Examples of an Introduction
A.There has been a European Union foreign policy, confirmed in constitu-tional form in the Union Treaty, since 1993. The first decade, most commenta-tors agree, has proved to be difficult: ‘painful and problematic’ according to one. As the twenty-first century progresses, replete with an array of new chal-lenges, the need for a reassessment, and perhaps reinvigoration of Union ‘for-eign and security policy’ is widely argued. The purpose of this article is to provide both a retrospective, of the evolution of the Union’s foreign policy so far, and a prospective, of the challenges which it presently faces.
B.This paper examines companies incorporated under the Companies Act 1985. Its purpose is to consider the suitability of such companies for not-for-profit-organisations ('NFPOs').
Methods. Explain how you studied the problem, which should follow logi-cally from the aims. Depending on the kind of data, this section may contain subsections on experimental details, materials used, data collection/sources, analytical or statistical techniques employed, study area, etc. Provide enough detail for the reader to reproduce what you did.
Include flowcharts, maps or tables if they aid clarity or brevity. Answer the question "what steps did I follow?" but do not include results yet. Here you may use such expressions as:
| A method of …is proposed | Предлагается метод… |
| Data on… are discussed | Обсуждаются данные по … |
| Present data encompass a period of … | Настоящие данные охватывают период в |
| The design of the experiments was to | Эксперименты были направлены на выяв- |
| reveal… | ление … |
| The effect of… on… is discussed | Обсуждается влияние … на … |
| The methods used for … are discussed | Описываются методы, используемые для … |
Results. Explain your actual findings, using subheadings to divide the sec-tion into logical parts, with the text addressing the study aims. Tables are an easy and neat way of summarizing the results. An alternative or additional way of presenting data is in the form of line graphs, bar-charts, pie-charts, etc. Graphs, charts and illustrations are referred to as 'figures' (for example, Fig. 1) in the text of the report. All figures should be numbered in order of appearance in the text. For each table or graph, describe and interpret what you see (you do the thinking -- do not leave this to the reader).
Expressions to describe results obtained may be:
| The most important results are as follows | Самые важные результаты имеют сле- |
| дующий вид… | |
| The results indicate the dominant role | Результаты указывают на доминирую- |
| of… | щую роль… |
| The results of … are discussed | Обсуждаются результаты … |
| The results of observations are supported | Результаты наблюдений дополняются |
| by… |
Discussion. This is the most difficult section of a report to write and re-quires considerable thought and care. Essentially it is a consideration of the results obtained in the study, guided by any statistical tests used, indicating whether the hypotheses tested are considered true or are to be rejected.
This is best thought of in three steps: the main results must be very briefly summarized; the procedure must be critically assessed and weaknesses noted; and a final evaluation of the results made in terms of the design, leading to a final judgment concerning the hypotheses being tested. The discussion can only refer to results, which are presented in the results section. Any detailed results which only appear in the appendixes cannot be discussed.
Evaluation of the results should include reference to other research with in-dications as to whether or not the current findings are in agreement with other findings (that is, reference is made to the introduction). The main conclusions reached should be summarized at the end of the discussion. Suggestions for follow-up research can also be given.
Discuss the importance of what you found, in light of the overall study aims. Stand backs from the details and synthesize what has (and has not) been learned about the problem, and what it all means. Say what you actually found, not what you hoped to find. Begin with specific comments and expand to more general issues. Recommend any improvements for further study. An-swer the question "what is the significance of the research?"
Important Note: this section is often combined with either the Results sec-tion or the Conclusions section. Decide whether understanding and clarity areimproved if you include some discussion as you cover the results, or if discus-sion material is better as part of the broader summing up.
Conclusions. Restate the study aims or key questions and summarize yourfindings using clear, concise statements. Keep this section brief and to the point.
Acknowledgments. This is anoptionalsection. Thank people who directlycontributed to the paper, by providing data, assisting with some part of the analy-sis, proofreading, typing, etc. It is not a dedication; so don't thank Mom and Dad for bringing you into the world, or your roommate for making your coffee.
References. Within the text, cite references by author and year unless in-structed otherwise, for example "Comrie (1999) stated that ..." or "several studies have found that x is greater than y (Comrie 1999; Smith 1999)." For two authors, list both names, and for three or more use the abbreviation "et al." (note the pe-riod) following the first name, for example "Comrie and Smith (1999)" or "Com-rie et al. (1999)." Attribute every idea that is not your own to avoid plagiarism.
Making Oral Presentations
The material of your presentation should be concise, to the point and tell an interesting story. In addition to the obvious things like content and visual aids, the following are just as important as the audience will be subconsciously tak-ing them in:
Your voice - how you say it is as important as what you say.
Body language – a subject in its own right and something about whichmuch has been written and said. In essence, your body movements express what your attitudes and thoughts really are.
Appearance – first impressions influence the audience's attitudes to you.Dress appropriately for the occasion.
As with most personal skills oral communication cannot be taught. Instruc-tors can only point the way. So as always, practice is essential, both to im-prove your skills generally and also to make the best of each individual pres-entation you make
Preparation. Prepare the structure of the talk carefully and logically, just asyou would for a written report. What are:
the objectives of the talk?
the main points you want to make?
Make a list of these two things as your starting point.
Write out the presentation in rough, just like a first draft of a written report. Review the draft. You will find things that are irrelevant or superfluous – de-lete them. Check if the story is consistent and flows smoothly. If there are things you cannot easily express, possibly because of doubt about your under-standing, it is better to leave them unsaid.
Neverread from a script. It is also unwise to have the talk written out indetail as a prompt sheet - the chances are you will not locate the thing you want to say amongst all the other text. You should know most of what you want to say – if you don't then you should not be giving the talk! So prepare cue cardswhich have key words and phrases (and possibly sketches) on them.Postcards are ideal for this. Don't forget to number the cards in case you drop them.
Remember to mark on your cards the visual aids that go with them so that the right OHP or slide is shown at the right time
Rehearse your presentation - to yourself at first and then in front of some colleagues. The initial rehearsal should consider how the words and the se-quence of visual aids go together. How will you make effective use of your visual aids?
Making the presentation. Greet the audience (for example, 'Good morning,ladies and gentlemen'), and tell them who you are. Good presentations then follow this formula:
tell the audience what you are going to tell them, then tell them,
at the end tell them what you have told them.
Keep to the time allowed. If you can, keep it short. It's better to under-run than over-run. As a rule of thumb, allow 2 minutes for each general overhead transparency or Powerpoint slide you use, but longer for any that you want to use for developing specific points. 35mm slides are generally used more spar-ingly and stay on the screen longer. However, the audience will get bored with something on the screen for more than 5 minutes, especially if you are not ac-tively talking about it. So switch the display off, or replace the slide with some form of 'wallpaper' such as a company logo.
Stick to the plan for the presentation, don't be tempted to digress - you will eat up time and could end up in a dead-end with no escape!
Unless explicitly told not to, leave time for discussion - 5 minutes is suffi-cient to allow clarification of points. The session chairman may extend this if the questioning becomes interesting.
At the end of your presentation ask if there are any questions - avoid being terse when you do this as the audience may find it intimidating (ie it may come across as any questions? - if there are, it shows you were not paying at-tention). If questions are slow in coming, you can start things off by asking aquestion of the audience - so have one prepared.
Delivery. Speak clearly. Don't shout or whisper - judge the acoustics of theroom.
Don't rush, or talk deliberately slowly. Be natural - although not conversa-tional.
Deliberately pause at key points - this has the effect of emphasising the im-portance of a particular point you are making.
Avoid jokes - always disastrous unless you are a natural expert
To make the presentation interesting, change your delivery, but not to ob-viously, egg:
speed;
pitch of voice.
Use your hands to emphasize points but don't indulge in to much hand
waving. People can, over time, develop irritating habits. Ask colleagues occa-sionally what they think of your style.
Look at the audience as much as possible, but don't fix on an individual - it can be intimidating. Pitch your presentation towards the back of the audience, especially in larger rooms.
Don't face the display screen behind you and talk to it.
Avoid moving about too much. Pacing up and down can unnerve the audi-ence, although some animation is desirable.
Keep an eye on the audience's body language. Know when to stop and also when to cut out a piece of the presentation.
Visual Aids. Visual aids significantly improve the interest of a presenta-tion. However, they must be relevant to what you want to say. A careless de-sign or use of a slide can simply get in the way of the presentation. What you use depends on the type of talk you are giving. Here are some possibilities:
Overhead projection transparencies (OHPs); 35mm slides;
Computer projection: PowerPoint, applications such as Excel, etc.; Video, and film;
Real objects - either handled from the speaker's bench or passed around;
Flip-chart or blackboard - possibly used as a 'scratch-pad' to expand on a point.
Keep it simple though - a complex set of hardware can result in confusion for speaker and audience. Slides and OHPs should contain the minimum in-formation necessary. To do otherwise risks making the slide unreadable or will divert your audience's attention so that they spend time reading the slide rather than listening to you.
Study the texts given below, use additional information re-sources and deliver a report on your special field of knowl-edge. (If you specialize in other subjects see Supplement.)
The Nature of Law
The law affects us all from the moment we are born. We may not like it, but for better or for worse, we live in a society that is bound by rules.
Society, by one means or another, has developed a formal system of rules which are designed to be both observed and enforced. If an individual breaks a legal rule he or she will be penalised in some way. That is what the law is about: it consists of minimum standards of conduct which all members of so-ciety are expected to follow.
The concept of justice lies deep in the conscience of all civilized peoples. What that justice is, however, a reflection of the customs and laws of that civi-lization, and derives from the morality of the people as expounded by their law makers.
All civilized societies have had their codes of law, at least from the time of Hammurabi, the founder of the Babylonian Empire in the third millenium BC. Law is the latticework of civilization and throughout history a few outstanding law makers have shone forth like stars, to illumine the course of justice, some like Solomon as judges, others such as Justinian as great codifiers.
Yet the thought that there can be a theory of law, that is a set of systemati-cally related true propositions about the nature of law, has been challenged, and from several directions. None of the challenges is entirely successful.
A theory of law in a narrow sense refers to an explanation of the nature of law.It is a sense central to philosophical reflection about the law through-out its history.
A theory of law is successful if it meets two criteria: First, it consists of propositions about the law which are necessarily true, and, second, they ex-plain what the law is.
Naturally, the essential properties of the law are universal characteristics of law. They are to be found in law wherever and whenever it exists. Moreover, these properties are universal properties of the law not accidentally, and not because of any prevailing economic or social circumstances, but because there is no law without them.
The most usual meaning of the phrase 'the law' is that of a legal rule. Legal rules influence many different aspects of life. Secondly, “the law” is the com-plete body of all those individual rules that bind society together. Thirdly, the phrase may also mean the process by which rules are made and applied. The development, the content and the application of those rules add up to a legal system, complete with judges, courts, solicitors, barristers, police and indeedpoliticians in their role as law-makers (legislators).
The understanding (not definition) of such concepts as responsibility, lib-erty, authority, scientific knowledge, justice, right/wrong, etc. is a necessary prerequisite for answering some crucial questions about the regulation of so-cial conduct and the conflicts derived from it:
– What are the principles and standards we should agree upon so that social life can unfold harmoniously on both local and planetary levels?
– Why are these principles and standards valid?
– What does each individual owe to the other individuals with whom he shares the social praxis?
– What is it that I, as an individual who interacts socially, can believe, or say or do?
– Which social ills could law attempt to lessen?
– How could this be achieved?
– For which social ills is each individual responsible and to what degree?
– Why am I responsible for the social consequences of my conduct?
At the end of the twentieth century we are forced to recognize:
– That law is in itself a culturally specific discursive form.
– That there is no pre-existent uniformity of values that explains a culture; there is cultural heterogeneity and multiplicity. Consequently,
– The authority of law based on a metanorm hierarchically superior to and underlying positive law, or on a social purpose legitimated by one culture
only, has become increasingly problematic.
English law divides principally into two categories - criminal or public and civil or private. Criminal law concerns matters deemed by society to be so se-rious that in the event of a person transgressing a legal rule it is society itself which must punish the wrong-doer.
Civil law is concerned with disputes between individuals or indeed groups of individuals such as public companies and corporations. Society will lay down the framework of legal rules within which such disputes must be settled. But society itself is not a party to any legal proceedings; it acts more as a refe-ree. Indeed the object of civil law is to compensate the injured party, rather than to punish the 'wrong-doer'. One individual sues another.
All that appears to imply that in terms of society's morality and values civil matters are less serious or less weighty than criminal issues.
It is possible to speak in terms of three branches of the law, the third being constitutional and administrative law. This area of legal rules covers such mat-ters as the powers of Parliament and the Government, the powers of the police and the administration of justice, personal freedoms including race relations and immigration, and the freedoms of expression and assembly. The greater part of such administrative law will fall under civil law in the broadest sense and the rest under criminal law. Other countries take a different approach, however.
Law, far from being a complete and static system, is a dynamic system continually being created and modified. This condition of dynamism is already a commonplace in legal theory.
The law does not stand still. The public's attitudes and habits do change, human nature being an odd mixture of both the rational and the irrational, of both conservatism and radicalism. The legal system - including judicial out-look - has to accommodate itself to such shifts in the climate of opinions. Nonetheless the law may move slowly: change, whether societal or legal, is not necessarily rapid.
Economics
The term economics was coined around 1870 and popularized by Alfred Marshall, as a substitute for the earlier term political economy which has been used through the 18th-19th centuries, with Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Karl Marx as its main thinkers and which today is frequently referred to as the "classical" economic theory. Economic thought may be roughly divided into three phases: Premodern (Greek, Roman, Arab), Early modern (mercantilist, physiocrats) and Modern (since Adam Smith in the late 18th century). Systematic economic theory has been developed mainly since the birth of the modern era.
Economics has been recognized as a special area of study for over a century.The term Economics derived from the Greek words οίκω [okos], 'house', and νέμω [nemo], 'rules' hence it means household management. There is no unani-mous consensus upon its definition. Various definitions describe different aspects of this social science. We may mention some of them. Economics is:
the social science that studies the allocation of scarce resources to satisfy unlimited wants. This involves analyzing the production, distribution, trade and consumption of goods and services, and their management;
the study of choice and decision-making in a world of limited resources;
the science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth, and with the various related problems of labor, finance, taxation, etc.
research on such factors as interest rates, gross national product, inflation, unemployment, and inventories, as tools to predict the direction of the
economy.
Economics is said to be normative when it recommends one choice over another, or when a subjective value judgment is made. Conversely, economics is said to be positive when it tries objectively to predict and explain consequences of choices, given a set of assumptions and/or a set of observations.
Economics is the study of how society chooses to allocate its scarce resources to the production of goods and services in order to satisfy unlimited wants. Society makes two kinds of choices: economy-wide, or macro, choices and individual, or micro, choices. The prefixes macro and micro come from the Greek words meaning “large” and “small,” respectively. Reflecting the macro and micro perspectives, economics consists of two main branches: macroeconomics and microeconomics.
Economics, which focuses on measurable variables, is broadly divided into two main branches: microeconomics, and macroeconomics. Microeconomics
(literally, very small economics) is the study of the economic behaviour of
individual consumers, firms, and industries and the distribution of production and income among them. It considers individuals both as suppliers of labour and capital and as the ultimate consumers of the final product. It analyzes firms both as suppliers of products and as consumers of labour and capital. It deals with individual agents, such as households and businesses,
Microeconomics seeks to analyze the market form or other types of mechanisms that establish relative prices amongst goods and services and/or allocates society's resources amongst their many alternative uses.
Macroeconomics considers the economy as a whole, in which case itconsiders aggregate supply and demand for money, capital and commodities. Aspects receiving particular attention in economics are resource allocation, production, distribution, trade, and competition. Economic logic is increasingly applied to any problem that involves choice under scarcity or determining economic value.
There appear to be three methods by which economic phenomena may be investigated. The first consists mainly in deductive analysis. Proceeding from a few simple premises based upon general observation a researcher makes broad generalizations. The second is the historical method, which seeks an understanding of existing institutions by tracing their evolutions from their origins in the past. The third is statistical induction, which endeavours, by the analysis of numerical data, to develop quantitative knowledge of economic phenomena. Anyway, it is now coming to be recognized that these methods are complementary rather than mutually exclusive.
A successful theory provides insights into the physical or social relation-ships it studies. Economic theories are developed to explain such important observable quantities as the production, prices and consumption of goods and services, the employment of workers, and levels of saving and investment.
Economic variables are quantities that can have more than one value. For ex-ample, the price of an item is an economic variable representing what we must give up in exchange for each unit of that item. Price is an economic variable be-cause it can go up or down as changes occur in the economy. An economic theory of price seeks to determine the causes for changes in the price of an item.
An economic model is a simplified way of expressing how some sector of the economy functions. An economic model contains assumptions that estab-lish relationships among economic variables. We use logic, graphs, or mathe-matics to determine the consequences of the assumptions. In this way we can use the model to make predictions about how a change in economic conditions results in changes in decisions affecting economic variables. Economists often use the term “model” as a synonym for theory.
Understanding History
The study of the past is called history. When we set out to study history, we are able to draw the people and events of ancient times closer to us. Studying the past allows us to “see” the faces of the famous and the nameless people who lived thousands of years before us. It helps us understand what their lives were like. We can see how our lives are similar to theirs and also how they are different. We can see how people of the distant past had to face some of the very same problems we face today. And we can appreciate connections that bind together people and all time periods and all areas of the world.
What can the past tell us about the problems of today? By studying the past, we can see how previous cultures dealt with similar problems. We can understand the effects of their actions, and we can make judgments about how our actions might affect the future.
In our multicultural world we must understand the history of other cultures in order to solve problems together. By studying the past we can see the roots of the present and we can better understand our world neighbours. Learning about the past gives us a framework for making decisions about the issues that wee face today. It also helps us understand how our actions will affect the people of tomorrow.
History has been called a conversation between the present and the past. People of the past communicate with people of today through the writing, arti-facts and structures they leave behind.
Every generation sees the world differently. And because each generation and each individual looks at things from a new point of view, history is always open to different interpretations.
History also has been compared to a jigsaw puzzle. Some pieces of the puzzle have been lost forever. Pieces once considered lost have now been found. The available pieces can be fitted together in many ways. Each genera-tion of historians tries to put together the available pieces of the puzzle and to interpret the picture that emerges. In doing so we hope to understand not only what happened in the past, but how it happened and why it happened.
History – record of the events of human societies. The earliest surviving historical records are the inscriptions denoting the achievements of Egyptian and Babylonian Kings. As a literary form historical writing or historiography began with the Greek Herodotus in the 5th century BC, who was first to pass beyond the limits of a purely national outlook. A generation later, Thucydides brought to history a strong sense of the political and military ambitions of his native Athens. His close account of the Peloponnesian War was continued by Xenophon. Later Greek history and Roman history tended toward rhetoric.
Medieval history was dominated by a religious philosophy sustained by the
Christian church. English chroniclers of this period are Bede, William Malmesbury and Matthew Paris.
The Renaissance revived historical writing and the study of history both by restoring classical models and by creating the science of textual criticism.
A product of new secular spirit was Machiavelli’s History of Florence 1520-23. This critical approach continued into the 17th century. The 18th cen-tury Enlightenment disposed of the attempt to explain history in theological terms and an interpretive masterpiece was produced by Edward Gibbon.
An attempt to formulate historical method and a philosophy of history, that of the Italian Giovanni Vico, remained almost unknown until the 19th century Romanticism left its mark on 19th-century historical writing in the tendency to exalt the contribution of the individual “hero”, and in the introduction of a more colourful and dramatic style and treatment, variously illustrated in the works of the French historican Jules Michelet (1798-1874) and the British writers Carlyle and Macaulay.
During the 20th century the study of history has been revolutionized, partly through the contributions of other disciplines, such as the sciences and anthro-pology. The deciphering of the Egyptian and Babylonian inscriptions was of great importance. Researchers and archaeologists have traced developments in prehistory and have revealed forgotten civilizations such as that of Crete. An-thropological studies of primitive Society and religion, which began with James Frazer’s Golden Bough 1890, have attempted to analyse the bases of later forms of social organizations and belief. The changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution and the accompanying perception of economics as a science forced historians to turn their attention to economic questions.
Contemporary historians make a distinction between historical evidence or records, historical writing and historical method or approaches to the study of history. Contemporary historians make extensive use of statistics, population figures and primary records to justify historical arguments. Historians do not just collect facts, they examine the information they collect and then decide how to interpret it.
Summary Making
Summaries are often found in academic work. A summary is the shortest account of the main content and conclusions of the original text. In fact it is enumeration of the main thematic point of the original paper which is made up of the words and phrases borrowed from the text and your own wording of them into a very small number of sentences.
When writing a summary, you may adhere to the following plan: 1) the heading;
2) the themeof the paper;
3) the key problems (thematic points) discussed;
4) the conclusionat which the author arrives.
The manner of presenting the material is very concise and it tends to be criti-cal. The summary writer appreciates the material from his point of view and uses as a rule a wide range of clichйs, which can be divided into several groups:
1) those introducing the heading and the author:
The article (text) is head-lined …
The head-line of the article (I have read) is … The article is entitled …
The author of the article (text) is … The article is written by …
2) those introducing the leading theme of the original paper:
The text deals with ...
The article is devoted to...
The chapter is about..
The article touches upon…
3) those drawing the reader's attention to the major points of the contents:
The author emphasizes the idea of...
The author points out that ...
Attention is drawn to the fact...
In the opinion of the author it is .
4) those introducing secondary information:
Further the author reports The author states…
The article goes on to say… According to the text …
5) those forming a conclusion to which the reader's attention is drawn:
The author comes to the conclusion that...
The author concludes by saying ...
The basic approach of the author is that, etc.