In Animal Farm, what does the alteration of the first commandment mean?

The First Commandment reads, "Whatever goes on two legs is the enemy."  At the end of the novel, the pigs begin walking on two legs.  Therefore the commandment must be changed in their favour. 

In the course of the novel, the commandments are amended to and changed without the consent of the populace.  Generally, an animal will go to the barn wall to check what the commandment says and find it altered.  This shows that someone (the pigs) are in power and that they have the power to change what was once considered by the whole of the Animal Farm to be unalterable and agreed upon by all.

At the end of the novel, only one commandment is there and it says, "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."  At the end of the day, all animals are equal but the pigs are 'more' equal.  This is the best example of 'double speak' available.  The less intelligent animals will not think to question this idea.  But in effect, in equality is inequality and the animals are in the same state as they were with Mr. Jones.  The pigs are the new aristocracy.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of computers?

Disadvantage

1. It destroys your social life and interactions with humans if you do not maintain the balance.
2. It may effect to the destruction of your eye sight due to radiation.
3. It may cause pimples and wrinkles.
4. It may damage your studies and life.
5. Too much time in front of monitor may adverse effect your eye sight and can also make you fat.
6. The way it distracts and can deviate our thoughts and activities towards unproductive activities.
7. It could cause violation of privacy, impact on labor force, health risks, impact on environment, distraction from work, and possible antisocial influences.
8. getting away from their real life and getting into bad lines

ADVANTAGES

1. It helps you automate various tasks that you can not do manually.
2. It helps you organize your data and information in a better way.
3. It has much more computing and calculating power then an ordinary human.
4. It may help your work to be a lot easier.
5. It may be the storage of your important data and files.
6. It may be your handy book.
7. It may help you solve problems faster than an ordinary human being can do.
8. It has speed, storage, reliability, consistency and communications.
9. It helps you to find useful information using the Internet.
10. It helps in businesses, factories, offices, schools and homes.

How and why is Piggy considered by the others to be an outsider?

Piggy is an outsider for many reasons. His health is one. Boys like Ralph are strong and healthy. They are confident in their ability to act. By contrast, Piggy is fat and has asthma. He wears glasses, and his mom has been very protective of him, making him hesitant to act. However, he's also an outsider because he is fundamentally an intellectual. He lives in his mind, while the other boys in their bodies or the community. That makes him seem weird to them.

In Night, what is ironic about the prisoners' feelings about air raids? And explain their attitudes towards death.Chapter 4

The prisoners' attitudes about the air raid are very flippant- they don't really notice, nor do they care. The guards and took refuge in the bomb shelters and left the prisoners on the blocks, not so safely secured, but that was not the prisoner's primary concern. Death was so tangible to all the prisoners at this point that air raid warnings and aerial bomb attacks were welcome interruptions. The prisoners didn't mind dying if it meant that their enemies were going to be hit as well, not to mention that death would end the torturous suffering they had to endure. When it is said that the factory in which Elie's own father is working is being bombed at that moment he remarks,

"we no longer feared death, in any event this particular death. Every bomb that hit filled is with joy, gave us renewed confidence."

When the air raid bomb went off in Chapter 4 the prisoners' concern was not with safety but with two steaming cauldrons of soup that had been left out. Hunger was a more primary instinctual concern than surviving a possible aerial bomb attack, especially since it could mean that the end of the war and suffering of the Jews was close to coming to an end.

What are the structural elements and processes of an essay?

An essay is usually a non-fiction prose piece of writing that is persuasive in nature, in that it attempts to establish credibility in its author: its voice and message attempt to move its audience to a change in action or thought.

The structure of an essay depends on the type, but it usually is written in first or third person, and, according to Toulmin, it can be broken down into these parts:

Data: The facts or evidence used to prove the argument

Claim: The statement being argued (a thesis)

Warrants: The general, hypothetical (and often implicit) logical statements that serve as bridges between the

claim and the data.

Qualifiers: Statements that limit the strength of the argument or statements that propose the conditions under

which the argument is true.

Rebuttals: Counter-arguments or statements indicating circumstances when the general argument does not hold true.

Backing: Statements that serve to support the warrants (i.e., arguments that don't necessarily prove the main point being argued, but which do prove the warrants are true.)

In terms of process, Aldous Huxley advocates an abstract-universal type of appeal:

"essays belong to a literary species whose extreme variability can be studied most effectively within a three-poled frame of reference".

The three poles are:

• Personal and the autobiographical essays: these use "fragments of reflective autobiography" to "look at the world through the keyhole of anecdote and description".

• Objective and factual: in these essays, the authors "do not speak directly of themselves, but turn their attention outward to some literary or scientific or political theme".

• Abstract-universal: these essays "make the best...of all the three worlds in which it is possible for the essay to exist".

What was Maupassant's main purpose for writing "The Necklace"? What was he trying to show the reader?

The author was to show the difference between something real and false, and how our behavior can be affected by our misperception between the two, just as the protagonist's whole life is changed by mistaking false jewels for real. He also wanted to criticize vanity, especially the kind associated with wealth and materialism. To go beyond your means to look pretty, to be excessively concerned about how others perceive you—a perception based on expensive jewelry (in this story) or (in real life) designer jeans or Prada boots, diminishes your own sense of worth, which should be built on character, not what you wear or how you look.

What is the difference between writing a letter and an expository or a persuasive essasy?trying to study for the WASL. recognize how to write...

It all depends on audience and the type of letter or essay.  A letter to a familiar audience is much different than an expository essay, but a formal letter to an unknown audience will not differ greatly.

1.  Informal Letter vs. Expository Essay: a familiar letter is much more intimate in voice than an expository essay.  A writer of an informal letter to a familiar audience uses "sweet style": 2nd person, colloquial language, casual diction, perhaps humor.  It is likely filled with pathos, emotional language--perhaps laced with passionate love.  It is non-academic and has no formal claim or grounds with which to influence or change the audience's position.

2.  Formal Letter vs. Expository Essay: these may both be "stuffy" in style, which means they have theses (claims and grounds used to persuade).  This type of writing is academic and formal, highly organized (topic sentences, quotes, examples), and it relies on formal diction (3rd person).  It is likely filled with logos, logical and objective argumentation.  This is the language of academic discourse (high school and college).  Even though it is a letter, its purposes may be very similar to an essay.  Many "open letters" are meant to persuade a wide audience.