Attard, Janet. "39 Low-Cost Ways to Promote Your Business." Business Know How, January 6, 2019. Accessed January 25, 2019. https://www.businessknowhow.com/marketing/24waysto.htm.

This is another article about advertising written by Janet Attard. She highlights 39 low cost ways of advertising. This is essential because while I have some financial support, I don’t have hundreds to spend on advertising. These low cost methods will be vital to growing my business.

Babich, Nick. "A Comprehensive Guide To Product Design." Smashing Magazine, January 31, 2018. Accessed January 25, 2019. https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/01/comprehensive-guide-product-design/.

A product is central to a business. This article will help me understand the ins and outs of designing a profitable product. I don’t want to go through all this work designing a product and then realizing it won’t be profitable. This article will help me avoid everything that might lead to that ending.

Bernazzani, Sophia. "7 Ways to Make Every Interaction With Customers Fantastic." HubSpot, June 20, 2018. Accessed January 25, 2019. https://blog.hubspot.com/service/interaction-with-customers.

I will no doubt interact with my customers over the course of this project. This interact can often decide the customers opinion of me. This article will help me over the course of these interactions and give me pointers and suggestions. The customers are the basis of any business, and no matter the conditions, all interactions should be positive.

Driver, Saige. "Social Media for Business: A Marketer's Guide." Business News Daily, October 15, 2018. Accessed January 25, 2019. https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7832-social-media-for-business.html.

Social Media will most likely be the best way to grow my business. This article by Saige Driver will be my guide to using Social Media to my advantage. She discusses what the dos and don’ts of the Social Media world that will allow for the best chance of success.

Iwuoha, John-Paul. "10 Cheap and Interesting Ways to Attract More Customers to Your Small Business." Smallstarter, February 10, 2014. Accessed January 23, 2019.  http://www.smallstarter.com/know-the-basics/10-ways-to-attract-more-customers-to-your-small-business/.  

One of the hardest part of this project will be attracting buyers. This article can help me expanding my business and reaching out to potential customers. The ideas presented by John-Paul Iwuoha can help me understand what customers like and how to convince them my product is worth buying.

McCreary, Matthew. "The Complete, 12-Step Guide to Starting a Business." Entrepreneur, October 23, 2017. Accessed January 23, 2019. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/297899.

This source will provide me with more information on the process behind starting a business. Having two articles on the same subject can give me opposing or agreeing ideas that will help me further understand the topic. The two different authors will most certainly have different views on what is most important.

Odjick, Desirae. "How to Price Your Product: What You Need to Know About Pricing Before You Launch." Shopify, May 28, 2018. Accessed January 25, 2019. https://www.shopify.com/blog/how-to-price-your-product.

In addition to product design, effectively pricing my product will be essential. Too high, and people won’t buy it. Too low, and I won’t make enough profit to sustain my business. This article will help me in that process.

Rivera, Andreas. "How to Start a Business: A Step-by-Step Guide." Business News Daily, June 7, 2018. Accessed January 23, 2019. https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/4686-how-to-start-a-business.html.  

Going into this project, I have not a single clue about how I could start a business. This article written by Andreas Rivera outlines some basic steps that I could take to start a business. This article covers finances, themes and ideas, advertising to customers, and the whole nine yards. I can also use this article to start thinking about how I want to run my business.

SAGE Publications. "Customer service is an emotional experience." ScienceDaily.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120831123651.htm (accessed January 23, 2019).

This last article by Science Daily goes into the science behind customer interaction. It states that there are many emotions behind customer business interactions and that there are many things that I can do to improve that interaction.

Wood, Meredith. "The Ultimate Guide to Managing Small Business Finances." Fundera, Inc, November 19, 2018. Accessed January 24, 2019. https://www.fundera.com/blog/business-finance.

One of the most important things about running a small business is managing finances. I will need to know the essentials when I start my own. If I cannot fund my business, I will lose customers and my reputation will suffer. I need to know how to managed my business’ finances or else it will cease.

David Roberts

Mr. Block

English 3

9 March 2018

The Battle of Battle Royale Games

Recently, within the gaming community, a furious debate has emerged between the supporters of the two most popular battle royale games: PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite. PUBG, for short, the first game to be released of the two, is a “realistic military shooter at its core,” as Erik Kain stated in his article comparing the two games on Forbes.com. 100 players, all fighting to survive, are released into an arena to fight to the death. Only one survives. PUBG, which is praised for its mechanics, the inner workings of the game, exploded into the gaming community, selling 10 million copies sold in just 6 months. In addition, Fortnite shares the same overall plot. But there are some differences. Fortnite, from the day it was released, has been a less realistic, almost “cartoonish,” as Kain  called it, and has always been called a ripoff of its predecessor PUBG. Despite this, Fortnite has been revered for its smooth gameplay and its absence of cheaters, both of which occur in PUBG. Regardless, the debate between the PUBG players and the Fortnite players has reached monumental proportions. Both sides argue that their game is better, without actually listening to the other side’s opinion. However, all this bickering leads back to one main question: are players of Fortnite real gamers? The gaming community is very particular about who is part of their community, and having this debate is a way to filter out people who don’t deserve to be a part of it.

Players of PUBG have always thought of Fortnite as the more childish game of the two, and for good reason. First, the graphics, the overall looks, are like a “cartoon,” states user Pedro Deuces on a skynetgaming.net forum. The characters are animated and modeled after fictional figures. The building structures and terrain features of the map can be compared to those seen in children’s books. But most importantly, the game is free to play. This means that a possible player does not have to pay any monetary value to download, install, and play the game. The main reasoning behind the hate for free to play games is that “the majority [of free games] are garbage, pay to win, clones of actual good games,” stated user FarplaneDragon on a GameSpot.com forum. Free games are incomplete rip offs of paid to play games. All of these things put together give PUBG players a reasonable excuse to accuse Fortnite players of not being real gamers, which is a huge insult to those within the gaming community. Fortnite players are quick to fire back though.

Despite its recent glory, PUBG has many flaws. Because of its realistic nature, the game is incredibly hard to run. The graphics make its loading times longer and its lag, which occurs when the screen freezes for shorts amount of time, increase. Therefore, players, or even prospective players, who do not maintain a high quality computer, which is a large part of the community, can experience these issues much more. Fortnite, on the other hand, does not have these issues. Also, PUBG is riddled with cheaters. Players that download external programs into the game to help improve their aim and other things are called cheaters. As Kain states, “playing against cheaters in a competitive shooter is about the least fun thing I can imagine.” These two things about PUBG, although being overlooked by current players, are slowing gaining attention and in turn forcing players away from the game. Nonetheless, PUBG is still considered the more mature game, and therefore the better game.

The gaming community is very particular about who gets in and who is rejected, and players of Fortnite are in the gray area. The players fit the description. They play on console or PC, and not on mobile, which is a whole other debate. The game format is also compatible. Other battle royale games like PUBG and H1Z1 get a pass. But the issue is the game itself. Being free to play, Fortnite can initially rejected, as most free to play games are. To add on, the graphics are cartoonish and childish, making the whole game childish. Finally, Fortnite is considered by many a rip off of PUBG, a game made and released before Fortnite. These reasons are the key issues for players of Fortnite impending induction into the gaming community.

Bibliography:

Kain, Erik. “'PUBG' Still Does One Thing So Much Better Than 'Fortnite'.” Forbes.com, Forbes, 23 Feb. 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2018/02/23/pubg-still-does-one-thing-so-much-better-than-fortnite/#53c53a8f510e.

Thier, Dave. “'Fortnite: Battle Royale' Does One Thing So Much Better Than 'PUBG'.” Forbes.com, Forbes, 25 Feb. 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2018/02/25/fortnite-battle-royale-does-one-thing-so-much-better-than-pubg/#76905b222e1d .

Literacy is a part of life that many people underestimate. When any form of literacy is left out of the curriculum, people forget it. It becomes something they no longer pay attention to, and when mentioned, its gets degraded into oblivion. But literacy is really something great. It does in fact play a huge part in our lives, and no matter what people say about, it will always be there. Whether literacy takes the form of social media, news, writing a paper, or other things, it will remain a major part of life. This is why we cannot forget it. And I, from experience, can say that books don’t give me the chance to forget literacy.

“Let’s go bud, time for bed,” my mom called to me.
I put down my pencil and ran up the stairs to get ready for bed. I always loved reading; it would make my imagination run wild. I didn’t know how yet to read, but with everyday I got a little bit closer to understanding.

“Alright son, tonight, we’re going to finish The Horse and His Boy.”

“Nice,” I replied. “Finally the ending!”

As soon as I was born, my parents were reading to me, or so I was told. My parents to me so often, that they still today tell me about all the books I read during my childhood. Granted, they have given a significant portion of those away, but there still exists a small collection of children’s books in the house. My parents say those are their favorites. has left me with a true love for reading and literature.I have learned to love all different kinds of books, whether that was a biography about some famous person, or a nonfiction novel about a kid’s experience growing up with no parents, or even a science fiction novel about life on another planet. I’ve learned to truly appreciate books

As I got older, and learned how to read, I would do it  constantly. I would read anything I could get my hands on, whether it was a nonfiction book, magazine, or even an essay online about something I was interested in. I think it is acceptable to say that there was never a time in my early childhood when I wasn’t currently reading something. Nowadays, this is no longer true, but I distinctly remember reading all the time, even if that meant re-reading a series once or even twice because I loved it so much. Sherman Alexie described my situation perfectly in her essay titled, The Joy of Reading and Writing, “I read books late into the night, until I could barely keep my eyes open.” She, like myself, remember reading whenever she could, even when she wasn’t supposed to be.

Jimmy Santiago Baca put how I felt about books into words in the film A Place to Stand. “I didn’t want to the guy to hit my eyes so I could read the story.” I was so deeply in love with reading that if something happened to me that rendered me unable to read, part of me would die. Reading was such a big part of my childhood, that if I didn’t have books, I don’t think I would be same person I am today. I would not have the same imagination, the same creativity that I have today. And those things are such a part of me that I would indeed be a different person.

Looking back on these things, I can easily see how books and literacy helped me grow. Reading helped me to understand and appreciate forms of writing from a very early age.. I’ve learned to value books and whatever wisdom they held within their two covers. I learned to see the meaning or reason why a certain part of a book was written. I can very easily read what is happening “between the lines,” as some people say. Reading gave me this ability, which I cherish with all my heart.

Now that I am closing on my seventeenth birthday, I still read every now and then, but I’m no longer that little kid that was obsessed with books. Other things occupy my time, and some days I don’t even touch a book. I still retain my love for books and literacy though. If I find a book I haven’t read I’ll be busy until I read the last word. I also can still look at things in life and appreciate the literacy held within it. I doubt anything could happen that would take away my love for books and literacy.

For this paper I really wanted the reader to understand and get a sense for my struggle with patience. I wanted to use scene that helped me to convey my struggle so that readers could relate to my problem. I am really proud of my scenes and the fact that they do help me to convey my struggle, although I should note that my reflection and main idea isn’t the strongest. I don’t know what I could do to improve it now, but that is definitely an area for improvement.

I sit down at the dining room table, with my brother across from me, to start a game of monopoly. I always suck at this game. I can never get enough properties to win and I always make the wrong trades. Just a week before I traded away my railroads for a monopoly while I playing with my mom. She won on that trade alone. Live and learn, you know?

But this time will be different. I just know it. It’s like when you walk out the door to school and part of you just knows that the day ahead won’t be enjoyable. I just knew that something was gonna happen, and I wouldn’t have to go bankrupt again.

I shake with excitement as the first dice rolls happen.

“You sure you want to do that,” I say as my brother tries to roll doubles to get out of jail instead of paying.
“Sure thing bro,” he responds as he roll doubles.

“What? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

This is how the beginning of the game goes. I manage to get more properties than he does, but his excessive landing on free parking and go give him two or even three times the amount I have. Even though properties are better to have in the early game than money, his stock of two less properties doesn’t make a difference.

“Welp, this is bad,” I murmur to myself. I need a plan, and I need one fast.

I look around the room as my brother rolls. The nice chandelier hanging from the middle of the room. The cabinet at the far end of the room. I look toward a painting hanging over my brother’s head. A gray boat sits on a peaceful lake. The women on the boat wait patiently for the fish to bite on their fishing poles.

If I am just as patient as them, and not rush, I will be fine. If those women get anxious, they won’t catch any fish. In the same way, if I get excited and anxious, I’ll make a mistake and lose the game.

Soon after, I make a well thought about trade to secure one side of the board. I now own that whole side, the most lethal side.

For the next couple of times around the board, my brother seems to only land on those properties. With my money growing and my brother’s shrinking, I know that this could be the turning point.

“Oh boy, here we go,” I think to myself as I crack a smile.

Throughout my entire life, I have struggled with patience. It is not one of my natural abilities. For example, I really wanted to win that monopoly game. I always get so excited when I play those type of games that my lack of patience often comes back to kill me.

When I was a lot younger, it was worse. I couldn’t wait for anything. When I was done shopping, I was done and I let my parents know it, often throwing fits until they agreed with me. These examples of my impatience are evident throughout my toddler and preteen years.

My grandparents loved to take me fishing. They had a campsite on a lake and I would go and stay with them for a week during the summer. My grandpa introduced me to fishing when I was eight. At first I loved it. The idea of catching a fish sounded amazing to my young, inexperienced mind. But I learned otherwise. I couldn’t stand fishing, and catching a fish didn’t help to improve my mood. I just didn’t have the patience to sit around all day waiting for some dumb fish to take the bait. I stopped fishing soon after.

My attempt at fishing helped me to recognize that I wasn’t as patience as I thought I was. It rocked my world. But after I thought about it some more, I realized something. For my entire life I have been athletic. I’ve been on championship soccer and baseball teams for most of my childhood. My parents have often said that I’m just naturally athletic. But I’m not naturally patient.

It suddenly hit me that I wanted to be someone that I wasn’t. I wanted to be better than myself. Like me and my struggle for patience, everyone is not born perfect. Everyone has the desire to be better than themselves, to grow and mature in many different areas. For me, that was patience. I really would love to be patience, and I’m sure there are many other people who want to grow, just like me. We all have our certain struggle, it’s human. But we have to at least try. Because if none of us try, the world wouldn’t be like it is today.

Many symbols exist in society that prove this exact point. Human creations like religion and cults use symbols to accompany their beliefs, which often become focal points in their worship. Looking at the most popular religion of Christianity, the cross that is most often thought of when thinking of this religion brings many a people together under it. Christians worship God as well as this cross and honor it as a token to their religion. Christians seem to be united under this symbol. On the other hand, those who disagree with this worldview, have come to disrespect or even hate this symbol. It symbolizes something they believe to be false and therefore are united with others who also disagree. These two unified groups of Christians and non Christians are divided in their beliefs. The cross brings those who respect and those who disrespect it together with those who share their beliefs, while simultaneously dividing those two groups of people.

Not only does religion show the power of symbols. As demonstrated in the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding, symbols also play a role in an imaginary society. In the book, a group of boys is stranded on an island. They start out as one group, but after two leaders emerge, Ralph and Jack, the one encompassing group is broken into two. After Jack’s crew and Ralph’s crew split, Piggy, who is Ralph's advisor, discusses the idea of taking the conch to Jack, with the hope that Jack will release his possession of Piggy’s glasses. “You let me carry the conch, Ralph. I’ll show him the one thing he hasn’t got (171).” The conch has become a very powerful symbol. It was used in the beginning to show leadership and authority, and therefore Piggy has the idea to use the conch to show Jack “what’s what.” Piggy’s original plans involve retrieving his glasses from Jack, and Piggy wants to use the conch to show that he is more powerful and people should obey him, and therefore giving him a greater chance of obtaining his glasses. The fact that Piggy then takes the conch, “with pride,” confirms the idea that whoever has the conch is to be respected. However, when confronting Jack with the conch, Jack’s crew started to throw stones at Piggy and the conch. Looking at this whole event, we can see that, while bringing Piggy, and his friends together against Jack and his group, the conch divided Piggy’s crew from Jack and his crew.

This is not the only example that is presented in the book. Earlier, when the two groups were in their early stages of separation, someone reported the sighting of a beast within the forest. Now, one company took this report as a serious threat, and everyone within it began to fear this beast, even though there was no confirmation. The other gang wasn’t so sure of this report. “Well then—I’ve been all over this island. By myself. If there were a beast I’d have seen it. Be frightened because you’re like that—but there is no beast in the forest (83).” Half of the boys believed this report, and half of them rejected it. This beast goes on to become a symbol of fear in the boys makeshift society. As time goes on, most of the boys adapted to view this theory as truth. There are still a few boys that didn't believe this beast to be true. Simon, one of Ralph’s band, is one of those boys. "I'll go if you like. I don't mind, honestly. (117)" Simon still believes this beast to be fictional, and shows this when he volunteers to go into the forest for the rest of the boys. After this event, and others like it, Ralph’s club starts to doubt this beast’s existence. Jack’s party remains in their beliefs that this beast’s presence is no lie. This beast figure has become a symbol that has unified the boys, but, at the same time, divided them in their view on its reality.

Shifting the view away from that of the fictional world, another non fictional symbol fits this puzzle. Pepe the Frog, or just Pepe, after being taken from the comic series Boy’s Club by Matt Furie, has blown up as a popular internet meme. After the internet enjoyed these memes for a time, Pepe started to be hated. Pepe was taken out of proportion and now remains in the Anti-Defamation League’s list of hate symbols. Pepe the Frog has become a symbol for those of the white supremacy group. As with every symbol, there are people who agree with it and disagree with it. In this way, those who are with this white supremacy group respect this symbol, and those who are against it loath it for what it stands for. Those groups of people are, while unified with others in their point of view, are divided from the other side because of their different beliefs.

Symbols can play many roles in society, one of them being their unifying qualities. Many symbols often stand for something like a religion or an idea. Those who use this symbol to show their own views will respect and honor their created symbol. Those who decide that this symbol contains no truth or disagree with what it stands for, have no respect or care for this symbol. Therefore, symbols that stand for something in society, both unify those who agree with it and disagree with it, but yet divides those two groups in their beliefs on the subject.

Works Cited:

Una Oda a Rodolfo Fierro

Peligroso, temible, y no tiene miedo

Cuando yo te veo pienso en violencia, miedo, y peligro

Me haces asustado

Tu, mi hombre temible

Just because someone has a lot of money or power doesn’t mean they should be above the law, sir. No one is above the law.

(Dialogue Pause)

I don’t care. He has committed two different crimes, murder and corruption, both of which deserve a long prison sentence, if not the death penalty. Sir, we know he did this. He abuses his own power, to try and get even more power, which in itself would get him in prison for a while, and then orders the death of not one but two people to cover it up. Even our leader would be happy to know that one of his advisor is trying to seize power from him.  

(Dialogue Pause)

We have the evidence, sir. We have the hitmen, all of whom have confessed to be hired by this guy. We even have obtained emails between our suspect and one of his own advisors talking about their plan. We have all the evidence we would need to arrest a regular citizen. But, because of his wealth and power, we have a different situation. We know that a reason he carried out his plan was because he knows that he had some protection. He knew that maybe his position would give him an advantage and would give him more time to hide his tracks. Now that has backfired. This reason makes him an even more likely suspect. Not a suspect, a criminal. Sir, we know what he did. We have a motive, and evidence that supports the motive and him as a criminal. The only thing that is preventing us now is his position.

(Non Dialogue Pause)

He’s also my brother-in-law.

(Non Dialogue Pause)

If only this criminal wasn’t part of my family. (Anguished scream) Why couldn’t this be anyone else. ANYONE! (Sigh) So I have to choose. My family, or my career. My family, or the law.

(Dialogue Pause)

He’s very respected within the family. Anyone of his position would be respected greatly. When he first came into the family, I too respected him. I admired him. But after uncovering this, I have lost all of my respect for him. As I see things, no one else knows about this. Not even his wife. And most of all, if they found out that I was accusing him of corruption and murder, man, you can’t imagine the backlash I would get. I would no longer be invited to family gatherings, I would probably be kicked out. Yes, I’m not exaggerating. That’s how much they love him. He brings great respect to my family. If people realized he got arrested, then everyone in my family would be rejected. They would become outcasts. And again, my family would blame that on me. And then I would be the outcast of the outcasts.

(Dialogue Pause)

I know sir. Eventually I have to choose.

(Dialogue Pause)

Yes, life will go on. The world won’t stop moving.

(Dialogue Pause)

That’s a good point, sir. Once my family got over their bias, and saw the truth, I would be worshipped. I would be praised. I would get the respect that he got. I would be admired. But, I still need a plan. A marvelous plan. A spectacular plan.

(Non Dialogue Pause)

What if we set him up? What if we caused him to think that he was being uncovered, and we got him to think that doing this one thing would get him out of that. We could catch him in the act. Maybe I could even set it up so that my family is there to see his wrongdoing. I could solve two things at once.

(Non Dialogue Pause)

I don’t know. Everyone would probably dismiss anything. I would still be rejected by my family, too. I guess there’s no way around that, if I decide to carry out my plan and arrest this idiot.

(Non Dialogue Pause)

In class we watched a show by Frontline called Digital Nation and Growing Up Online. The show was about how the Internet is becoming more of a part of our lives and how it influences us, our jobs, and our military. The most memorable thing about this show is the story about Ryan and how he committed suicide because of the things that people said about him online. It was very interesting and scary to see how something so useful like the internet can be used in so many bad ways. It is important to watch shows like this so that we do not have to repeat the things that happened and so we can prevent things like this from happening. As of now, I do not know how I am going to protect my future family for a simple reason. Since technology is progressing SO fast, I do not know what to expect from the internet and technology in general twenty years from now. But I do know that I will be monitoring all internet usage. The internet is a very dangerous thing. Even though the internet can be very helpful in more than one circumstance, it can be used for many bad purposes. Some advice I would give to parents is to make sure their kids are not involved in anything suspicious. Also I would advise them to make sure their children know about all of the dangers of the internet.