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Life
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What is Life?

Life as an academic topic appears across nearly every discipline because it touches the fundamental conditions of human existence — how individuals develop, make choices, navigate systems, and find meaning. In personal issues courses, sociology, nursing, literature, and ethics, students are asked to examine what shapes lived experience and how institutions, relationships, and culture either support or constrain individual ability. The topic resists easy definition, which is precisely what makes it intellectually rich: it forces writers to clarify terms, interrogate assumptions, and connect abstract concepts to concrete human realities.

The papers archived here reflect a genuinely wide range of approaches. Literary analysis appears in essays on works such as Bernice Morgan's fiction and Bessie Head's "The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses," where writers examine how characters construct identity, belonging, and personal freedom. Policy and ethical frameworks drive essays on abortion, DNR legislation, and prison overcrowding, while sociological and cultural analysis informs work on parenting styles, family therapy, and soccer hooliganism. Observational and practice-based writing — such as operating room reflections and evidence-based nursing — grounds the topic in professional experience, showing how the concept of life plays out in direct care and institutional settings.

A strong essay on this topic begins with a focused, arguable thesis rather than a broad statement about life in general. Evidence drawn from specific texts, case studies, policy documents, or observed practice carries far more weight than vague generalization. The most common pitfall is treating "life" as self-evident — a compelling essay defines its scope early, specifying which dimension of individual experience or social process it actually intends to examine.

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Paper Undergraduate
SPSS analysis of smoking and mortality in a longitudinal study
On average, men who were alive 10 years after the study had reported smoking 10.39 cigarettes per day in 1958 compared to 13.69 cigarettes per day for men who were no longer alive 10 years past the study.
Paper Doctorate
Social class and utilitarianism in Dickens's Hard Times
In the novel, Hard Times for These Times a picture of the different social classes is portrayed by Charles Dickens. The novel is set in the Victorian era and the reader is introduced to many different characters that…
Paper Doctorate
Crime statistics and economic trends in Clark County, Nevada
Over the last several years Clark Country, Nevada has been through a tremendous amount of highs and lows. With the principal city (Las Vegas), experiencing massive boom and bust cycles.
Paper Doctorate
Enron's rise and fall: ethics and accounting in corporate fraud
¶ … 1985 Enron was born of a merger between Houston Natural Gas and Internorth, a Nebraska pipeline company. During the merger Enron subsequently incurred a large amount of debt in addition to losing exclusive rights to…
Paper Masters
Media relations and confidentiality in probation officer leadership
Learning to effectively deal with the media is a sensitive responsibility and not one that most probation officers will likely face under most situations but some criminal cases generate considerable public interest.
Paper Undergraduate
Positive emotions and resilience in Fredrickson's broaden-and-build theory
Fredrickson et al. (2003) used Barbara L. Fredrickson's (2003) broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, which states that positive emotions (i.e. enjoyment and happiness and, possibly, interest / anticipation)…
Paper Undergraduate
Technology integration in second language teaching and learning
The paper looks at the application of technology in teaching within the classroom setting. The particular field of concern here is teaching second language and how technology can be used to the advantage of the instructor and the students in this setting. Each technology mentioned there is an accompanying benefit to such a class.
Paper Doctorate
Effects of commercialization on NASA space travel and national security
There are a number of very important topics when speaking of NASA and its implications on daily life. For example, space weather (which includes solar storms and other magnetic disruptions) can wreak havoc on electrical grids, space satellites (including GPS) as well as flights from one airport to another. The new frontier of commercial spaceflight is also in play.
Paper Doctorate
Lincoln's burden of leadership at Gettysburg
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address has withstood the test of time and represents one of the great moral beacons for struggling democracies around the world. Designed primarily to comfort soldiers remaining in the fight and grieving families, by framing the sacrifices made as identical to those made by the soldiers and their families during the Revolutionary War, the speech also established freedom and equality as the primary motivations for continuing to prosecute the Civil War.
Essay Doctorate
Arthur Okun's "Big Tradeoff" between dollars and rights
This paper is about the first two chapters of Arthur Okun's book Equality and Efficiency. The questions relate to Okun's premise that there is an inherent conflict between inalienable rights and dollars. He argues that dollars transgress on rights, and that this is part of the tradeoff that must be made in a capitalist democracy.