The EU’s focus for 2014: European Year for Reconciling Work and Family Life

Paragraph brainstorming






Original paragraph

The “European Year for Reconciling Work and Family Life“ is a campaign brought into being by COFACE (The Confederation of Family Organisations in the European Union) and is supported by the European Parliament itself. It puts the main emphasis on supporting families, how to make having a family and a job more compatible and gender equality. The latter is seen as the key to a successfully converted work-life-balance because it allows women to lead a working life as successful and well-paid as men do. As a result, women’s lives become more flexible and time-arrangements are easier to keep. The confederation understands devices such as care services, satisfactory wages, job security and working conditions which acknowledge family life as being the basis to a financially secure family life. Through this campaign, COFACE wants to promote family friendly policies within all of the member states of the European Union. While this year’s campaign exclusively revolves around families, it is also closely related to 2010’s focus The  European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion and 2012’s The European Year of Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations. Consequently, the confederation hopes to be able to directly follow these campaigns.

                                                                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                                                             (196 words)


Feedback and reflection from class this week 

Since I was absent from last week's class, I was only given feedback on my paragraph in this week's class. Although my classmates were fine with the paragraph's topic sentence and register, they agreed on me using the word "campaign" way too often. As far as vocabulary in general is concerned, they found that it is suitable for the topic.


Final version of the paragraph


The “European Year for Reconciling Work and Family Life“ is a campaign brought into being by COFACE (The Confederation of Family Organisations in the European Union) and is supported by the European Parliament itself. It puts the main emphasis on supporting families, how to make having a family and a job more compatible and gender equality. The latter is seen as the key to a successfully converted work-life-balance because it allows women to lead a working life as successfully and well-paid as men. As a result, women’s lives become more flexible and time-arrangements are easier to keep. The confederation understands devices such as care services, satisfactory wages, job security and working conditions which acknowledge family life as being the basis for a financially secure family life. Through this campaign, COFACE wants to promote family friendly policies within all of the member states of the European Union. While this year’s project exclusively revolves around families, it is also closely related to 2010’s focus The European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion and 2012’s The European Year of Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations. Consequently, the confederation hopes to be able to directly follow these initiatives.

(196 words)

 

Second final version of the paragraph

The “European Year for Reconciling Work and Family Life” is part of the “European Year” campaign brought into being by the EU. The campaign is led on many fronts by The Confederation of Family Organisations in the European Union (COFACE) and is supported by the European Parliament. It puts the main emphasis of its efforts on supporting families, reconciling work and family life, and gender equality. The latter is seen as the key to a successful work-life-balance because it allows women to lead a working life as successfully and well-paid as men. This results in women’s lives becoming more flexible and makes it easier to keep appointments. The confederation is convinced that care services, satisfactory wages, job security and working conditions which acknowledge family life are the basis for a financially secure family life. Through the EU’s focus for 2014, COFACE wants to promote family friendly policies within all of the member states of the European Union. While this year’s project exclusively revolves around families, it is also closely related to 2010’s focus The European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion and 2012’s The European Year of Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations. The confederation hopes to be able to directly follow the success of last year’s campaign.

(209 words)

 

 

 

Suggestions for academic papers - 5 EU topics worth writing about

Interpreters working for the EU

I’m sure that many of us dream about being an interpreter for the EU as it certainly is a thrilling but also very challenging job. In doing so, it would be advisable to know more about it: What are the requirements for getting such a demanding job? Which languages are most in demand? How do interpreters cope with the time pressure at press conferences and what happens if they make a mistake?

Erasmus

Erasmus is an EU program that enables more than 200000 students every year to spend some time in another EU country. As I would like to go on Erasmus, I figured that getting in on it a bit more certainly wouldn’t hurtJ  Although I really look forward to a semester abroad, I think that I’m not the only one who is a bit deterred by the enormous amounts of bureaucracy stuff you have to fill in. So I think that we could all use some information about that.

Refugees in the EU

When asylum seekers try to cross into the European Union, they know they are putting their lives at risk. Yet thousands of African refugees are stranded somewhere on the European coasts, not knowing if there will be enough compassion for them to be admitted to the European Union. Keyword Lampedusa: How is the EU helping refugees?

Identification with the EU

When I sometimes ride on a bus and I hear people talking about various current events including whether or not Austria should resign its EU membership, I wonder if Austrians identify with the EU at all. I guess that a lot of people in Austria can’t really see the advantages from which they benefit through living in the EU. I think it would be interesting to hear what’s stopping them to do so and how inhabitants of other EU countries feel about living in this European community.

Health care in the EU

Even though it’s an interesting topic, I barely know what the European Union does in terms of health care, because it’s not really something that is in the news on a daily basis. I know that the EU offers its citizens the European Health Insurance Card, but to get beyond that further research would have to be done – best to be done so in an academic paperJ