A practical guide to Vonnegut's works for young adults, secondary, and college students Kurt Vonnegut was a prolific American writer whose career spanned more than 50 years. Vonnegut's world is a complex web. His books, short stories, and essays are among the gems of American literature, exploring themes of historical events and human limitations. Written for young adults through adulthood, the goal of Breaking Down Vonnegut is to relate essential facts about Kurt Vonnegut's life and to address the themes underlying his imaginary worlds. Breaking Down Vonnegut features an overview of Vonnegut's life and an investigation of the midwestern values that were challenged by his imprisonment by the Nazis during his wartime military service. Those themes, often cloaked in science fiction, historical parallels, and social science conundrums, address the major questions of life: the values by which we choose to live. Author Julia Whitehead is the founder and CEO of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library in Indianapolis. Her ten years of experience leading the organization and learning about Vonnegut impelled her to share her knowledge and insight with fans and those new to Vonnegut's life and work. Breaking Down Vonnegut Showcases the multiple genres in Vonnegut's world Provides a brief thematic tour through two of Vonnegut's books and one short story Offers three chapters of biographical information Explains why Kurt Vonnegut will remain one of the great American voices heard around the world This is the first book of its kind for middle and secondary students, and it will also delight educators, parents, and anyone interested in or studying Vonnegut's life and work.

Today Blake scholarship is experiencing a period of unprecedented variety and mutuality. These essays reflect the methodological cross-fertilisations now taking place in Blake scholarship and explore the range of debates and contentions generated by these encounters, embracing figurative, structural, and material readings of Blake's life and works.

You've got a good idea. You know it could make a crucial difference for you, your organization, your community. You present it to the group, but get confounding questions, inane comments, and verbal bullets in return. Before you know what's happened, your idea is dead, shot down. You're furious. Everyone has lost: Those who would have benefited from your proposal. You. Your company. Perhaps even the country. It doesn't have to be this way, maintain John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead. In Buy-In, they reveal how to win the support your idea needs to deliver valuable results. The key? Understand the generic attack strategies that naysayers and obfuscators deploy time and time again. Then engage these adversaries with tactics tailored to each strategy. By "inviting in the lions" to critique your idea--and being prepared for them--you'll capture busy people's attention, help them grasp your proposal's value, and secure their commitment to implementing the solution. The book presents a fresh and amusing fictional narrative showing attack strategies in action. It then provides several specific counterstrategies for each basic category the authors have defined--including: * Death-by-delay: Your enemies push discussion of your idea so far into the future it's forgotten. * Confusion: They present so much data that confidence in your proposal dies. * Fearmongering: Critics catalyze irrational anxieties about your idea. * Character assassination: They slam your reputation and credibility. Smart, practical, and filled with useful advice, Buy-In equips you to anticipate and combat attacks--so your good idea makes it through to make a positive change.

Over the last twenty years there has been a dramatic upsurge in the application of meta-analysis to medical research. This has mainly been due to greater emphasis on evidence-based medicine and the need for reliable summaries of the vast and expanding volume of clinical research. At the same time there have been great strides in the development and refinement of the associated statistical methodology. This book describes the planning, conduct and reporting of a meta-analysis as applied to a series of randomized controlled clinical trials.

• The various approaches are presented within a general unified framework.

• Meta-analysis techniques are described in detail, from their theoretical development through to practical implementation.

• Each topic discussed is supported by detailed worked examples.

• A comparison of fixed and random effects approaches is included, as well as a discussion of Bayesian methods and cumulative meta-analysis.

• Fully documented programs using standard statistical procedures in SAS are available on the Web.

Ideally suited for practising statisticians and statistically-minded medical professionals, the book will also be of use to graduate students of medical statistics. The book is a self-contained and comprehensive account of the subject and an essential purchase for anyone involved in clinical trials.