Business English Part 51

(2) To buy to the best advantage; for example, (_x_) In advertised bargain sales.

(_b_) It reduces the cost of production and the selling expense, thus tending to lower the price.

(1) By increasing sales, it reduces the cost per article.

(_x_) Maximum purchasing power means minimum cost to the manufacturer.

(2) In taking the place of salesmen, it reduces expenses, thus lowering the price; for example, (_x_) In mail order firms.

(3) Therefore the advertising expense is unimportant in influencing a higher price.

IV. The most marked price advances have been in the unadvertised necessaries of life.

(_a_) In breadstuffs.

(1) Less in quant.i.ty for higher prices than formerly.

(_b_) In meats and poultry.

(1) An advance of from 25 per cent to 100 per cent and more.

(_c_) In b.u.t.ter and eggs.

(1) An advance similar to that shown in meats and poultry.

=Exercise 153--Additional Subjects for Debates=

1. The wages of women should be the same as those of men in the same occupation.

2. The government should grant old age pensions.

3. Employers should be liable for the life and health of employees.

4. The boycott is a legitimate method of obtaining employees' demands.

5. National expositions do not benefit the cities in which they are held.

6. Railroad combination lowers rates.

7. Piece-work should be prohibited by law.

8. National party lines should be discarded in munic.i.p.al elections.

9. City governments should be allowed to decide their problems without intervention of the state legislature.

10. Munic.i.p.al offices should be appointive and not elective.

11. The commission form of government is best for large cities.

12. Immigration is the cause of munic.i.p.al evils.

13. A personal property tax cannot be levied with fairness.

14. The United States should not further extend its colonial dependencies.

15. The President should be elected by a direct vote of the people.

16. Ex-presidents of the United States should become life members of the Senate.

17. The President and the Vice-President should be prohibited from taking part in political campaigns.

18. The United States should subsidize a merchant marine.

19. Foreign-built ships, owned by Americans, should be granted the privilege of American register.

20. The governors of states should not have the power to pardon.

21. A three-fourths vote of a jury should be sufficient to render a verdict in criminal cases.

22. The coast defenses of the United States should be increased.

23. The farmer is to blame for the high prices.

24. The results of Arctic explorations have not justified the cost.

CHAPTER XI

CHOOSING SUBJECTS

IN Chapter X definite subjects were a.s.signed for talks. Getting a subject for yourself sometimes seems difficult; you are likely to think that there is no topic upon which you can say more than a few sentences.

Isn't it true that when you are talking to your friends you seldom are at a loss for something to say? Of course, what your companion says often suggests an idea on which you give your opinion. You speak about things that interest you, and the words come fairly easily. Why not apply the same principle to more formal composition, whether oral or written? Unless a subject interests you, do not use it. But be careful that you do not reject it as uninteresting until you have thought about it carefully, considering it from all sides. Often one subject will suggest another akin to it, but more interesting to you because you know more about it. For this reason choose very simple subjects, and become thoroughly familiar with them by thinking or reading about them, before you attempt to explain them.

Sometimes, again, you will find that the subject you have chosen is not good because it is not definite enough. You hardly know where or how to begin to explain it, because it suggests no definite ideas. Perhaps, for instance, you have decided to write on the automobile and can think of nothing to say until you remember that you once saw an automobile race about which you can tell several interesting details; or you have seen an automobile accident and can write on the topic _A Runaway Electric_.

If you can speak or write on a topic taken from your own observation, your composition will probably be good. You know the facts, you have an interest in the subject, and you will very likely say something of interest to others. Subjects taken from school life or neighborhood happenings, especially such things as you yourself have seen, are excellent. Perhaps on your way to school you noticed that several old houses are being torn down. You remember that you heard that a candy factory is to be erected. At once several suggestions for themes will come to you; as, _Why the Factory is Being Erected in this Neighborhood_, _How Neighborhoods Change in a Large City_, _The Work the Wrecking Company Carries on_. Perhaps your father owns property in the neighborhood, and you could write on _How Real Estate Values have Changed in this Neighborhood_.

Next to your own experience, the best source from which to draw subjects is your reading. This may be divided into (1) books, (2) magazines and newspapers. Recall one of the books that you read in the grammar grades, perhaps _The Courtship of Miles Standish_. Drawing your material from this source, you can write _A Picture of Early Plymouth Days_, or a sketch of Miles Standish's character, using the t.i.tle _Practice What You Preach_. But to try to tell the whole story to any one in two or three minutes would result in failure, for it would be a subject entirely too big to treat in so short a time. All the interesting details would have to be omitted, and, if the details are omitted, the story loses its vitality.

It is the newspaper or the magazine, however, that offers us the most available source of subjects. Practically all that we know of the modern world and of the wonderful progress being made in invention and discovery, as well as of the accidents and disasters that take place, we have learned first from the newspaper and have verified later by the articles in magazines. Every issue of a newspaper or of a magazine contains suggestions for many subjects. Such magazines as _The World's Work_, _System_, _The Outlook_, _The Technical World_, and other magazines that deal with technical subjects in a popular way are excellent for this work.

A third important source of subjects is the studies that you are now pursuing. Every new study affords a new point of view, which should suggest many topics for oral and written themes. Sometimes a good subject is the comparison of two of your studies by which you try to show, perhaps, how the one depends on the other.

The subject, of course, is but the beginning of the composition.

Developing the subject is fully as important as having a subject to develop. The ability to develop a subject clearly is very important in the business world. A business man sells his goods either by talking or by writing; by the salesman or by the letter and the advertis.e.m.e.nt.

Unless the salesman talks in a convincing way, he probably will sell few goods. He must know not only what to say, but how to say it.

=Exercise 154--The Subject as a Whole=

First, you must see your subject in its entirety, as one thing. Ask yourself, "Just what does my t.i.tle mean?" and if you have not as yet selected a t.i.tle, study your subject from all sides until you can see how to narrow it to certain definite dimensions. Now you have set a sort of fence around your subject. Nothing outside must enter, but nothing inside must escape. The length of the composition you are to write usually helps you decide on the limits of your subject. If you are writing a book on Africa, you might include all that the t.i.tle suggests to you of exploration, colonization, civilization, and Christianization.

But if you are writing a very short theme--not over three pages--it is evident that the subject must be narrowed. Would _The Transvaal_ be good? _The Jungles of Africa?_ _Roosevelt in Africa?_ _African Mission Stations?_ _When I think of Africa I think of Stanley?_

Which of the following subjects would be good for short compositions, either oral or written? The oral theme should occupy two or three minutes, the written perhaps three pages. What is the objection to a one word subject?

1. Manufacturing. 11. The dead letter office.