The Actual Reasons for the Perpetuation of Internet Crimes Essay

The Actual Reasons for the Perpetuation of Internet Crimes - Essay Example Nevertheless, despite security measures and laws against cyber crimes, such a situation of clear and present danger persists for a number of reasons. The reasons why Internet crimes remain despite the law enforced against them include the ease in which they can be committed, poor security measures, and carelessness on the part of the victims. One reason why Internet crimes persist is the mere fact that they are relatively easy to commit. A teenage hacker, Nicholas Webber, is the brains behind the ?16.2M-credit card theft at Ghostmarket.net in 2009. This is roughly $25.3M of stolen consumer money from an estimated 8,000 members of Ghostmarket.net all over the world. Webber was only 18 and his accomplice Ryan Thomas was only 17. They were imprisoned for 8 and 4 years respectively for channeling the money of the consumers to an offshore bank account located in Costa Rica (Malik, 2012). Therefore, teenagers like Webber and Thomas who simply know hacking and banking basically already have all the means to easily carry out an Internet crime. They can do this easily especially with anonymous programs. In fact, according to the December 2000 report by McConnell International, the occurrence of Internet crimes is caused by the following factors: â€Å"They are easy to learn how to commit; they require few resources relative to the potential damage caused; they can be committed in a jurisdiction without being physically present in it; and they are often not clearly illegal† (â€Å"Cyber Crime,† 2000). There is clearly a problem with Internet crimes when it comes to legalities. In fact, according to the report, there are still 33 countries which have not had their laws updated – like Egypt, Italy, Norway, New Zealand and France. Moreover, there are only 52 which have definitely stated laws against Internet crimes (â€Å"Cyber Crime,† 2000). However for the 33 countries, the vague and confusing laws simply translate as a difficult due process an d a possibility of the suspect being exonerated. Another reason why it is relatively easy to commit Internet crimes is that the suspect knows that he can simply make a plea on invasion of privacy and may claim that for the government to pry on his own private transactions is against his freedom and right. The reason for this is definitely a confusing system of legalities governing Internet crimes, making such crimes irreconcilable with the idea of freedom of speech and the right to privacy. For example, How different is it if libelous and malicious statements are written on private accounts in social, in March 2006, a British woman named Tracy Williams was accused of and charged with libel by the British court for â€Å"posting false sexual allegations† at an unnamed online social networking site about a Parliamentary candidate that the police believed she had issues with (Darlington, 2010). It is therefore really unclear which part of the Internet crime merely expresses free dom and which part violates the law. Due to these problems with legalities, only a mere 30% of an estimated 1,600 identity thieves in the United States alone end up prosecuted and even in relatively less jail time despite the fact that 8.3M victims have been harassed, according to the FBI. Moreover, only about 1,400 cases are given attention from around 300,000 complaints about

Primary School classroom Essay Example for Free

Primary School classroom Essay These Poets write Honestly about their Experiences. Explore the Memories Expressed in their Poems and consider what Views they are sharing about Growing Up  Carol Ann Duffy expresses her views and gives her true experiences to do with childhood and growing up. She uses a range of techniques in her poems, like similes to emphasize her feelings and emotions and imagery, where she uses metaphors to help create the picture and mood of the atmosphere of each poem. For example, the Primary School classroom. Simon Armitage also writes about everyday experiences, childhood, growing up, changes and regrets. He uses less imagery than Carol Ann Duffy, but in one particular poem Kid, he uses a great more rhyme. They both include experiences towards school life, where Carol Ann Duffy writes about the younger years and Simon Armitage writes about the older years at school. These two poets are similar in some ways, but can be quite different in others. For example, in Duffys Stealing it shares the feelings of a child who steals for no reason and Duffy adds comments from her own experiences. It can make the reader feel quite depressed and sad, whereas in I am very Bothered by Simon Armitage, it is again about a child with regret for something he did at school, but instead of being sad it uses black humour and is more horrible stench of branded skin In Mrs Tilschers Class, Carol Ann Duffy starts with you, which makes it personal and sets the scene travel up the Blue Nile.  She identifies things like Primary School aspects very well with your finger, tracing the route This is a good reminder to what children do when they are little. She creates the picture of the blackboard chalky Pyramids rubbed into dust. This suggests break time and the laugh of a bell swung by a running child creates a jolly, happy time that all the kids look forward to. This gives a comparison between home and school. This was better than home. There are more interesting things to be found at school, like enthralling books, which is obviously what she doesnt have at home.  She uses similes to describe the classroom. The classroom glowed like a sweet shop. This creates the idea of colour that a sweet shop would have.  She tells of a negative memory Brady and Hindley, which faded, like the faint, uneasy smudge of a mistake. School has so many good memories that it is able to make the bad ones disappear. She uses emotion Mrs Tilscher loved you, and alliteration good gold star, which makes the poem flow easier. It also sounds a bit like a childs expression.  A xylophones nonsense gives the impression of tuneless playing, which kids do in Primary School, they dont care about accuracy, just about having fun. It also appeals to the senses by using sounds as well as visual images.

Effect of Perceived Anonymity of Group Task Social Loafing

Effect of Perceived Anonymity of Group Task Social Loafing Title: The effect of perceived anonymity upon individual effort in a group task. Abstract: Social loafing according to Latanà © et al (1979) is the decrease in personal effort that occurs when an individual works within a group. However, when people feel as though their input is identifiable they are motivated to exert more effort, thereby mitigating social loafing. (Harkins Jackson, 1985) In an attempt to discover if this effect could be replicated, an opportunity sample of 52 participants was recruited to partake in an independent measures experiment. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups, the public group or the private group. Both groups were asked, via email, to provide suggestions on how their town centre could be improved. The â€Å"public† group believed their results would be attributed to them publicly whilst the â€Å"private† group were assured anonymity. It was hypothesized that the public group would provide more suggestions than the private group. The â€Å"private† condition resulted in a lower mean number of respon ses (M 3.8, SD 2.6) than the â€Å"public† condition (M 6.8, SD 2.22) which supported the hypothesis. Introduction: Social loafing is the propensity for group members to come to be less productive as the group size increases (Latanà © et al, 1979). This effect reveals the converse relationship that exists between group size and an individual’s input to the accomplishment of a task. While examining the association between performance effectiveness and group productivity, Ringelmann (1913) discovered that having members of a group work collectively (in this case, pulling a rope) actually resulted in considerably less effort being applied than when the individual carried out the task independently. Ringelmann also revealed that as more individuals join a group, the group frequently grows progressively inefficient; rejecting the premise that group effort reliably leads to increased productivity. He suggested that groups fail to maximise their potential as several interpersonal processes diminish the group’s overall ability. Williams, Harkins and Latanà ©, (1981) attributed two distinct processes as potential sources for the reduced productivity within groups: motivation loss, and coordination issues. However, group members largely believe that they are contributing to their full potential when asked; evidence has indicated that individuals exhibit loafing without realising (Karau Williams, 1993). In order to facilitate a reduction in social loafing, several suggestions forwarded. Kerr Bruun (1983) state that individuals who exhibit social loafing often fail to contribute as they believe other group members will compensate for them. Therefore, each member of a group should be made to feel like they are vital to the completion of the task at hand. By increasing the individual’s perceived importance of their part of the group, members tend to expend more effort towards achieving the required outcomes. Harkins Szymanski (1989) assert that groups that establish explicit goals tend to outperform groups with unclear objectives. Setting clearly defined aims is believed to encourage many production-enhancing processes, such as increased commitment, comprehensive planning and quality monitoring of group tasks, and increased effort (Weldon, Jehn, Pradhan, 1991). Similar results can be achieved by decreasing the group size; as group size reduces, each members role in the group becomes increasingly integral, so the opportunity to loaf is reduced. Finally, and the focus of this study, when people feel as though their individual contribution is identifiable, they become motivated to work harder on a group project (Harkins Jackson, 1985). This is due to the individual experiencing evaluation apprehension, thereby increasing productivity through social facilitation. Social facilitation is an improvement in performance produced by the presence of others, as in the â€Å"audience effect† as demonstrated by Dashiell (1935), However, should a project allow individual members to remain anonymous, they feel less anxiety about being judged by others, resulting in social loafing (Harkins Petty,1982). The research hypothesis for this study is: Participants in the public group will provide more suggestions than participants in the private group. Method: Design: An Independent measures experimental design with two groups was employed. The independent variable, attribution of comments, was manipulated so that one group was informed that their comments would be publicly attributed to them while the other group was informed that they would remain anonymous. The dependent variable was the total number of responses. Participants: 52 Participants from the experimenter’s friends, family and workplace were asked via email to participate. Participants were assigned, on an alternate basis, to either the â€Å"public† or â€Å"private† condition. The number of participants in each condition was equal. Materials: Standard (2013) desktop PC running Windows 8 and Microsoft Office 2010 was used for all email correspondence, data collation. Ethical consent form obtained from a university representative prior to experiment. (See Appendix A). Participant consent form (See Appendix B). â€Å"Public† group instruction form (See Appendix C). â€Å"Private† group instruction form (See Appendix D). Response collation form (See Appendix E). Participant debrief form (See Appendix F). Procedure: Each participant in the first instance was contacted via email to ask if they wished to take part in a research experiment. Participants who agreed were randomly assigned to one of two groups, the â€Å"public† group or the â€Å"private† group, by means of order of response. For example the first participant to agree to take part was allocated to the â€Å"public† group, the second to â€Å"private† and alternated thusly until all participants had been assigned a group. Each was then sent, via email, an instruction form relating to their group and a consent form to complete. Each participant was asked to follow the instructions provided and return both the consent form and their responses by email within 48 hours. Once the responses were received the debrief sheet was sent out to inform the participant of the true nature of the experiment and advise them that they could remove their data and consent should they wish to. As no consent was withdrawn all dat a gathered was utilised. The total number of responses for each participant was counted and recorded under the appropriate group heading on the response collation form for statistical analysis. Results: The results from the two groups were collected and collated into a table of raw data (See Appendix G). Summary statistics are provided in Table 1 and the mean values are displayed in Figure 1. An independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare the number of responses in â€Å"public† and â€Å"private† conditions (See Appendix H). There was a significant difference in the scores for the â€Å"public† (M=6.8, SD= 2.2) and the â€Å"private† (M=3.8, SD=2.6) conditions; t (50) =4.52, p= Figure 1. Mean number of responses for â€Å"public† and â€Å"private† conditions. Discussion: The results generated in this study support Harkins and Jackson’s (1985) assertion that identification increases group productivity in that the â€Å"public† group provided a significantly higher â€Å"response† mean. It also suggests Ringelmann’s (1913) observations and Latanà © et al’s (1979) â€Å"social loafing† may occur even when group members are not physically part of a group. A possible issue of using an independent measures design for this type of research is the potential for error arising from individual differences between participants, for example it may have been that those selected for the â€Å"public† group may have been, in general, more civically minded with a greater personal investment in their home town. As a result the â€Å"public† group might return more responses, not as a result of the independent variable being altered but of the individual differences in participants. To mitigate this effect more information would need to be gleaned from participants to ensure equal distributions between groups. Social loafing and social facilitation, in general, are viewed as distinct lines of research in social psychological literature. It appears, however, that these two phenomena may be closely related as the latter appears to mitigate the former. Further research into the extent to which they interact would be useful in uncovering the depth of the relationship. A pertinent question would be; is there a situation where social facilitation fails to affect social loafing? References: Dashiell, J. F. (1935). Experimental studies of the influence of social situations on the behavior of individual human adults. Harkins, S. G., Petty, R. E. (1982). Effects of task difficulty and task uniqueness on social loafing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43(6), 1214. Harkins, S. G., Szymanski, K. (1989). Social loafing and group evaluation.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,56(6), 934. Karau, S. J., Williams, K. D. (1993). Social loafing: A meta-analytic review and theoretical integration.Journal of personality and social psychology,65(4), 681. Kerr, N. L., Bruun, S. E. (1983). Dispensability of member effort and group motivation losses: Free-rider effects. Journal of Personality and social Psychology, 44(1), 78. Latanà ©, B., Williams, K., Harkins, S. (1979). Many hands make light the work: The causes and consequences of social loafing.Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology,37(6), 822-832. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.37.6.822 Ringelmann, M. (1913). Research on animate sources of power: The work of man.Annales de l’Instuit National Agronomique,12, 1-40. Szymanski, K., Harkins, S. G. (1987). Social loafing and self-evaluation with a social standard.Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology,53(5), 891-897. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.53.5.891 Weldon, E., Jehn, K. A., Pradhan, P. (1991). Processes that mediate the relationship between a group goal and improved group performance.Journal of personality and social psychology,61(4), 555. Appendix: Appendix A Completed ethical consent form obtained prior to study. Research Projects UHI Students All Undergraduate, Taught Postgraduate and Research Students registered on any UHI programme undertaking a research project must seek ethical approval via their Project Supervisor prior to undertaking any form of fieldwork or data collection exercise. Please read the UHI Research Ethics Framework before completing this form and submitting it to your Project Supervisor for approval and signature. Please pay close attention to the guidance notes, as it may be necessary for you to complete another form as part of this exercise. Further information on UHI’s Research Ethics Policy and the ethical approval process can be found at http://www.uhi.ac.uk/en/research-enterprise/resource/ethics Research Ethics Checklist Please complete as appropriate If the answer to the above question is â€Å"Yes†, compliance with NHS Guidelines will be required (see www.nhshighland.scot.nhs.uk/Research/Pages/ResearchEthics.aspx ), and there is no need for you to answer the remaining questions. Please complete and sign the declaration at the end of this form and submit it to your Project Supervisor. If the answer is â€Å"No†, please continue to Question 2. If the answer to the above question is â€Å"Yes†, please answer the remaining questions. If the answer is â€Å"No†, please complete and sign the declaration at the end of this form and submit it to your Project Supervisor. If you have answered â€Å"No† in each case to Questions 3-14, please complete the Declaration and pass this form to your Project Supervisor for approval. If you have answered â€Å"Yes† to any of the questions, please complete Form REC1-D Student and submit it to your Project Supervisor along with this form. DECLARATION *please delete as appropriate PROJECT SUPERVISOR AUTHORISATION I confirm that: Comments ‘Approved’ or ‘Not Approved’: Thank You. Once authorised, please pass this form, along with Form REC1-D Student if relevant, to the UHI Research Ethics Officer Appendix B Participant consent form. Consent Form Name: Age: Top of Form Gender: MaleFemale Would you like a copy of the completed report? Yes No Bottom of Form Appendix C â€Å"Public† group instruction form. Instructions – Public Group Thank you for volunteering to take part in this project. You are in a group of about 40 people from your local community who have been asked to provide suggestions on how your local town centre can be improved (e.g. provision of litter bins, other shops you would like to see/not see, activities etc). All group members will receive a copy of all suggestions and their authors, made by the group. You can provide as many suggestions as you like. Please send your suggestions by return email within 48 hours. You will then receive a debrief sheet. Appendix D â€Å"Private† group instruction form. Instructions – Private Group Thank you for volunteering to take part in this project. You are in a group of about 40 people from your local community who have been asked to provide suggestions on how your local town centre can be improved (e.g. provision of litter bins, other shops you would like to see/not see, activities etc). No-one else in your group will see your suggestions or name and participation will be in the strictest confidence. You can provide as many suggestions as you like. Please send your suggestions by return email within 48 hours. You will then receive a debrief sheet. Appendix E Result collation form. Appendix F Participant debrief form. Debrief sheet Thank you again for taking part in this project. You have in fact been taking part in an experiment into social loafing. You were amongst a group of 40 participants who were randomly assigned to one of two groups, a public group and a private group. The aim of the experiment was to compare the amount of suggestions provided by each group. It was anticipated that the public group would provide more suggestions as they believed they would be identified and as such would not want to appear to be putting the overall performance of the group down, the private group were expected to provide less suggestions as they were not to be identifiable and it would not be known if they provided only one suggestion for the group, and therefore more prone to ‘social loafing’. The data has now been collated and we did indeed find that the public group provided more suggestions than the private group. These findings along with a report will be written and submitted to the University of Highlands and Islands as part of an assessment carried out by 3rd year Psychology Degree students. Your personal details will not appear in the final report other than the amount of suggestions provided and you will be referred to by number only. We apologise for deceiving you and accept that you may wish to withdraw your data from this study, if so please inform us by return email and we will remove your data from the group. In order for us to use your data, please complete the attached form and return by email as soon as possible. Should you wish to receive a copy of the report, please tick the appropriate box on the attached form. Thank you again for your participation in this study. Appendix G Raw data collated from participant responses. Appendix H Independent Samples T Test results. 1

The Literary Use of Religion by John Smith and William Bradford Essay e

The Literary Use of Religion by John Smith and William Bradford Religion plays a major role in the day to day lives of the early settlers in America. So much so, that early colonial writers use it as a form of literary persuasion. John Smith and William Bradford were two such writers. Smith and Bradford use religion as a literary tool to persuade the reader towards their own interests. There are similarities and differences in the motivation to use religion by these two authors, yet the use is still prevalent in their writings. The reasons for these similarities and differences are found in the greater interest of each individual author. John Smith and William Bradford use divine guidance as an explanation for the reasons of their journeys. Smith uses the providence of God to justify his placement at Jamestown. Smith writes in â€Å"The General History of Virginia†: â€Å"But God the guider of all good actions, forcing them by extreme storm to hull all night, did drive them by his providence to their desired port, beyond all their expectations†¦Ã¢â‚¬ (27). Smith also alludes to the journey to America being a good action in the eyes of God. So much so, that God calls upon his powers and produces a huge storm to place them where God wishes. Bradford uses the necessity of spreading the word of God (Christianity) to explain one of the reasons for his voyage to America. He writes â€Å"Lastly (and which was not least), a great hope and inward zeal they had to laying some good foundation†¦for ...

A Dirty Job Chapter 24

24 AUDREY AND THE SQUIRREL PEOPLE Charlie could hear things scurrying under the porch as he walked to the front door of the Buddhist center, but the weight of the enormous pistol he'd stuck down the back of his belt reassured him, even if it was pulling his pants down a little. The front door was nearly twelve feet tall, red, with reeded glass running the length, and there were arrays of colorful Tibetan prayer wheels, like spools, on either side of the door. Charlie knew what they were because he'd once had a thief try to sell him some hot ones stolen from a temple. Charlie knew he should kick down the door, but then, it was a really big door, and although he had watched a lot of cop shows and movies where door kicking had been done, he was inexperienced himself. Another option was to pull his pistol and blast the lock off the door, but he didn't know any more about lock blasting than he did door kicking, so he decided to ring the doorbell. The scurrying noises increased and he could hear heavier footsteps inside. The door swung open and the pretty brunette he knew as Elizabeth Sarkoff – Esther Johnson's fake niece – stood in the doorway. â€Å"Why, Mr. Asher, what a pleasant surprise.† It won't be for long, sister, said his inner tough guy. â€Å"Mrs. Sarkoff, nice to see you. What are you doing here?† â€Å"I'm the receptionist. Come in, come in.† Charlie stepped into the foyer, which opened up to a staircase and had sliding double doors on either side. He could see that straight back the foyer led to a dining room with a long table, and beyond that a kitchen. The house had been restored nicely, and didn't really have the appearance of a public building. The inner tough guy said, Don't try to run your game on me, floozy. I've never hit a dame before, but if I don't get some straight talk quick, I'm willing to give it a try, see. Charlie said, â€Å"I had no idea you were a Buddhist. That's fascinating. How's your Aunt Esther, by the way?† He had her now, didn't even have to slap her around. â€Å"Still dead. Thanks for asking, though. What can I do for you, Mr. Asher?† The sliding door to the left of them opened an inch and someone, a young man's voice, said, â€Å"Master, we need you.† â€Å"I'll be right there,† said the alleged Mrs. Sarkoff. â€Å"Master?† Charlie raised an eyebrow. â€Å"We hold receptionists in very high regard in the Buddhist tradition.† She grinned, really big and goofy, like she didn't even believe it herself. Charlie was totally charmed by the laughter and open surrender in her eyes. Trust there, with no reason for it. â€Å"Good God, you're a bad liar,† he said. â€Å"Guess you could see right through my moo-poo, huh?† Big grin. â€Å"So, you are?† Charlie offered his hand to shake. â€Å"I am the Venerable Amitabha Audrey Rinpoche.† She bowed. â€Å"Or just Audrey, if you're in a hurry.† She took two of Charlie's fingers and shook them. â€Å"Charlie Asher,† Charlie said. â€Å"So you're not really Mrs. Johnson's niece.† â€Å"And you're not really a used-clothing dealer?† â€Å"Well, actually – â€Å" That's all Charlie got out. There was a crashing sound from straight ahead, glass and splintering wood. Then he saw the table go over in the next room and Minty Fresh screamed â€Å"Freeze!† as he leapt over the fallen table and headed toward them, gun in hand, oblivious, evidently, to the fact that he was seven feet tall and that the doorway, built in 1908, was only six feet eight inches high. â€Å"Stop,† Charlie shouted, about a half second too late, as Minty Fresh drove four inches of forehead into some very nicely finished oak trim above the door with a thud that shook the whole house. His feet continued on, his body swinging after, and at one point he was parallel to the floor, about six feet off the ground, when gravity decided to manifest itself. The chrome Desert Eagle clattered all the way through the foyer and hit the front door. Minty Fresh landed flat and quite unconscious on the floor between Charlie and Audrey. â€Å"And this is my friend Minty Fresh,† Charlie said. â€Å"He doesn't do this a lot.† â€Å"Boy, you don't see that every day,† said Audrey, looking down at the sleeping giant. â€Å"Yeah,† Charlie said. â€Å"I don't know where he found raw silk in moss green.† â€Å"That's not linen?† Audrey asked. â€Å"No, it's silk.† â€Å"Hmm, it's so wrinkled, I thought it must be linen, or a blend.† â€Å"Well, I think maybe all the activity – â€Å" â€Å"Yeah, I guess so.† Audrey nodded, then looked at Charlie. â€Å"So – â€Å" â€Å"Mr. Asher.† A woman's voice to his right. The doors on Charlie's right slid open, and an older woman stood there: Irena Posokovanovich. The last time he'd seen her he was sitting in the back of Rivera's cruiser, in handcuffs. â€Å"Mrs. Posokov†¦Mrs. Posokovano – Irena! How are you?† â€Å"You weren't so concerned about that yesterday.† â€Å"No, I was. I really was. Sorry about that.† Charlie smiled, thinking it was his most charming smile. â€Å"I hope you don't have that pepper spray with you.† â€Å"I don't,† Irena said. Charlie looked at Audrey. â€Å"We had a little misunderstanding – â€Å" â€Å"I have this,† Irena said, producing a stun gun from behind her back, pressing it to Charlie's chest and sending a hundred and twenty-five thousand volts surging through his body. He could see animals, or animal-like creatures, dressed in period finery, approaching him as he convulsed in pain on the floor. â€Å"Get them both tied up, guys,† Audrey said. â€Å"I'll make tea.† Tea?† Audrey said. So, for the second time in his life, Charlie Asher found himself tied to a chair and being served a hot beverage. Audrey was bent over before him, holding a teacup, and regardless of the awkwardness or danger of the situation, Charlie found himself staring down the front of her shirt. â€Å"What kind of tea?† Charlie asked, buying time, noticing the cluster of tiny silk roses that perched happily at the front clasp of her bra. â€Å"I like my tea like I like my men,† Audrey said with a grin. â€Å"Weak and green.† Now Charlie looked into her eyes, which were smiling. â€Å"Your right hand is free,† she said. â€Å"But we had to take your gun and your sword-cane, because those things are frowned upon.† â€Å"You're the nicest captor I've ever had,† Charlie said, taking the teacup from her. â€Å"What are you trying to say?† said Minty Fresh. Charlie looked to his right, where Minty Fresh was tied to a chair that made him look as if he'd been taken hostage at a child's tea party – his knees were up near his chin and one of his wrists was taped near the floor. Someone had put a large ice pack on his head, which looked vaguely like a tam-o'-shanter. â€Å"Nothing,† Charlie said. â€Å"You were a great captor, too, don't get me wrong.† â€Å"Tea, Mr. Fresh?† Audrey said. â€Å"Do you have coffee?† â€Å"Back in a second,† Audrey said. She left the room. They'd been moved to one of the rooms off the foyer, Charlie couldn't tell which. It must have been a parlor for entertaining during its day, but it had been converted into a combination office and reception room: metal desks, a computer, some filing cabinets, and an array of older oak office chairs for working and waiting. â€Å"I think she likes me,† Charlie said. â€Å"She has you taped to a chair,† Minty Fresh said, pulling at the tape around his ankles with his free hand. The ice pack fell off his head and hit the floor with a loud thump. â€Å"I didn't notice how attractive she was when I met her before.† â€Å"Would you help me get free, please?† Minty said. â€Å"Can't,† Charlie said. â€Å"Tea.† He held up his cup. Clicking noises by the door. They looked up as four little bipeds in silk and satin scampered into the room. One, who had the face of an iguana, the hands of a raccoon, and was dressed like a musketeer, big-feathered hat and all, drew a sword and poked Minty Fresh in the hand he was using to pull at the duct tape. â€Å"Ow, dammit. Thing!† â€Å"I don't think he wants you to try to get loose,† Charlie said. The iguana guy saluted Charlie with a flourish of his sword and pointed to the end of his snout with his free hand, as if to say, On the nose, buddy. â€Å"So,† Audrey said, entering the room carrying a tray with Minty's coffee, â€Å"I see you've met the squirrel people.† â€Å"Squirrel people?† Charlie asked. A little lady with a duck's face and reptilian hands wearing a purple satin evening gown curtsied to Charlie, who nodded back. â€Å"That's what we call them,† Audrey said. â€Å"Because the first few I made had squirrel faces and hands, but then I ran out of squirrel parts and they got more baroque.† â€Å"They're not creatures of the Underworld?† Charlie said. â€Å"You made them?† â€Å"Sort of,† Audrey said. â€Å"Cream and sugar, Mr. Fresh?† â€Å"Please,† Minty said. â€Å"You make these monsters?† All four of the little creatures turned to him at once and leaned back, as if to say, Hey, pal, who are you calling monsters. â€Å"They're not monsters, Mr. Fresh. The squirrel people are as human as you are.† â€Å"Yeah, except they have better fashion sense,† Charlie said. â€Å"I'm not always going to be taped to this chair, Asher,† Minty said. â€Å"Woman, who or what the hell are you?† â€Å"Be nice,† Charlie said. â€Å"I suppose I should explain,† Audrey said. â€Å"Ya think?† Minty said. Audrey sat down on the floor, cross-legged, and the squirrel people gathered around her, to listen. â€Å"Well, it's a little embarrassing, but I guess it started when I was a kid. I sort of had this affinity for dead things.† â€Å"Like you liked to touch dead things?† asked Minty Fresh. â€Å"Get naked with them?† â€Å"Would you please let the lady talk,† Charlie said. â€Å"Bitch is a freak,† Minty said. Audrey smiled. â€Å"Why, yes; yes, I am, Mr. Fresh, and you are tied up in my dining room, at the mercy of any freaky thing that might occur to me.† She tapped a silver demitasse spoon she'd used to stir her tea on her front tooth and rolled her eyes as if imagining something delicious. â€Å"Please go on,† said Minty Fresh with a shudder. â€Å"Sorry to interrupt.† â€Å"It wasn't a freaky thing,† Audrey said, glancing at Minty, daring him to speak up. â€Å"It was just that I had an overdeveloped sense of empathy with the dying, mostly animals, but when my grandmother passed, I could feel it, from miles away. Anyway, it didn't overwhelm me or anything, but when I got to college, to see if I could get a handle on it, I decided to study Eastern philosophy – oh yeah, and fashion design.† â€Å"I think it's important to look good when you're doing the work of the dead,† Charlie said. â€Å"Well – uh – okay,† Audrey said. â€Å"And I was a good seamstress. I really liked making costumes. Anyway, I met and fell in love with a guy.† â€Å"A dead guy?† Minty asked. â€Å"Soon enough, Mr. Fresh. He was dead soon enough.† Audrey looked down at the carpet. â€Å"See, you insensitive fuck,† Charlie said. â€Å"You hurt her feelings.† â€Å"Hello, tied to a chair here,† Minty said. â€Å"Surrounded by little monsters, Asher. Not the insensitive one.† â€Å"Sorry,† Charlie said. â€Å"It's okay,† Audrey said. â€Å"His name was William – Billy, and we were together for two years before he got sick. We'd only been engaged a month when he was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. They gave him a couple of months to live. I dropped out of school and stayed with him every moment. One of the nurses from hospice knew about my Eastern studies course and recommended we talk with Dorje Rinpoche, a monk from the Tibetan Buddhist Center in Berkeley. He talked to us about Bardo Thodrol, what you know as the Tibetan Book of the Dead. He helped prepare Billy to transfer his consciousness into the next world – into his next life. It took our focus off of the darkness and made death a natural, hopeful thing. I was with Billy when he died, and I could feel his consciousness move on – really feel it – Dorje Rinpoche said that I had some special talent. He thought I should study under a high lama.† â€Å"So you became a monk?† Charlie asked. â€Å"I thought a lama was just a tall sheep,† said Minty Fresh. Audrey ignored him. â€Å"I was heartbroken and I needed direction, so I went to Tibet and was accepted at a monastery where I studied Bardo Thodrol for twelve years under Lama Karmapa Rinpoche, the seventeenth reincarnation of the bodhisattva who had founded our school of Buddhism a thousand years ago. He taught me the art of p'howa – the transference of the consciousness at the moment of death.† â€Å"So you could do what the monk had done for your fianc† Charlie asked. â€Å"Yes. I performed p'howa for many of the mountain villagers. It was a sort of a specialty with me – along with making the robes for everyone in the monastery. Lama Karmapa told me that he felt I was a very old soul, the reincarnation of a superenlightened being from many generations before. I thought perhaps he was just trying to test me, to get me to succumb to ego, but when his own death was near and he called me to perform the p'howa for him, I realized that this was the test, and he was trusting the transference of his own soul to me.† â€Å"Just so we're clear,† said Minty Fresh. â€Å"I would not trust you with my car keys.† The iguana musketeer poked Minty in the calf with his little sword and the big man yelped. â€Å"See,† Charlie said. â€Å"When you're rude it comes back on you – like karma.† Audrey smiled at Charlie, put her tea on the floor, and folded her legs into the lotus position, settling in. â€Å"When the Lama passed, I saw his consciousness leave his body. Then I felt my own consciousness leave my body, and I followed the Lama into the mountains, where he showed me a small cave, buried deep beneath the snow. And in that cave was a stone box, sealed with wax and sinew. He told me that I must find the box, and then he was gone, ascended, and I found myself back in my body.† â€Å"Were you superenlightened then?† Charlie asked. â€Å"I don't even know what that is,† Audrey said. â€Å"The Lama was wrong about that, but something had changed me while performing the p'howa for him. When I came out of the room with his body, I could see a red spot glowing in people, right at their heart chakra. It was the same thing I had followed into the mountains, the undying consciousness – I could see people's souls. But what was more disturbing to me, I could see that the glow was absent in some people, or I couldn't see it in them, or in myself. I didn't know why, but I did know that I had to find that stone box. By following the exact path into the mountains that the Lama had shown me, I did. Inside was a scroll that most Buddhists thought – still think – was a myth: the lost chapter of the Tibetan Book of the Dead†¦It outlined two long-lost arts, the p'howa of forceful projection, and one I hadn't even heard of, the p'howa of undying. The first allows you to force a soul from one bein g to another, and the second allows the practitioner to prolong the transition, the bardo, between life and death indefinitely.† â€Å"Does that mean you could make people live forever?† Charlie asked. â€Å"Sort of – more like they just stop dying. I meditated on the amazing gift I'd been given for months, afraid to try to perform the rituals. But one day when I was attending the bardo of an old man who was dying of a painful stomach cancer, I could watch the suffering no longer, and I tried the p'howa of forceful projection. I guided his soul into the body of his newborn grandson, who I could see had no glow at his heart chakra. I could actually see the glow move across the room and the soul enter the baby. The man died in peace only seconds later. â€Å"A few weeks later I was called to attend the bardo of a young boy who had taken ill and was showing all the signs of imminent death. I couldn't bear to let it happen, knowing that there might be something I might be able to do, so I performed the p'howa of undying on him, and he didn't die. In fact, he got better. I succumbed to the ego of it, then, and I started to perform the ritual on other villagers, instead of helping them on to their next life. I did five in as many months, but there was a problem. The parents of the little boy summoned me. He wasn't growing – not even his hair and nails. He was stuck at age nine. But by then the villagers were all coming to me with the dying, and word spread throughout the mountains to other villages. They lined up outside of our monastery, demanding I come see them. But I had refused to perform the ritual, realizing that I was not helping these people, but in fact freezing them in their spiritual progression, plus, you know, kin d of freaking them out.† â€Å"Understandably,† Charlie said. â€Å"I couldn't explain to my fellow monks what was happening. So I ran away in the night. I presented myself to be of service to a Buddhist center in Berkeley, and I was accepted as a monk. It was during that time that I saw, for the first time, a human soul contained in an inanimate object, when I went into a music store in the Castro. It was your music store, Mr. Fresh.† â€Å"I knew that was you,† said Minty. â€Å"I told Asher about you.† â€Å"He did,† Charlie said. â€Å"He said you were very attractive.† â€Å"I did not,† Minty said. â€Å"He did. ‘Nice eyes,' he said,† Charlie said. â€Å"Go on.† â€Å"There was no mistaking it, though – the glow in the CD – it was exactly the same presence that I could sense in people who had a soul. Needless to say, I was freaked out.† â€Å"Needless to say,† Charlie said. â€Å"I had a similar experience.† Audrey nodded. â€Å"I was going to discuss all of this with my master at the center, you know, come clean about what I had learned in Tibet – turn the scrolls over to someone who perhaps understood what was going on with the souls inside of objects, but after only a few months, word came from Tibet that I had left under suspicious circumstances. I don't know what details they gave, but I was asked to leave the center.† â€Å"So you formed a posse of spooky animal things and moved to the Mission,† said Minty Fresh. â€Å"That's nice. You can let me loose from this chair now and I'll be on my way.† â€Å"Fresh, will you please let Audrey finish telling her story. I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent reason that she hangs out with a posse of spooky animal things.† Audrey pressed on. â€Å"I was able to get a job as costumer for a local theater group, and being around theater people, basically a bunch of born show-offs, can put you back into the swing of a life. I tried to forget about my practice in Tibet, and I focused on my work, trying to let my creativity drive me. I couldn't afford to make full-sized costumes, so I began to create smaller versions. I bought a collection of stuffed squirrels from a secondhand store in the Mission, and used those as my first models. Later I made my models out of other taxi-dermied animal parts – mixing and matching them, but I'd already started calling them my squirrel people. A lot of them have bird feet, chicken and duck, because I could purchase them in Chinatown, along with things like turtle heads and – well, you can buy a lot of dead-animal parts in Chinatown.† â€Å"Tell me about it,† Charlie said. â€Å"I live a block from the shark parts store. Never actually tried to build a shark from spare parts, though. Bet that would be fun.† â€Å"Y'all are twisted,† Minty said. â€Å"Both of you – you know that, right? Messin' with dead things and all.† Charlie and Audrey each raised an eyebrow at him. A creature in a blue kimono with the face of a dog skull gave Minty the critical eye socket and would have raised an eyebrow at him if she'd had one. â€Å"All right, go on,† Minty said, waving Audrey on with his free hand. â€Å"You made your point.† Audrey sighed. â€Å"So I started to hit all of the secondhand stores in the City, looking for everything from buttons to hands. And at at least eight stores, I found the soul objects – all grouped together at each store. I realized that I wasn't the only one who could see them glowing red. Someone was imprisoning these souls in the objects. That's how I came to know about you gentlemen, whatever you are. I had to get these souls out of your hands. So I bought them. I wanted them to move on to their next rebirth, but I didn't know how. I thought about using the p'howa of forceful projection, forcing a soul into someone who I could see was soulless, but that process takes time. What would I do, tie them up? And I didn't even know if it would work. After all, that method was used to force a soul from one person to another, not from an inanimate object.† Charlie said, â€Å"So you tried this forceful-projection thing with one of your squirrel people?† â€Å"Yeah, and it worked. But what I didn't count on is that they became animated. She started walking around, doing things, intelligent things. Which is how they came to be these little guys you've seen today. â€Å"More tea, Mr. Asher?† Audrey smiled and held the teapot out to Charlie. â€Å"Those things have human souls?† Charlie asked. â€Å"That's heinous.† â€Å"Oh yeah, and it's better that you have the soul imprisoned in an old pair of sneakers in your shop. They're only in the squirrel people until I can figure how to put their souls into a person. I wanted them saved from you and your kind.† â€Å"We're not the bad guys. Tell her, Fresh, we're not the bad guys.† â€Å"We're not the bad guys,† Minty said. â€Å"Can I get some more coffee?† â€Å"We're Death Merchants,† Charlie said, but it came out much less cheerful-sounding than he'd hoped. He was very desperate for Audrey not to think of him as a bad guy. Like most Beta Males, he didn't realize that being a good guy was not necessarily an attraction to women. â€Å"That's what I'm saying,† Audrey said, â€Å"I couldn't just let you guys sell the souls like so much secondhand junk.† â€Å"That's how they find their next rebirth,† Minty said. â€Å"What?† Audrey looked at Charlie for confirmation. Charlie nodded. â€Å"He's right. We get the souls when someone dies, and then someone buys them and they get to their next life. I've seen it happen.† â€Å"No way,† Audrey said, overpouring Minty's coffee. â€Å"Yep,† Charlie said. â€Å"We can see the red glow, but not in people's bodies like you. Only in the objects. When someone who needs a soul comes in contact with the object, the glow goes out. The soul moves into them.† â€Å"I thought you'd trapped the souls between lives. You're not holding these souls prisoner?† â€Å"Nope.† â€Å"It wasn't us after all,† Minty Fresh said to Charlie. â€Å"She was the one that brought all of this on.† â€Å"What on? What?† Audrey said. â€Å"There are Forces of Darkness – we don't know what they are,† Charlie said. â€Å"What we've seen are giant ravens, and these demon-like women, we call them sewer harpies because they've come out of the storm sewers. They gain strength when they get hold of a soul vessel – and they're getting really strong. The prophecy says they are going to rise in San Francisco and darkness will cover the world.† â€Å"And they are in the sewers?† Audrey said. Both Death Merchants nodded. â€Å"Oh no, that's how the squirrel people get around town without being seen. I've sent them to the different stores in the City to get the souls. I must have been sending them right to these creatures. And a lot of them haven't come home. I thought they just might be lost, or wandering around. They do that. They have the potential of full human consciousness, but something is lost with time out of the body. Sometimes they can get a little goofy.† â€Å"No kidding,† said Charlie. â€Å"So is that why iguana boy over there is gnawing on the light cord?† â€Å"Ignatius, get off there! If you electrocute yourself the only place I have to put your soul is that Cornish hen I got at the Safeway. It's still frozen and I don't have any pants that will fit it.† She turned to Charlie with an embarrassed smile. â€Å"The things you never think you'll hear yourself say.† â€Å"Yeah, kids, what are you gonna do?† Charlie said, trying to sound easygoing. â€Å"You know, one of your squirrel people shot me with a crossbow.† Audrey looked distraught now. Charlie wanted to comfort her. Give her a hug. Kiss her on the top of the head and tell her that everything was all right. Maybe even get her to untie him. â€Å"They did? Crossbow, oh, that would be Mr. Shelly. He was a spy or something in a former life – had a habit of going off on his own little missions. I sent him to keep an eye on you and report back so I could figure out what you were doing. No one was supposed to get hurt. He never came home. I'm really sorry.† â€Å"Report back?† Charlie said. â€Å"They can talk?† â€Å"Well, they don't talk,† Audrey said. â€Å"But some of them can read and write. Mr. Shelly could actually type. I've been working on that. I need to get them a voice box that works. I tried one out of a talking doll, but I just ended up with a ferret in a samurai outfit that cried and kept asking if it could go play in the sandbox, it was unnerving. It's a strange process, as long as there's organic parts, stuff that was once living, they knit together, they work. Muscles and tendons make their own connections. I've been using hams for the torsos, because it gives them a lot of muscle to work with, and they smell better until the process is finished. You know, smoky. But some things are a mystery. They don't grow voice boxes.† â€Å"They don't appear to grow eyes, either,† Charlie said, gesturing with his teacup at a creature whose head was an eyeless cat skull. â€Å"How do they see?† â€Å"Got me.† Audrey shrugged. â€Å"It wasn't in the book.† â€Å"Man, I know that feeling,† said Minty Fresh. â€Å"So I've been experimenting with a voice box made out of catgut and cuttlebone. We'll see if the one who has it learns to talk.† â€Å"Why don't you put the souls back in human bodies?† asked Minty. â€Å"I mean, you can, right?† â€Å"I suppose,† Audrey said. â€Å"But to be honest, I didn't have any human corpses lying around the house. But there does have to be a piece of human being in them – I learned that from experimenting – a finger bone, blood, something. I got a great deal on a backbone in a junk store in the Haight and I've been using one vertebra for each of them.† â€Å"So you're like some monstrous reanimator,† Charlie said. Then he quickly added, â€Å"And I mean that in the nicest way.† â€Å"Thanks, Mr. Death Merchant.† Audrey smiled back and went to the nearby desk for some scissors. â€Å"But it looks like I need to cut you loose and hear how you guys got into your line of work. Mr. Greenstreet, could you bring us some more tea and coffee?† A creature with a beaver's skull for a head, wearing a fez and a red satin smoking jacket, bowed and scampered by Charlie, headed toward the kitchen. â€Å"Nice jacket,† Charlie said. The beaver guy gave him a thumbs-up as he passed. Lizard thumbs.

The Effect of Pronunciation on Spellings and Comprehension

The Effect of Pronunciation on Spellings and Comprehension Free Online Research Papers I conducted this study to find answers to the problem whether or not pronunciation affects spelling and comprehension of the students in learning English as a Foreign Language. As a researcher, I tried to prove if learners of the English language from Middle East had common errors in writing correct spelling of words with letter ‘r’, be it in the middle or at the end of the word, and if their comprehension was affected by pronunciation. Specifically, I aimed to answer the questions: (1.) Is there significant effect of pronunciation on spelling? (2.) Does pronunciation affect comprehension? I conducted this study in Non-Destructive Testing Technology Institute, 2nd Industrial City of Dammam, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for eleven (11) weeks on the 2nd quarter of SY 2008-2009. The participants involved were thirty (30) Arab students enrolled in my General English class. They were all first year college students taking up Welding course. These participants had previously learned and acquired British English. My purpose of conducting the study was to provide an output that will be of help to teachers to understand if the same problem is encountered or will be encountered by them, and to encourage them to use teaching strategies appropriate to the learning style of the learners. Likewise, the result will be beneficial for them to help students improve their spelling and comprehension in learning the English language. Discussion My attempt to do the study was inspired by my own experience as an English teacher in dealing with the non-native speakers of English in a vocational school particularly Non-Destructive Testing Technology Institute where I taught General English to Arab students who had been exposed to British English, or who had previously acquired and learned the language. Since I was using American English, a minimal confusion occurred on both parties in the teaching-learning situation. There was confusion in the production of the r sound in words with middle, or final ‘r’ (i.e., welder, worker, world, marker, car, cutter, etc†¦) and in spelling of words like center, color liter, meter, and the like. The problem is similar to the intrusive r mentioned in the study conducted by Bryan Gick of the University of British Columbia (cited in http://camba.ucsd.edu/files/phonoloblog/gick-intrusive-l-amsp02.pdf.). Considering this experience, as a researcher, I conducted the study immediately after a week of teaching. Accordingly, linguists have long been interested in intrusive r for a variety of reasons. The importance of early descriptions of the phenomenon as it appeared in early British RP, such as that provided by Jones (1917). Intrusive r was first recognized as relevant to phonological theory by a group composed mostly of American Structuralists, who identified it as bearing crucially on contemporary discussions of the phonemicization of low vowels and glides (Bloomfield 1935; Trager 1943; Whorf 1943; Swadesh 1947). Although somewhat later, and with a more dialectological focus, Kurath’s (1964) analysis should also be included in this category. Interest was renewed by the Generativists and following generations, beginning with Kahn’s (1976) dissertation on syllable structure and continuing to the present day (e.g., Mohanan 1985; Vogel 1986; Broadbent 1991; McCarthy 1991, 1993; Harris 1994, chap. 5; McMahon,Foulkes, and Tollfree 1994; McMahon and Foulkes 1995; Giegerich 1997; Halle and Idsardi 1997; Gick 1999). Intrusive r says Gick, may be viewed simplistically as the extension by analogy of a historically attested final /r/ to words historically ending in a vowel (generally this applies only to the set of non-glide-final vowels: /@, a, O/). Thus, in dialects with intrusive r, normally word-final r and zero alternate, depending on whether the word is vowel-initial, as in the following examples. 1. R ~ Ø alternation in historically r -final words (e.g., E Mass.) a. tuner [tun@] à ¼ tuner is [tun@r Iz] b. spar [spa:] à ¼ spar is [spar Iz] c. pore [pO:] à ¼ pore is [pOr Iz]. Gick also explains that in some dialects, this process has extended to all words ending in /a/, /O/, and /@/,. as shown below which is commonly known as intrusion. 2. R ~ Ø alternation in historically vowel-final words (e.g., E Mass.) a. tuna [tun@] à ¼ tuna is [tun@r Iz] b. spa [spa:] à ¼ spa is [spar Iz] c. paw [pO:] à ¼ paw is [pOr Iz]. But Gick emphasized that in most dialects, this alternation never occurs following other vowels. Gick (1999) points out that the historical development of intrusive r followed an identifiable and necessary sequence of linguistic events: vocalization, linking, merger ( or near merger), reanalysis (intrusion), and generalization. In the study conducted by Gick of which he aimed to determine if intrusive r has the same pattern with intrusive l, he found out that the same pattern is reflected in existing dialect typologies as well. He said, such an ordering is valuable in pinpointing the present stage of development of the highly parallel intrusive l. This sequence proceeds historically as follows. Postvocalic liquids undergo vocalization. Philadelphia (S Pa.) is well known for this behavior: â€Å"In Philadelphia, word-final /l/ is vocalized with great frequency† (Ash 1982b, 162). This process, by definition, applies only to liquids (and possibly glides). Vocalization may be thought of as one instantiation of a more general phonetic process known as final reduction (or, conversely, initial strengthening), which may apply to any consonant. Final reduction is a property of apparently all consonants in all dialects of English studied to date, whereby the articulatory movements of postvocalic allophones tend to be â€Å"reduced,† or less constricted, compared with those of prevocalic allophones (Browman and Goldstein 1995; Gick forthcoming a). Liquid consonants, however, are unusual in that they involve multiple lingual articulations (e.g., the tongue front raising gesture and tongue root retraction for /r/; Delattre and Freeman 1968). When liquid consonants undergo ?nal reduction, it is only the anterior articulations (i.e., the coronal constriction for /l/ and the tongue front raising for /r/) that are affected (Giles and Moll 1975; Ash 1982a, 1982b; Hardcastle and Barry 1989, 15; Sproat and Fujimura 1993; Gick 1999, forthcoming a). However, according to Gick the posterior articulations, that is, the tongue dorsum retraction for /l/ and the tongue root retraction for /r/, remain more or less unaffected (see Gick forthcoming b and Gick, Kang, and Whalen forthcoming for further evidence in support of this analysis of liquid vocalization in English). The result is that final allophones tend perceptually to have a stronger â€Å"vocalic† component (Sproat and Fujimura 1993) than initial allophones (hence the term vocalization). In its most extreme manifestation, vocalization may result in a complete loss of the anterior articulation. On the part of the students, trouble came from the way how I pronounced the words, spoke and wrote the spelling of words using American English. On my part as the teacher, trouble came from the way how the students pronounced the words, spoke and wrote the spelling of the words using British English. Focusing on pronunciation and spelling as a teacher-researcher, I noticed that when some students wrote, they occasionally omitted letter ‘r’ from the word that ends with letter ‘r’ and even changed the spelling following their own pronunciation. (i.e., ‘otha’ instead of ‘other’; ‘neva’ instead of ‘never’; ‘welda’ instead of ‘welder’; ‘computa’ instead of ‘computer’; ‘teacha’ instead of ‘teacher’). Another observation was students’ pronunciation of few words with letter ‘o’, like for examples, ‘follow’ is pronouced as (fol-o) instead of (fal-ow); ‘blood (blod) instead of (blad); ‘box (boks) instead of (baks). As a result, some of them wrote the words in reference to the way how they pronounced them. Analyzing the situation, my input appeared to be another kind of English to the students and that the students’ feedback, on the other hand, seemed to be another kind of English to me though I already had knowledge about the difference of British English and American English. As a researcher, I described it as the encounter of two Englishes experiencing difficulty in trying to meet half-way. As a result of the observation I made, the comprehension of both parties was affected. Either I or the students experienced trouble in dealing with the English language. Conclusion My research employed quantitative and qualitative approaches in analyzing the data gathered and observed. In the eight written and two oral quizzes I gave, 27 out 30 students were found to be consistent in their errors in writing the spellings of the words with final and middle r by dropping them out of the words resulting to inaccuracy in spellings. Five of the written quizzes I designed were to allow the participants to write words with middle and final r to complete the sentences. The other three, were to instruct them to write the unknown words with middle or final r based on the context clues given. I conducted the two oral quizzes by reading the instructions aloud to let them write the words with middle or final r. However, similar results were obtained. There were errors in spellings even if I pronounced the words the way how American do it. Based on these facts, my study proved that pronunciation had a significant effect on spellings of some words, though my study was only focused in determining the words with middle and final r. My study also found out that pronunciation affected comprehension in learning a new English for the students who were exposed to another kind of English of which reduction of the final sound is practiced . This is the idea confirmed based on this study. However, the problem raised in the study was not focused directly on the difference of American English and British English but to determine and discuss some common errors committed by the learners as influenced by their pronunciation. This was the reason why the participants of this study performed differently than what I expected as a teacher in trying to teach English using American English. General Reference : American Speech, Vol. 77, No. 2, Summer 2002, Copyright  © 2002 by the American Dialect Society. OTHER R E F E R E N C E S (cited in Gicks Study) Ash, Sharon. 1982a. â€Å"The Vocalization of /l/ in Philadelphia.† Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Pennsylvania. - - - . 1982b. â€Å"The Vocalization of Intervocalic /l/ in Philadelphia.† SECOL Review 6: 162–75. Bloom?eld, Leonard. 1935. Language. London: Allen and Unwin. Broadbent, Judith. 1991. â€Å"Linking and Intrusive r in English.† UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 3: 281–302. Browman, Catherine P., and Louis Goldstein. 1995. â€Å"Gestural Syllable Position Effects in American English.† In Producing Speech: Contemporary Issues. For Katherine Safford Harris, ed. Fredericka Bell-Berti and Lawrence J. Raphael, 1934. New York: American Institute of Physics Press. 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