Understanding Multicultural Competence (PSYR - 8421)

“Jia never shows emotion, not even in the wake of a terrible loss.” What does the previous sentence lead you to infer about Jia? As a psychologist, how would you judge what is reported to be Jia’s lack of emotion? The level of multicultural competence you achieve as a psychologist might likely influence how you assess this scenario. How might Jia’s cultural background as depicted in the Threaded Family media piece affect your assessment of her behavior? Your understanding of multicultural competence and why it is important has a profound impact on your client relationships.

For this Discussion, review this week’s Learning Resources. Consider your understanding of multicultural competence coming into this course. Think about populations in your community and how you might demonstrate multicultural competence working with those populations.

With these thoughts in mind:

Post by Day 4 an explanation of your understanding of multicultural competence coming into this course. Be specific in your explanation by describing a multicultural population in your community and what it would mean to work with clie

nts from that community and to demonstrate multicultural competence. Then explain what effect this week’s readings have had on your understanding of multicultural competence.

Multicultural Psychology

Prescribed readings for this week open up a number of avenues by which my understanding of multicultural competence has simply increased manifold. It is quite surprising yet pleasing to note that multicultural competence is both complex and essential for a psychotherapist working in today’s society that is becoming more and more complex by the day (Constantine, et al., 2008). Multicultural competence is not only just about getting trained in this area, but is also about being explicitly aware of one’s own culture before they can attempt to understand others’. Moreover, culture is a set of a number of subjective constructs that an individual makes meaning with and cannot be understood with a straight forward approach such as through different models for multicultural competence. In addition, since evidence-based research is still limited, it is important to follow the paths of a highly-fluid professional such as described by Comas-Díaz (2010) in which the therapist is ready to play multiple roles with higher level of empathy. Moreover, multicultural competence is an on-going process that needs to be critiqued from time to time by the therapist in consultation with their colleagues, seniors, clients, and other relevant people so that the their focus remains on track, and keeping culture in the center of therapy is essential (Pedersen, et al., 2008).

With this understanding in view, I would like to describe the multicultural population I will be focusing on. It would be Hispanic population and specifically I would focus on the family structure, religiousness, and gender-roles in the population. My observation and readings on this population reveals that there are quite a few cultural differences I need to carefully analyze in order to effectively treat members of this community. For instance, it is generally believed in their community that male should not look for assistance and prefer self-dependence; however, this can yield serious health related issues because even if a male needs medical/psychological assistance, they would avoid it. Moreover, in general, Hispanic family structure is such that members would not share inside matters to people outside the family. Thus, trust, esteem, self-respect, dynamic interaction, and empathy become important tools for my cultural competence.

This community also has culturally-constructed beliefs that need immediate focus for change. For instance, substance and alcohol consumption by their young is seen as something common and is considered a part of their permissiveness culture. This aspect not only has adverse effect on their youth’s upbringing but also comes into direct conflict with the law. In addition, this community relies heavily on religiousness and spirituality when it comes to social, psychological, or any other issues. Moreover, it is often noted that the clergy and other religious official do not make referrals to professional therapists. The culture also attaches less value to female gender and comes directly under influence of socioeconomic status. Thus, these and some other very grave issues have continued seriously unattended, and I would focus on these attitudes of this population.

I would like to state in view of Cohen (2009) that multicultural competence is about understanding the many basic psychological processes that may differ from one culture to another. These processes can be subjective and objective and might turn out to contrast sharply with a process from another culture. It is here that the difference needs to be understood without stereotyping or bias. It is most probably the central tenet of multicultural competence that a therapist, while confronting their own cultural biases, should start from (Gallardo et al., 2009). This is what I believe has broadened my worldview on multicultural competence from the readings of this week.

           

References

Cohen, A. B. (2009). Many forms of culture. American Psychologist, 64(3), 194-204.

Comas-Díaz, L. (2010). On being a Latina healer: Voice, consciousness, and identity. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 47(2), 162-168.

Constantine, M. G., Miville, M. L., & Kindaichi, M. M. (2008). Multicultural competence in counseling psychology practice and training. In S. D. Brown, & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Handbook of counseling psychology (4th ed., pp. 141–158). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Gallardo, M. E., Johnson, J., Parham, T. A., & Carter, J. A. (2009). Ethics and multiculturalism: Advancing cultural and clinical responsiveness. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 40(5), 425-435.

Pedersen, Paul B. Crethar, Hugh C. Carlson, Jon (2008). Conclusion: Developing multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skill. Inclusive cultural empathy: Making relationships central in counseling and psychotherapy (1st Ed.). , (pp. 223-241). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association.

Critical Essay: Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates' Dialogue on Life and Death, Body and Soul

Introduction

            In this essay, I would critique Plato’s Phaedo (360 BC). First, a critical summary of the great dialogue will be presented. Later, a critique of the dialogue would be provided. In the critique, I will specifically focus on one reason that Socrates claims is plausible enough for us not to fear death. Here I will also explain this reason through my personal perspective and relate it to life in general. The last section of the essay, Conclusion, would sum up the entire essay and would share with the reader my personal viewpoint on Socrates’ views about death as I see it.

            In this essay, the reason that I would like to identify is this: After death, the soul “passes into the realm of purity, and eternity, and immortality, unchangeableness”; and this “state of the soul is called wisdom” (p. 44). I will explain this reason critically and argue that this reason is strong enough for us to believe in what Socrates says: That we should not fear death. Thus, I will argue in favor of his view.

Phaedo: A Critical Summary

            Phaedo (Plato, 360 BC) is considered to be one of the great dialogues written by Plato in his middle period. This dialogue is regarded as one of Plato’s five major works including the Republic and the Symposium. Phaedo is Plato’s last dialogue (Bluck, 2014).

            The dialogue, Phaedo, takes place between Socrates and his friends. It is a discussion that revolves around the major premise, the desirability of death, and is led mainly by Socrates. Phaedo, one of Socrates friends, was one of the people present in the prison where Socrates was locked down to meet his death the very day. Phaedo is a narration of this dialogue by Phaedo to his friend Echerates.

            In the dialogue, besides the casual conversation, the major point Socrates makes is that death is actually a release for us from the many distractions that our body imposes upon our soul. In addition, Socrates argues that death gives an opportunity to a person to attain wisdom in its perfection because by leaving the body at death, the soul “passes into the realm of purity, and eternity, and immortality, unchangeableness”; and this “state of the soul is called wisdom” (p. 44). This premise by Socrates can be explained in simple words. He sees death as an opportunity for the soul to free itself from the changing, dissoluble, and mortal human body. Once free, the soul actually moves to a state which, unlike when in the human body, never alters, changes, and is pure, immortal, and it is this states of immortality of ‘the soul’ that Socrates regards as wisdom.

            Socrates centers his argument mainly on the premise mentioned in the foregoing paragraph. He also maintains that though a true philosopher desires death to reach to the state of perfect wisdom, he does not desire suicide because it is a wicked act, because we belong to the gods, and we do not have a right to finish our lives at our own will. Besides that, death is a blessing and should not be feared. He presents quite a few examples to substantiate this premise throughout the dialogue, and his friends take part as active interlocutors. At the end of the dialogue, Socrates drinks the poison and meets his death.

           

Critique

            A critical analysis of the dialogue, Phaedo, offers quite a lot of points to discuss in this essay, e.g. the difference between the death of a philosopher and the death of a wicked person; whether it is only the philosopher that should be happy at their death or any other person (good or bad) can have the same joy. Because of limited space, however, I will focus on one reason by Socrates that death should not be feared since at death, the human soul, “passes into the realm of purity, and eternity, and immortality, unchangeableness”; and this “state of the soul is called wisdom” (p. 44).

            After thinking for a very long time and doing some research, I can substantiate that Socrates is right in this claim. He also substantiates this premise when he states that because the human body decomposes after death, the soul moves to a state which is eternal and pure. Following Socrates’ argument, I can explain this premise.

            It can be a clear observation that the body is mortal and decomposes after death. If we accept the religious beliefs of Christianity, and other religions such as Judaism and Islam, then we must admit that there is the soul that leaves the body after a person dies. Okay. So, the body decomposes, but the soul does not; rather it travels to another place. This is manifestly given in religious texts such as the Bible. However, I can explain this traveling of the soul on scientific bases. My research led me to an article which recollects the after-death-accounts by people who died for some time but came to life afterward. These people when surveyed about their experiences after death told the interviewer that they felt as if they were travelling to a distant place (Knapton, 2014).

            Leaving all the religious and scientific evidence apart, I can also prove that the soul, in view of Socrates, not only remains alive but also moves to an eternal (and most probably a pure or constant) state. I claim this point by my observation of the world. I can see that the entire world is in two parts, the day and the night, life and death, etc. The tree is a good example here. The trunk and the leaves need the sunshine and the air to stay alive. Whereas, its roots can remain alive in the opposite form and condition: The roots cannot survive in the sunlight and air. The green tree can also not survive when buried. So, my point is that the every object or state of the world is divided into two parts. These two parts of one object, though hand-in-hand with each other, are quite the opposite of each other. This condition remains constant, as far as my observation can relate, with every object of the world.

            This observation also convinces me that life is part of two halves: The body and the soul. Moreover, whereas the body decomposes, the soul must remain alive. The body, after death, continues to decompose (in natural conditions); this also convinces me that the soul would do the opposite of this process: It should continue to travel on. As the end result of the decomposition of the body is eternal expiration, the end result of the soul must be an eternal state of purity in a very similar way in which the day and the night function. The break of dawn creates the first gash in the heart of darkness, and the bright day is the opposite of the darkness of the night. The same, my observation convinces me, is true of the body versus the soul. One is to eternally decay and disappear, the other is to move toward a state or eternal purity (wisdom in Socrates’ words).

Conclusion

            After reading Phaedo and reflecting on life in general, I am very much convinced that death is not be feared because what happens to the human body is quite opposite of what happens to the human soul. Whereas the body decays into the labyrinth of morality, the soul travels to the purest state of immortality. The fear that an average human feels of dying is not because of their fear of death, it is because of the natural system in the human brain that has to put effort to save human life from any harm. We should not confuse the instinct of survival with the post-death condition.

            Thus, I can claim, in view of Socrates, that life is not to be feared but welcomed by us. However, it is well beyond the purview of this essay to argue whether, as Socrates states, it is only the philosopher who should not fear death or this kind of attitude is to be assumed by anyone dying. I would just make an observation that anyone dying should be happy of their death due to the fact that their body and their soul would go in two opposite directions. Whereas the former is to wither away, the latter must move to a state of eternity.

                       

References

Bluck, R. S. (2014). Plato's Phaedo: A translation of Plato's Phaedo. New York: Routledge.

Knapton, S. (2014). First hint of ‘life after death’ in biggest ever scientific study. The Telegraph. Retrieved http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11144442/First-hint-of-life-after-death-in-biggest-ever-scientific-study.html

Plato (360 BC). Phaedo. Abr. Ed. [Trans. Benjamin Jowett]. Public domain translation. [Classroom readings].

The Battle of Algiers: Critique and Analysis

Question: It is often easy to think of innocence and guilt as clear opposites, as different as day and night. However, many of the texts and films we have studied raise questions about this opposition, suggesting that their differences may not be quite so stark. In your paper, discuss how a particular work complicates conventional ideas of innocence. You might consider the role of women or children in combat, or the differences between civilians and soldiers. Or, you might consider the ways in which individuals are held responsible for the actions of their nations and governments, or for the actions of those they hold dear (family members, lovers, etc.). Remember to pay attention to elements beyond plot and character, such as textual structure, textual repetition and tension, camera angle, light, and sound.

Answer: The Battle of Algiers is a great film with deep social and psychological effects it bears on the audience. With its powerful direction and technical strengths, such as camera, light, and sound, the film mainly focuses on the ways by which guilt and innocence become blurred in the path of achieving a necessary purpose: Freedom. The world has long sung songs for innocence to be an ideal state for peace. Women and children have historically found a central place in this narrative. However, by critiquing The Battle of Algiers, it could be argued that when faced with a significant purpose like freedom, innocence of people (men, women, and children) becomes blurred with guilt. This argument would be supported by discussing many a technique Pontecorvo has used to problematize this conflict by focusing on technical areas of the film, light, sound, camera work, and by highlighting the deep psychological effects different scenes bear on the audience asking them to follow Pontecorvo’s lead.

The effective construction of the central thesis of this essay, whether the film complicates the conventional ideas of innocence and guilt can be achieved by focusing particularly on the roles of women and children in the film and the strategies Pontecorvo  has used to convey this conflicting mortality to us. In this connection, throughout, the film convinces me that the ideals of innocence and guilt are so much mixed up together that it is very difficult to say who is innocent and who is guilty. The film problematizes this aspect, in particular, given the fact that women played a vital role in Algiers’ struggle for independence. For example, in the very first scene in which La Casbah is panoramically framed, the FLN charter of demand runs in the background and a lot of children are shown sitting, moving, and running. One much younger child is shown running and the camera remains on him for quite a few seconds. At the same time, the charter of demand by FLN reads: “Algerians, it is your duty to save your country and restore its liberty” [07:43]. The director successfully portrays that these children are an integral part of the struggle, and we see that they are present in at least all the major scenes in the film either supporting the FLN gorillas or playing their aid.     

Further critical analysis suggests that this short but abrupt start depicts multifarious layers of feelings and relays subtle messages for the viewer to create their own meaning out of what they see. The camera movement is slow, avoids close-ups, and mixes this scene with that of a documentary like haphazardness to offer us a mixture of feeling that what we see is not a film but probably a depiction of some real life events and the little children shown in tattered clothes, though so innocent, would be affected by the horrible reality of life: The struggle of freedom would ask them to discard their innocence. Similarly, the long, documentary-like lenses to capture the Algiers physical setting (streets, alleys, stairs, houses, the French quarters, etc.) are combined with a very similar focus on a number of fighting, shooting, and raiding scenes to produce an effect of a documentary made by someone present there in all the mayhem. Quite a few scenes of this seemingly documentary-like film show women and children taking active part in the struggle for independence. They help the rebels by being informers, vocalists, spies, and practical fighters losing their innocence in the process.

For example, when Ali is approached by a teenage child to relay the first FLN message, there are many younger children (of different ages) focused and sharply contrasted with this boy. The message is quite clear: As soon as the children start to think and act sanely, they will become part of this resistance thus leaving aside the most important aspect of their life, innocence.

            More importantly, the light in the film uses high contrasts. Being a black and white film, this sharp contrasting between black and white is helpful for Pontecorvo to add the psychological dimensions of a situation (a gorilla attack or a reaction by the French paratroopers), and, oftentimes, complicated scenes take place in the dark to arouse the deeply striking psychological feel of the film. For example, the scene almost at the middle of the film, in which Ben M’Hidi explains the aims and phases of their struggles to Ali, is captured is stark darkness that takes the viewer to sway with the intensity of the struggles and the extreme sensitivity it holds for the two leaders and the people of Algiers in common. This is quite surprising to note that female freedom fighters are almost exclusively shown in the white light as opposed to their male counterparts mostly captured in dark shades, and children often in miserable conditions, torn clothes, but tied to the cause. Maybe, we are told that the two parts of life are put together to achieve a purpose.

            The most complicated scene in which Pontecorvo has undoubtedly asked the same question (whether women and children are innocent or guilty or whether they pay the price for something done by others related to them) is intensely visible when the three FLN member women disguise as French citizens and move into the French quarters with bombs in their baskets. Though the entry of Algerian laborers is barricaded and a search is diligently done by the guarding soldiers, these three women bypass the body and document search simply because they are disguised as French women. More lenience is shown toward the woman with a child.

Here the role of the sounds in the film must be commented as it seems to go parallel with the basic focus on highlighting the psychological effects of what is going on out there as innocence is shaded with guilt. To depict this, sounds are added from slow, fast, to hysterical beats in which different instruments from drums to human chanting add to a particular scene’s feeling on the viewer. Thus, in this scene, fast, feverish drumming sound remains throughout this scene as the three females prepare to play their part in the struggle up to the bombings that eventually occur. This certainly keeps the viewer jaw-struck thinking they might be captured: The viewer hypnotically follows the entire scene with complete submission to the director. Likewise, sounds explain the scenes to the audience. When there is no sound it has its own significance as it arouses deep suspense in the viewer.

One of the three women has a child to protect her identity. More importantly, Pontecorvo cleverly focuses on the innocent women and children on both sides. For example, the Algerian woman who plants the first bomb in the café shows us through her eyes the innocence of the common French citizens and particularly a little child on whom Pontecorvo places the camera for a while relays significant messages for us to compare the innocence and/or guilt on both sides. Since the scene moved me so much, I couldn’t help but present the screen captures of that child in the film here:

Now, we must revisit the first bombing in the film that was carried out by some French police officials to kill a suspected member of FLN. This explosion leaves a number of innocent civilians dead including men, women, and children of all ages. Their bodies in crippled forms are still in our memory as we compare this cute child being killed just in a matter of seconds. Certainly Pontecorvo is asking of all of us what we, as human beings, done to innocence. We also ask if the explosions by FLN activists would have taken place at all had it not been the first attempt from the French camp. The juxtaposition of civilians from both sides is artistically done to show us how complicated this relations between innocence and guilt is.

Similarly, when the last of the three explosion hits the race course, the French people running wild around capture the young Algerian boy selling candies in the race course. We are convinced that the crowd would beat him to death because their pain of losing their children and loved ones is so intense that the binaries of nationalism are forcing them to avenge their blood. Their instinct fails to see (as Pontecorvo again shows us) the other as innocent or guilty; it only wants revenge, blood for blood.

Overall, by drawing these strikingly painful comparisons of the acts of violence by both the sides, Pontecorvo invites us to debate the part violence has historically played in the struggle of oppression and freedom. Pontecorvo shows us that the side effects include innocent blood on both sides whether or not women and children take part in the struggle to kills each other. I personally believe that though we have moved into a time beyond postmodernism, I do not think such debates of sensitivity to innocent blood has done any good because a number of critics today ask the same questions of the deaths taking place at this moment in regions like Iraq and Afghanistan in the aftermath of the lives we lost on 9/11.

Pontecorvo tried to justify the element of violence through the words of Ben M’Hidi who says to Ali that terror attacks can serve for useful starting points but at the end the importance is of organizing the populations to order:

...wars cannot be won with terror attacks. Neither wars, nor revolutions. Terrorism is useful for starting a process, but afterwards the whole population has to act. [1:07:30-43].

This point may be of great importance, but personally my interpretation of the role of women and children in this film is that innocence remains at its place when other environmental forces go in balance. Once the balance is out, the boundaries between innocence and guilt can very easily blur on both sides. Since the same attitude has continued into our modern time, it is worth asking if we have done anything intangible to address the great loss innocence has suffered at the hands of humans around the world.

Book Review – Teach yourself VISUALLY Search Engine Optimization (2013). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

 

Rafiq Elmansy (www.rafiqelmansy.com), a globally renowned designer, author, blogger, and search engine optimization (SEO) consultant, has come a long way with his recent book: Teach yourself VISUALLY Search Engine Optimization: the Fast and Easy Way to Learn.

SEO is an exhaustive concept that includes employing effective techniques and methods to drive more traffic to your blog, fan page, or a website by increasing its rank and visibility in search results. The book is certainly one of the best resources on SEO available in the market today. 

Rafiq demystifies SEO techniques and methods by teaching you nearly everything that can be counted as the best SEO practices. What’s more? Almost all the resources referred to in the book are available for free!

Divided into 14 chapters, the book teaches through step-by-step, visually illustrated tasks that make learning a fast, easy, and practical experience for the reader:

 

Chapter 1, Understanding SEO process, discuses succinct concepts about SEO techniques and major search engines. Chapter 2, Preparing your website for SEO, and 3, Building an SEO-friendly website, are probably the most important stopovers in the entire book since here you learn the fundamentals of a good website: how to choose a good web hosting service, create a Privacy Policy page (in seconds!), check browser compatibility, plan an optimized website, build an .htaccess file, and work with 301 redirect, among many other techniques.

The W3C Markup Validation tool provided here assists you to effectively track and correct any errors in your website’s HTML code. Remember, results-oriented SEO starts from an error-free webpage that is regularly crawled by search engine robots.

Chapter 4, Mastering keywords, teaches you almost everything about keywords and lets you experiment with such valuable online resources as Bing Search, YouTube Keyword Tool, Yahoo Clues, etc.

Chapter 5, Building on-page SEO, is about how to create an HTML document, work with meta tags, optimize your images, improve your website’s loading time, and so forth. Chapter 6, Building off-page SEO, deals with many areas that one needs to work off-page: backlinks, traffic comparison, submitting links to a directory, and a press release. Next Chapter, Working with content, takes you to quite a few online resources to develop compelling content for your website – content is king!

Chapter 8 and 9, Working with Google Analytics and Using search engine webmaster tools cover all the relevant walkthroughs in traffic analyses and webmaster controls. If you’ve done all the tasks up to here, you will undeniably feel that you’re becoming an expert in SEO. Trust me.

Chapter 10, Working with social media and SEO, is remarkably appealing since here you will learn how to effectively market your webpage or blog through Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter, and manage all the accounts with the free tool, HootSuite.

The next three chapters cover key areas like AdWords campaign, Wordpress, and earning from your website’s SEO ranking. If you’re a big company, you will find the last chapter quite helpful in how to employ an SEO team to manage your online presence.

Eventually, with so much to offer, the book is for everyone: an individual looking for better social networking, a novice blogger, or an expert Internet marketer.

 

Good Academic Writing Is Like a Beautiful Face

Do you write as beautifully as a human face?

Good academic writing is as inspiring and refreshing as a human face. Human face is most probably one of the most proportionately beautiful creation of the Creator.

Good academic writing can be seen in the light of a human face that inspires, refreshes, and motivates us to move in the direction of perfection.

Take for example the human face without any cosmetics being used. What we have is equally distributed features from skull to the chin. We cannot deny the fact that including the brain and the eyes, most of human capabilities are found within the area of the face.

Good academic writing is essentially analogous to this beautifully created part of human body. Yes.

To further define my analogy, I would break down an academic work into its integral or required parts.

An academic work such as a research dissertation or a term paper consists of the most important portion called the abstract, executive summary, or thesis statement (yes, it is only in the few first line that the reader has to decide whether your effort is worth going through or not!).

It has to be carefully crafted. It does not need lofty language expression; does a human head look anything different from a human head? Absolutely not. More than the words, what counts is the clarity of your thought that ensures the work attracts attention. Good words are just like a good hair-dye and a hairstyle.

Next comes the body of your research work. It contains different chapters, sections, and paragraphs. Each one of it is proportionally connected to the other parts and contributes to the whole picture. From A to Z, from starting paragraph to the conclusion, each part has to fit in well just like the eyes, ears, nose, the lips and other minute facial features.

Unless each part is carefully crafted and garnished, it is difficult for the whole picture to emerge as something inspiring.

Other than language and its mechanics, it is important that the writer has the clarity in the thought they're trying to present. Clarity of thoughts alone makes up for the major part of your picture.

Most of the writers, contrarily and wrongly, try to beautify their writing with sophisticated words, expressions coupled with complex grammatical structure when their thought lacks clarity.

Once your thought is clear, your chapters, passages, paragraphs, and sentences connect to each other logically from the beginning to the end without requiring you to put any unnecessary efforts to cloud it with anything like not so common vocabulary.

Clarity of thought comes from the smaller parts just like the parts of a human face that has subtle details for the eyes, nose, eyebrows, lips, cheeks and what not.

The human face tells us that there it is created with so much at the background.

Thus, you need to clearly understand why you're doing what you're doing. It is always a better way to ask the three basic questions while doing any single activity on your academic writing: (i) what, (ii) why, and (iii) how.

Trust me once you've learned to address these three WHs above, you'll get clarity of the thought which would help you a great deal in forming the beautiful face of your work.

Last comes the role of cosmetics. What do cosmetics do to a human face? These are different substances used to care the human face - in simple terms cosmetics help enhance the beauty of the face.

Just like cosmetics, your presentation of your work enhances its overall appearance. It includes everything from typeface to line spacing, from margins to indentations, and so on.

As they say, the best cosmetics are the simplest ones. You must follow the simplest possible strategy toward your presentation. Simplicity is the best cosmetics. Choose most common formats for presenting your work

With clear thoughts you paint a beautiful picture; with good presentation you embellish the face of your research work that has every part defined with great and careful details.

Freelance Academic Writer or a Company?

If you're looking for hiring a freelance writer to handle your writing project, you should make sure that the writer you're dealing with is legitimate, reliable, honest, and qualified.

These four attributes are a MUST for any business transaction whether with individuals or with companies.

However, when it comes to freelance writing, things can turn both highly beneficial or badly disappointing because of its inherent strengths and downsides in today's digital world.

The most basic question is how to find a freelance writer in the first place? There are quite a few virtual marketplaces (agencies) like oDesk, Elance, GetAFreelancer, GetACoder, and writing companies where you can work with individual writers.

I cannot name any academic writing companies here because I do not want to sound connected to any of the companies. Secondly, online scam companies are growing in number as much as freelance writers; thus, I better not mention any.

Before we can move any further, I should ask you a primary question: Why on earth hire a freelance writer?

The answer is quite straightforward. Freelance writers have their own strengths that are not present with a big company.

Some of the strengths are:

• Personal contact, communication, and collaboration between you and the writer.
• Smaller projects for quicker turnaround time.
• You don't need a business strategy to outsource your work.
• Good for limited budget projects.
• Timely response

Though agencies and big companies may be well-known in their market niche, it is not difficult to understand that their writers also work as freelance writers.

Outsourcing your work to a company or agency keeps you from directly contacting to their writers because of such obvious reasons as concealing the commission earnings. This puts you at a distance from your writer and all you do is wait for a response from them. Company-mediated communication (mostly via the email) is full of semantic noise, barriers, and flaws.

Sometimes, this results in acute frustration for both the writer and you.

When you outsource your work to a freelance writer, you have every liberty to communicate with them: Email, Skype, phone, or any other means - you name it.

Almost ALL the companies, agencies, and related entities over the Internet require that you pay the complete project price upfront. Though you pay them in one-go, they do not and cannot guarantee to deliver most satisfactory work. In such a case you end up asking a writer (in case of a legit company) for multiple revisions!

Most of my clients hire me for these reasons.

If you google for companies and writers, you'll find countless results that lead to in the middle of nowhere. However, there still are place over the net that can help you find legitimate freelance writers who are also qualified (obviously many other people working in the same field.

• Once you shortlist a few writers (remember to do a prior research beforehand), ask each of them to provide you with an outline and or synopsis of your work.
• Follow the same precautionary steps I mentioned in my previous post.
• Soon will the things start making sense to you about who is the one you'd like to outsource your project to.
• Always follow an installment plan for paying the writer only after you receive the installments of your work.
• Always run similarity-index check on the pieces you receive.
• Pay only through a reliable and secure means.
• Be quick to ask for any revision, adjustments, or corrections on the pieces of your work.

With these steps, I am very hopeful that you'll get your work done satisfactorily without being scammed and frustrated.

Good luck!

Essay Writing Scam - the Do's and Don't's (Internet Companies)

This post covers the present-day scam trends in the essay writing industry. It also offers a few effective steps to avoid scam in the first place to save you money, time, and stress.

The most common form of scam has already been discussed in the previous post. This is a continuation of the same.

Here, I will cover the companies. In the next post, I will talk about freelance writers.

Today, as more and more people have access to the internet and communication technologies, business becomes riskier even though there are certain filters applied both at the physical and virtual level of all the transactions taking place over the WWW.

One reason for this growing fluidity  and porousness is the lack of global jurisdiction.

Therefore, today, it is more a matter of individual scrutiny and personal safety measures that one can take to avoid any possibility of being scammed. Within essay writing industry, there are certain Do's and Don't's that can safe you from a lot of unwanted stress.


DO's in the essay writing industry

1- Always do your research before hiring a writer or a company.

2- Google the name or brand by adding 'scam' to the term or name.

3- Always check the credibility of the website that returns results of some company you're looking for. Do not just think upfront that some company is a scam only because it has an unhappy customer. You need to dig deeper.

4- Do a WHOis record check to find out the registrant's address, age of the domain, and hosting server. It will give you a good idea of the company's physical presence. It will also help you verify facts presented on their website.

For instance, you can cross-check their claims (if any) with their domain age: We've been in business since 1999 versus Domain registration data 2008!

5- Try to read carefully the webcopy on the company's website. Does it really look professional? What about the overall look of the webpage?

6- If you're satisfied with these initial research, ALWAYS directly talk to the support via phone. Use a public phone if you don't want to leave your personal number with them. Talk to them, find out if they really sound LIKE a company.

Doing the DON'T's in the essay writing industry

1- If you're doing business with a company for the first time, NEVER reveal your institutional, personal, and other information that may be sensitive. Yes, playing safe is ALWAYS important in life especially over the internet. Personally identifiable information and its security are now becoming global phenomena.

2- Do NOT order a BIG paper, project, or task on the first go. Always start with a smaller paper. This will give you a better idea about the overall business model of that company.

If they are a scam company, their first product will show poor quality in terms of writing, research, formatting, citation style, and so on. Who knows, you may end up receiving a completely plagiarized paper altogether.

However, a legitimate company will provide a product par excellence.

3- DO NOT hesitate to ask the support of the company to keep you in contact with your writer. Knowing your writer PERSONALLY is always good for effective communication and better results.

4- Do NOT hesitate to ask for revisions or any other adjustments that you may find necessary to be done. Remember, you're evaluating the company on the way of becoming their loyal client.

ALWAYS keep in mind that all that glitters is not gold.

If you carry out these steps, I am sure you'll soon understand the differences between a reliable and scam essay writing companies.

Should you need any further assistance, please do not hesitate  to reach me. I would be happy to respond to your queries.

Happy writing!