and work agreement data up to date according to the changing environment in which the company is being operating. Regular meetings are put up to discuss on the progress setup of the company. Stage three: At the year ending each individual performance is being reviewed, judging their performance level and comparing the performance to the required level of performance needed for the task to get complete. Once the year get started it is mandatory to run all the three stages serially. Appropriate interviewing skills in order to gauge performance An interview describes the employees intake to the company which can also be taken as a place to measure the performance level of the employee whom the company is planning to take in. Here are some of the questions which demonstrate the performance level of the employee: what skills and special characteristics are up planning to bring in with the job Describe what are your duties and responsibility while performing a task at workforce. from previous event describe your creative work describe situation which describes you can work in a team describe what would be your action in time going through intense pressure and stress Are you prepared to make personal sacrifice for the sake of work related purpose. Effective use of feedback Timely and effective feedback managing system is essential and an important aspect for guarantying successful performance management, giving employees with proper feedback helps to improve their performance level and to timely correct themselves whenever they are falling apart from the required target, feedback helps to motivate them in the right sense to follow the proper path. SMART objectives for developmental purposes Following specific objectives are set to determine development Specifically or exactly illustrating what specific action needed to be followed. Measuring the performance to evaluate are the activities going in line with the determined objective. The set objective must be achievable with the required resources. Relating whether the set objective target is required to get the desired goal. Setting the time limit in which the given objective must be accomplished. Notes on the covered point Talking of my job in my day to day activity I am not dealing with performance management review but I found the task to be very challenging and a good performance review can change the company working and uplift its standard but there is only one requirement employee has to put his full effort. To conduct performance review I have done many researches regarding the subject and regarding this I have learned in the process that for a good performance review it is very important to know the person efforts which he is putting for the development of the company and being supportive, honest and reward person for his achievement helps to bring out what is best from him and if after that also person is not putting his effort than if providing positive feedback to them gives a motivational sound to them and even they can perform well, from the above experience I can comment performance management is not only for the past but it is for the future wellbeing of the company.

The Puritans - Creating the Perfect God Fearing Society Essay -- Ameri

The Puritans - Creating the Perfect God Fearing Society The Puritans dream was to create a model society for the rest of Christendom. Their goal was to make a society in every way connected to god. Every aspect of their lives, from political status and employment to even recreation and dress, was taken into account in order to live a more pious life. But to really understand what the aspirations of the puritans were, we must first understand their beliefs. â€Å"Their goal was absolute purity; to live with out sin in a sinful world was to them the supreme challenge in life. They were derisively called Puritans because they sought to purify the Church of England of the popish and antichristian stuff with which they believed the simplicity of the primitive Christian church had been encrusted.† The Puritans believed that man’s only purpose in life was â€Å"to glorify God on earth and, if he were especially fortunate, to continue the good work in Heaven.† For the puritans, to glorify god meant keeping him in mind at all times, working to the best of their ability at whatever job god had fated them to do, and following a strict moral code based on the bible. â€Å"Every act and thought was either a glorification of god or its opposite.† Thus, leading a pious life in the form of working hard, praying, and churchgoing, was considered paying homage to God. Through all of these things, the most important was to be mindful of God at all times. Pride, complacency, and gratification of the senses could not be permitted if they captured the place in the mind reserved for the Almighty. This does not mean, however, (as many people have believed) that the Puritans did not allow themselves to be comfortable and happy. First of all, the Purita... ... influential enough to prevent Winthrop’s reelection as governor in sixteen thirty-six. The next year he returned to office and had her tried for heresy. Even though she displayed remarkable knowledge of theology, she still defied clergy, and was eventually banished for sedition. Williams and Hutchinson were only a few of the growing number of colonists who were discontented with the Puritan government. The Puritans dreamed of creating the perfect god fearing society as a model for the entire Christian world. They did everything in their power to keep this dream alive. They created strict laws, and enforced them vigorously all in the name of God. But it was destined to fail because of the growing political liberty in England and the numerous advancements during the age of enlightenment, which eventually came into direct conflict with established Puritan beliefs.

Design of Fuzzy Controller

Design of fuzzy controller for two tank interacting system Mohamed sabith KT Second year M. tech Dept of Electrical Engineering NIT Calicut Calicut, India [email  protected] com Dr. Abraham T Mathew Professor, Dept of Electrical Engineering NIT Calicut Calicut, India [email  protected] ac. in Abstract—The control of liquid level in tanks and flow between tanks is a basic problem in the process Industries. Vital industries such as Petro-chemical industries, Paper making industries, Water treatment industries have the coupled tanks processes. The level of fluid in the tanks and interaction between tanks must be controlled.The aim of the project is to model the the coupled two tank liquid level system and to design a fuzzy controller. For coupled tank systems with non linear and complex characteristics classical PID is difficult to achieve the desired response. Fuzzy logic control is a classic method by which dynamic performance and strong robustness is guaranteed. The projec t compares the performance of the two tank system with classical PID and fuzzy logic control. Index Terms—PID, fuzzy logic, steady state Introduction through two separate pumps whose output is throttled using a control valve.Separate disturbance are made to both the tanks using hand valves. The two tanks are connected by means of hand valve, so the level of tank 1 will affect the tank 2 and vice versa. So this is a highly non linear system. Flow transmitters and pressure transmitters are there which give indication of flow and level respectively in a scale of 4-20 mA. The input from this sensors are taken to a computer which is process by a software in which controller is implemented which will give necessary control signal to throttle the control valve to get the necessary level.A Coupled tanks process is found in the many industries. Generally, The TITO processes have the problems to control their systems because of the existence of interactions between input and output var iables. Many control methods such as 2DOF PID [1], Auto tuning PID [2], CDM [3] and Decoupling [4] have been applied to coupled tanks processes for solving their problems. This paper presents control of two tank interacting system with the help of classical PID and Fuzzy control. The paper is organized as follows.The next section gives details about Coupled-tank process. Section 3 explains about modeling of two tank interacting system. Section 4 explains PID based control. Section 5 explains an implementation of Fuzzy Controller for coupled tank process. Section 6 shows experiment process and results. Finally, conclusions are given in section 7. COUPLED TANK SYSTEM MODELLING OF A TWO TANK INTERACTING SYSTEM Consider the coupled tank, two-input two-output process . The target is to control level of two tanks by the inlet water flow from two pumps P1and P2.The process inputs are flow rate of two pumps u1(t)and u2(t) which is throttled using control valves. The nonlinear plant equation s can be obtained by mass balance equation The overall material balance on the cylindrical tank is: Rate of mass accumulation in the system = rate of mass entering in the system- rate of mass leaving the system There for the dynamics of the tank system can be written as The coupled tank apparatus is shown in the Figure 1. 1. The apparatus is a model consisting of a pump, two cylindrical tanks made of plexiglas, two control valves, and two level transmitters .The two tanks are installed in a manner as shown in the fig 2. 1The water input to both the tank is provided 1 1 = ? 1 ? 1 ? 2 ? ? 1 + ? ( 2 ? ? 2 ? (2 ? ? 1( ) 2 2 = ? 2 ? 2 ? 2 ? ? 2 + ? ( 2 ? ? ( 1 ? 2 ? ? 2 Where A is the cross section area of tank 1 and tank 2, a is the cross section area of outlet hole of tank 1and tank 2 and cross section area of jointed pipe between tank 1 and tank 2 , ? 1 is the valve ratio at the outlet of tank 1, ? 2 is the valve ratio at the outlet of tank 2, ? x is the valve ratio between tank 1 and tank 2. k1,k2 are the gain of the pump. The above equations can be converted to transfer function form and a transfer matrix of the form is obtained. ?1( ) 11( ) 12( ) = ? 2( ) 21( ) 22( ) 1( ) 2( ) nteraction between processes, the control design needs the decoupling controllers to minimize the cross coupling effects Because of the interaction between processes, the control design needs the decoupling controllers to minimize the cross coupling effects The decoupling controllers consist of two decouplers d12 and d21 . The purpose of using decouple is to decouple the multivariable system. This can be done by choosing the following transfer function. D21=-G21/G22 D12=-G12/G11 SIMULINK SIMULATION OF COUPLED TANK SYSTEM WITH PID CONTROL AND DECOUPLERS The modeled coupled tank system was simulated using simulink .G11 represent the dynamics of the tank 1 ,similarly G22 represent the dynamics of tank2. G12 represent the effect of level of tan k 2 on tank1,and G21 represent the effect of level of tank 1 on tank 2. Due to high interaction between the tanks ,its difficult to control with ordinary PID. So as to avoid the interaction Decouplers were introduced. The advantage with the decoupler is that separate PID controllers can be designed for individual loops. Two individual PID controllers were designed for the two loops and tuning of the controllers were also performed.Tank 1 is subjected to a setpoint input of 15cm at time of 30 seconds and it is having an setpoint of 5cm. Similarly Tank 2 is subjected to a setpoint input of 25cm at time of 50 seconds and it is having an initial setpoint of 10. The response of the simulated system is shown in fig below,both the level of tank 1 and tank 2 follows the setpoint with small peak overshoot. Where h1, h2 are the liquid level in two tanks and u1,u2 are the input into the two tank . Where transfer matrix Gij(s)has the value as following G11(s)= 1 + 2 + 2 1 + +2 1 2 1 1 1 2 + +( + + ) 1 2 1 2 1 2 G22(s)= 2 + 1 + 1 1 + 2 +2 1 2 1 1 1 2 + +( + + ) 1 2 1 2 1 2 2 1 1 + 2 +2 1 2 1 1 1 2 + +( + + ) 1 2 1 2 1 G12(S)= G21(S)= 1 1 1 + 2 +2 1 2 1 1 1 2 + +( + + ) 1 2 1 2 1 2 Design of Decouplers The theoretically modeled system was simulated using simulink as shown in fig. below . G11(s) represents the tank 1 and G22(s) represents the tank 2. The effect of tank 1 on tank 2 is given by G21(s) and the effect of tank 2 on tank 1 is given by G12(s). This coupled tank system is having high interaction and it also exhibits non linear characterstics.Because of the The input variable error(e) is shown below,for all these inputs five membership functions are used. The five membership functions are NB,N,Z,P,PB. Fuzzy controller The traditional control, which includes the classical feedback control , has encountered many difficulties in its applications. The design and analysis of traditional control systems are based on their preci se mathematical models, which are usually very difficult to achieve owing to the complexity, nonlinearity, time varying and incomplete characteristics of the existing practical systems.One of the most effective ways to solve the problem is to use the technique of intelligent control system, or hybrid methodology of the traditional and ntelligent control techniques. The output variable is shown below As i have 2 inputs with 5 membership functions,I used 25 rules(IF THEN ). The surface of the rulebase is as shown below The above fig shows how a fuzzy controller is implemented . The Fuzzy controller takes two input and have one output, error and rate of change of error are given as input to the fuzzy controller . depending on the input the fuzzy controller produces required control action.For all input and output triangular membership functions are used. The input rate of change of error(de) is shown below The two tank system with fuzzy controller is subjected to an input,the first tan k is set to a initial level of 5cm then it is subjected to a step change of 15 cm at 25 seconds,for the second tank it is set to a initial level of 10 cm and final level of 20 cm. With fuzzy controller the outputs obtained is as shown below [1] Suparoek Kangwanrat1, Vittaya Tipsuwannaporn ? Design of PI Controller Using MRAC Techniques for Coupled-Tanks Process? International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems 2010 Oct. 7-30, 2010 in KINTEX, Gyeonggido, Korea [2] V. R. Ravi , T. Thyagarajan ? Application of Adaptive Control Technique to Interacting Non Linear Systems† IEEE Transactions On Systems, Man, And Cybernetics—Part B: Cybernetics, 33( ), 2003, 514–521 [3] [3] Dr. S. AbrahamLincon, P. Selvakumar ? Design of PI Controller using Characteristic Ratio Assignment Method for Coupled Tank SISO Process? International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887) Volume 25– No. 9, July 2011 [4] Li LIANG ? The application of fuzzy PID contr oller in coupled-tank liquid-level control system?IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 25-35, 2010 [5] Jutarut Chaorai-ngern, Arjin Numsomran, Taweepol Suesut, Thanit Trisuwannawat and Vittaya Tipsuwanporn ?PID Controller Design using Characteristic Ratio Assignment Method for Coupled-Tank Process.? Proceedings of the 2005 International Conference on Computational Intelligence for Modelling, Control and Automation CONCLUSION The output obtained for fuzzy controller doesnot show peak overshoot as in th case of a PID controller ,the problem observed with fuzzy controller is that small oscillations will be prescent at steady state REFERENCES

Are You An Informed Citizen? Essay

Let’s just start out by me explaining my political views and how well I am informed. I have to be truthful and say that I am not a very political nor am I an â€Å"Informed† citizen. I know this is crazy but after researching and doing a lot of reading, I have been enlightened and what I have read has been very interesting. â€Å"An informed citizenry will benefit from applying both creative thinking and critical thinking in solving the challenges of our society†, at first I was like what the heck does this even mean? Well, I have informed myself and I must say I feel I will be able to vote Tuesday feeling more informed about the issues that concern this country. In a democracy, public misperceptions carry an enormous cost and I would hate to be one that contributed to this. The main goal of citizenship education is to produce citizens who can make informed decisions on matters pertaining to the operation of government. Do you know that a very high percentage of citizens make their decisions based on appearance on television? I don’t fall into that category although I may fall into the category above that. Because in the past I have based my decision on commercials. I never educated myself to learn the facts from the opinions or lies one might say. A lot of powerful groups and interests in the country try to manipulate public opinion and they are very good at it. An essential element of critical thinking is learning how to ask questions that will uncover the information needed to make an informed decision. Many decisions that citizens make have direct impact on their day to day lives. People who possess higher level of critical thinking skills are able to face society’s moral dilemas with the confidence that they will be able to find answers that will solve the problem. Let’s go back to how people decide who to vote for. Several recent studies indicate that candidates who simply look more capable or attractive are more likely to win elections. It also states that people who watch a lot of television will base their decision on the candidates appearance and are likely not educated on either candidates. Also naive students based their decision on just a black and white photo. I feel like it would be a great idea to have a political course taken in high school. That way students know the importance of having knowledge and being â€Å"informed†. Teaching them the importance of having sufficient and sufficiently reliable information or knowledge to be able to understand a  subject or situation and make appropriate judgments or decisions regarding it. Teaching them how to search for information, digest it, and actively participate in society putting their knowledge to a good collective use. It’s very important that we do not allow others to think for us. That we should be able to think and make decisions for ourselves based on the information that we know and have researched. We have so many underlying issues that have to be dealt with in the country. For us to not be educated on each issue and just base our decision on someone looking the part, well we might as well just do a coin toss. Seems more interesting and â€Å"creative† to me. We have job issues, environment, education, healthcare, budget for the country, same sex marriage, economic, taxes, abortion, gun control, immigration, social security, welfare/ poverty, the war, and the list goes on and on. It is embarrassing for me to admit that I was the percentage that made my decision on the media when the only thing they are thinking of is entertaining and making money. If we want this country to be built back up and to be strong like it once was we have to become educated and educate the young, because they will be running this country one day. I would like to go through some of the things I mentioned above and let you know what I have learned just by having to write this paper. Because I believe I have become more educated just from this one assignment and to think how much more I would know if I had started researching years ago. First would be Same sex Marriage/ Adoption that is interesting. I have always believed in every human lives their life the way they want as long as they are not harming themselves or any one else. Who cares what someone else does in their life. If they are happy and a good person, let them be. A gay couple should be able to adopt. A baby that is with a loving gay couple will benefit more than staying with someone who will not give it as much love. Gay couples are just as deserving. Romney believes in marriage only between man and woman. Who is he to judge? One that I am un- decisive on is taxes. I honestly can see both sides. Why is it fair for one who goes out and works hard to make a great living have to pay so much more in taxes to give to some that just live off the government? But the I can see where jobs are hard to get and some people of disabled and they would love to be out there working and making money. That is just one that I will have to do more reading on to be able to see what my beliefs are there. I feel everyone  should have healthcare and no one should be turned away for pre-existing medical issues conditions and insurance companies should not be allowed to drop you if a patient has been diagnosed with a terminal disease. There are so many issues and debates that its overwhelming and stressful, this is one reason I have never been a very political person. I see now why it is important to be an informed citizen and to know the facts. No matter how good our leadership, if we don’t have discriminating citizens, this nation will not work very well.