Writing center handbooks and travel guidebooks : redesigning instructional texts for multicultural, multilingual, and multinational contexts

In an increasingly interconnected world characterized by the accelerating interplay of cultural, linguistic, and national difference, the ability to negotiate that difference in an equitable and ethical manner is a crucial skill for both individuals and larger social groups. This dissertation, Writing Center Handbooks and Travel Guidebooks: Redesigning Instructional Texts for Multicultural, Multilingual, and Multinational Contexts, considers how instructional texts that ostensibly support the negotiation of difference (i.e., accepting and learning from difference) actually promote the management of difference (i.e., rejecting, assimilating, and erasing difference). As a corrective to this focus on managing difference, chapter two constructs a theoretical framework that facilitates the redesign of handbooks, guidebooks, and similar instructional texts. This framework centers on reflexive design practices and is informed by literacy theory (Gee; New London Group; Street), social learning theory (Wenger), globalization theory (Nederveen Pieterse), and composition theory (Canagarajah; Horner and Trimbur; Lu; Matsuda; Pratt). By implementing reflexive design practices in the redesign of instructional texts, this dissertation argues that instructional texts can promote the negotiation of difference and a multicultural/multilingual sensibility that accounts for twenty-first century linguistic and cultural realities. Informed by the theoretical framework of chapter two, chapters three and four conduct a rhetorical analysis of two forms of instructional text that are representative of the larger genre: writing center coach handbooks and travel guidebooks to Hong Kong. This rhetorical analysis reveals how both forms of text employ rhetorical strategies that uphold dominant monolingual and monocultural assumptions. Alternative rhetorical strategies are then proposed that can be used to redesign these two forms of instructional texts in a manner that aligns with multicultural and multilingual assumptions. These chapters draw on the work of scholars in Writing Center Studies (Boquet and Lerner; Carino; DiPardo; Grimm; North; Severino) and Technical Communication (Barton and Barton; Dilger; Johnson; Kimball; Slack), respectively. Chapter five explores how the redesign of coach handbooks and travel guidebooks proposed in this dissertation can be conceptualized as a political act. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that instructional texts are powerful heuristic tools that can enact social change if they are redesigned to foster the negotiation of difference and to promote multicultural/multilingual world views.

Trying similarity, doing difference:The role of interviewer self-disclosure in interview talk with young people

Advocates of semi-structured interview techniques have often argued that rapport may be built, and power inequalities between interviewer and respondent counteracted, by strategic self-disclosure on the part of the interviewer. Strategies that use self-disclosure to construct similarity between interviewer and respondent rely on the presumption that the respondent will in fact interpret the interviewer's behaviour in this way. In this article we examine the role of interviewer self-disclosure using data drawn from three projects involving interviews with young people. We consider how an interviewer's attempts to ‘do similarity’ may be interpreted variously as displays of similarity or, ironically, as indicators of difference by the participant, and map the implications that this may have for subsequent interview dialogue. A particular object of concern relates to the ways in which self-disclosing acts may function in the negotiation of category entitlement within interview interactions.

Contrast enhancement of EPID images via difference imaging : a feasibility study

In this study, the feasibility of difference imaging for improving the contrast of electronic portal imaging device (EPID) images is investigated. The difference imaging technique consists of the acquisition of two EPID images (with and without the placement of an additional layer of attenuating medium on the surface of the EPID)and the subtraction of one of these images from the other. The resulting difference image shows improved contrast, compared to a standard EPID image, since it is generated by lower-energy photons. Results of this study show that, ¯rstly, this method can produce images exhibiting greater contrast than is seen in standard megavoltage EPID images and that, secondly, the optimal thickness of attenuating material for producing a maximum contrast enhancement may vary with phantom thickness and composition. Further studies of the possibilities and limitations of the di®erence imaging technique, and the physics behind it, are therefore recommended.

Getting value out of your sensory testing - the difference from control test

Non-parametric difference tests such as triangle and duo-trio tests traditionally are used to establish differences or similarities between products. However they only supply the researcher with partial answers and often further testing is required to establish the nature, size and direction of differences. This paper looks at the advantages of the difference from control (DFC) test (also known as degree of difference test) and discusses appropriate applications of the test. The scope and principle of the test, panel composition and analysis of results are presented with the aid of suitable examples. Two of the major uses of the DFC test are in quality control and shelf-life testing. The role DFC takes in these areas and the use of other tests to complement the testing is discussed. Controls or standards are important in both these areas and the use of standard products, mental and written standards and blind controls are highlighted. The DFC test has applications in products where the duo-trio and triangle tests cannot be used because of the normal heterogeneity of the product. While the DFC test is a simple difference test it can be structured to give the researcher more valuable data and scope to make informed decisions about their product.

Construction of Singer Subgroup Orbit Codes Based on Cyclic Difference Sets

A recent approach for the construction of constant dimension subspace codes, designed for error correction in random networks, is to consider the codes as orbits of suitable subgroups of the general linear group. In particular, a cyclic orbit code is the orbit of a cyclic subgroup. Hence a possible method to construct large cyclic orbit codes with a given minimum subspace distance is to select a subspace such that the orbit of the Singer subgroup satisfies the distance constraint. In this paper we propose a method where some basic properties of difference sets are employed to select such a subspace, thereby providing a systematic way of constructing cyclic orbit codes with specified parameters. We also present an explicit example of such a construction.

European urban spaces in crisis - the mapping of affective pracitices with Living with Difference: introduction

The introduction outlines the notion of urban space and crisis in Europe while taking into account the more recent protests and riots in different cities, in and beyond Europe. It is argued that the phenomen of protest is happening alongside the economic crisis underscoring an alternative political public civic spirit expressing to a certain degree the renaissance and timely making of, what might be called in the digital age, #œuvre. Its forces and emotional properties capture a political realm that unfolds as a globalized urban transnational public space, still progressing. Further, it introduces the collection of papers for the special themed feature. Five papers look at affective practices through a Continental European lens, which places the meaning of race, migration and intersecting identity angles at the centre of debates of individual encounters in public spaces. The final and sixth paper, written by Brenda Yeoh, looks through a Singapore/East Asia lens, and comments on the common European threats as well as on the historical specificity and implications of distinctive geo-political spaces for affective practices.

Visible Difference, Stigmatising Language(s) and the Distinctive Construction of Prejudices against Others in Leeds and Warsaw

The chapter argues that language and cultural communication matter in a transnational world and that the transmission of prejudices against minorities has to be closely analysed while contextualising national histories with minorities. Looking at two spatial sites (Leeds and Warsaw) and analysing interview material that was drawn from a larger study, the authors discuss the way local people address difference particularly through the axes of gendered ethnicity (Muslim men) and gendered class (male underclass). It explores how the same categories of difference are discursively produced in Poland and the UK/ England; to what degree they differ or overlap.

The effects of improved strength on obstacle negotiation in community-living older adults

Poor mobility has been associated with age-related deterioration in muscle strength. While previous work has examined the effects of improved strength on level walking, we have quantified the effects of a resistance-training program on obstructed gait tasks using biomechanical-dependent measures. Forty-five community-dwelling participants aged 62 years or older were randomised to either a control (n=16) or experimental group (n=29). The experimental subjects exercised for 24 weeks on a progressive resistance-training program designed to improve lower body strength. Dynamic strength was assessed at weeks 0 and 24 as well as specific laboratory gait kinetics and kinematics during stepping over an obstacle and negotiation of a raised surface set at 10, 20 and 30% of each subject's leg length.

Critically interrogating classroom constructions of 'community' and 'difference' : a case study

Within educational literature, the concept of 'community' has been problematised over the last decade, particularly as regards how constructs of 'community' that aim to provide 'a sense of belonging… of collective concern for each individual' (Nodding 1996: 258) can also operate to exclude, devalue or homogenise diverse groups of students.

The tensions that exist between desirable features of a learning community that provides a sense of belonging and at the same time recognises and celebrates difference and diversity are suggested by Fines, et al (1997: 252) who argue that '(t)he process of sustaining a community must include a critical interrogation of difference as the rich substance of community life…'

This paper reports on an aspect of an empirical research project that examined relations of power between teachers and students as these operate through explicit processes used to create classroom communities. Through a case study of one composite grade primary classroom with children of diverse cultural heritage, we critically analyse constructs of 'community' in light of current literature on difference and diversity. Specifically we address the question: what pedagogical processes create a learning community where acceptance of difference is reworked to better address unequal relations of power?

Changing bodies, changing discourses : women's experiences of early menopause

Early menopause has been constructed by discourses of biological determinism as an untimely, but natural, failure of the female body. Medical discourses in particular have interpreted early menopause as a congenital irregularity and a rare anomaly of menopause at midlife. In this thesis I challenge the notion that early menopause is an innate imperfection related only to women’s age. I propose that early menopause is dependent upon the cultural interpretations of individual women and is constituted through the mercurial and multiple discourses of women who have this embodied experience. Moreover, I reveal that early menopause is a contemporary condition and that its location in history is inextricably bound to discourses of risk, naturalism and the self. Further I make the assumption that having an early menopause both affects and is an effect of women’s fertility, sexuality and subjectivity. I have drawn upon a broad range of sources to provide a sociological analysis of early menopause. Literature on early menopause is dominated by positivist discourses, yet many alternate discourses negotiate these influential constructions. I suggest here that the perception of early menopause as a natural fault is merely a construction by medical discourses and does not incorporate the dynamic discourses of early-menopausal women. Moreover, the restriction of early menopause to a genetic female failure excludes the majority of women who have an early menopause through iatrogenisis. This omission occurs through the failure of positivist discourses to accommodate diversity in discourses. Recent sociological and feminist studies have vindicated menopausal women. They have reconstructed menopause through notions of embodiment and have removed the veil of negativity used by the medical sciences to contain menopausal women (Komesaroff, Rothfield and Daly 1997). The visibility of menopausal women, however, remains connected to age. Menopause has been created as a predictable consequence of aging and as such has come to be synonymous with middle age. Nowadays, even men are said to experience menopause at midlife (Carruthers 1996). But early menopause is constituted within the discourses of women who have this experience. Medico-scientific discourses, based upon theories of genetic inevitability, disregard this perspective. Consequently early menopause is subsumed by naturalistic discourses that relate menopause to midlife. Such restraint reflects the unease created by menopause that does not coincide with prescribed life stages. Women's experiences of their changing bodies are largely unheard. Thus, women who have an early menopause are faced with a chasm of ‘cultural non-recognition’ (Fraser 1997). Conjointly with this discursive repression early-menopausal women face social imbalances that are transacted as both cause and consequence of early menopause. In particular the contemporary creation of early menopause is bound to the social and historical location of women as a group. Women are exploited by the institution of medicine, ‘exposure to environmental toxicity’ (Fraser 1997: 11) and commercialization as causes of early menopause. Yet the corporeal effects of practices of risk avoidance (Beck 1993), social practices (Shilling 1993) and Western consumerism (Lupton 1994) fail to be recognized. I address these problematics through a poststructural and feminist critique that assumes moments of commonality among women, while at the same time recognizes shifting and multiple differences (Nicholson 1999). I suggest here that early menopause falls into cultural misrecognition in Fraser's (1997) terms and argue that it is united concurrently with the gender injustice of androcentrism (Fraser 1997: 21). Fraser (1997: 16) suggests that it is only by relating these dual problematics that we are able to make sense of current dilemmas. Thus I have critiqued early menopause through a connection between individual embodied experiences of early menopause and early menopause as a modern phenomenon that is specific to women. I have attempted to unravel these arguments that simultaneously call to ‘... abolish gender differentiation and to valorize gender specificity’ (Fraser 1997: 21) while at the same time acknowledging their interconnectedness. An approach of merely combining women’s discourses with overarching social issues would be inadequate as not only do these problematics intersect but they also can be opposed. As Fraser (1997: 25) notes with her theory, redressing one aspect of cultural or social analysis can further imbalance another. For instance making visible the diversity and uniqueness of individual experiences of early menopause could detract from acknowledging the contemporary construction of early menopause through social inequality. Crucial to this understanding is a destabilizing of the binary construction of differences between the sexes that makes way for a reconstruction of early menopause through ‘sexual slippage’ (Matus 1995). In this thesis I look for a subtlety between the particular and the collective that views early menopause as concurrently a singular and changeable experience as well as imbedded in social practice. I suggest that these concepts are entwined as interactive effects of early menopause. Thus I have analyzed the bivalent problematics of the embodiment and social location of early menopause as imbricated, dynamic and unending discourses. From this perspective I reviewed the literature that was available on early menopause. In Chapter One I look to descriptions of early menopause and note that it has disappeared into a conglomeration of disparate, mostly medical, discourses that are contradictory. Nevertheless medical discourses offer ‘conclusive’ definitions of early menopause that are based on naturalistic views of the body (Shilling 1994). The determinants used are inconsistent and do not include women's discourses of early menopause. Thus, dominant medical discourses obscure women’s embodied experiences of early menopause and ignore the contemporary causes of early menopause. In Chapter Two I examine the causes of early menopause as a way of explaining the disparity between medical discourses and my anecdotal observations of early menopause as a fairly common contemporary occurrence. The relatively recent escalation in gynaecological surgery, especially hysterectomy, appears to account almost single-handedly for early menopause as a current phenomenon. Moreover, the extraordinary number of women who have their uterus removed at hysterectomy can be interpreted as a modern implementation of ancient anxieties. Women's sexuality has been constructed throughout history as problematic and this unease has been translated through women's bodies as dangerous and in need of control (Greer 1992). Thus social concerns which have evolved historically have emerged through the representation of a woman's uterus as an unseen, dark and mysterious risk (Beck 1993). Medical discourses define this risk and are able to negate the so-called dangers of women's sexuality through the surgical removal of their organs. Widespread negotiation of medical discourses is apparent, as hysterectomy in the modern Western world is the most common of all surgical operations (Hufnagel 1989). It is overwhelmingly the most common cause of early menopause as well. I examine also the historical condemnation of infertile women and how this anxiety has been transposed to the modern world through the commercialization of reproduction. Transactions of this social unease can cause early menopause. For instance the medical technology of in-vitro fertilization (I.V.F.) has been offered as a panacea for the infertility of early menopause but, paradoxically, can cause early menopause as well. Conception through technology has been normalized as a viable option for women who are unable to conceive and understandings of I.V.F. have moved into everyday discourse. Medical discourses have constructed fertility as a saleable item and infertile women expect that they can purchase this merchandise. Human eggs have become lucrative commodities that now are available in the market place. Egg ‘donation’ for I.V.F. programs can hasten the attrition rate of eggs and can cause early menopause in some pre-menopausal women (Rowland 1992: 24). Even the recycling of a woman’s uterus supposedly has become a possibility through the transferring of this ‘used’ organ at hysterectomy to a recipient woman who can use the other woman’s uterus as a ‘gestational garage’ (Rogers 1998). In this way women have been disembodied as mechanical systems with inter-changeable body parts and the potentially detrimental consequences of these commercial transactions are ignored. In addition I show how early menopause can be caused by the connection between the self and the social structure. Women's subjectivity is constituted through the cultural discourses available to them and these discourses affect social behaviour (Lupton 1995). For instance smoking and dieting have been identified as causes of early menopause. These activities have been related to the creation of women’s bodies as hetero-sexually desirable and are endemic to young women (Evans-Young 1995). This suggests that cultural causes of early menopause are transactions of sexual politics. Yet there is a paucity of literature that acknowledges the relationship between women’s subjectivity and early menopause. Thus the second chapter exposes a link between sexual politics and causes of early menopause through women's relationships with risk, naturalism and the self. In Chapter Three I deconstruct early menopause through theoretical considerations. I rely on an overarching poststructuralism that embraces the concept of fragmented plural discourses and the subjectivity of menopausal women as a continuous process (Komesaroff 1997: 61). I have woven these variables through broad feminist critiques (Leonard 1997). Through this eclectic approach I hoped to find some loose alignment between the corporeal, ontological and embodied dimensions of early menopause. The recurring themes of sexuality, fertility and subjectivity emerge through deconstructing discourses of sexual difference as immutable and non-negotiable; exposing ‘premature ovarian failure’ as a discursive construction that censures early-menopausal women; and acknowledging the discourses of individual women as unique, diverse and dynamic. I looked to a method of exposing some of these individual discourses and in Chapter Four I describe a critical research process aimed at understanding early menopause as a lived experience. In the remaining chapters I align these ontological arguments with an analysis of the discourses of women who had experienced or were experiencing an early menopause. This section partly relieves the ‘cultural non-recognition’ of the discourses of early-menopausal women. I recorded the narratives of fifty early-menopausal women through in-depth interviews and used this empirical data to direct the study. This data provides the opportunity to understand early menopause as an assortment of embodied experiences. For instance women’s experiences of age at commencement of menopause spanned over three and half decades. They did not reflect the age specifications prescribed by medical discourses. Rather women interpreted their experiences within their own discourses and determined their menopause as early based upon the expectations of their cultural context. Many of the women experienced changes attributed to menopause at midlife. It was not these changes that were significant to early-menopausal women it was how each woman translated these changes that provided meanings of early menopause. In Chapter Five I introduce the women through a table that connects the varying experiences of each woman. This profile shows that, in the main, the women’s experiences of early menopause were unexpected. I suggest that this is due to the disparity between early-menopausal women’s experiences and the current age and social norms of menopause. By bracketing the women into cohorts patterns emerged displaying differences between women who had menopause in their teens, twenties, thirties and forties. Adolescent women had intense feelings of abnormality and despair. Women who were in their twenties were less devastated by menopause than the younger women but described their sexuality and self-identity as changing. And although some women in their thirties were shocked or dismayed to have an early menopause others were ambivalent or happy. These women also described their sexuality and self-identity through changing discourses. A number of the women who were in their forties said that they were ‘too young for the menopause’ but were far less despondent than the younger women. It seemed that the greater the distance between age norms and social norms the more negatively women responded. Age norms that determine the social norms of women's lives through a ‘biological clock’ are constructed to reflect social values. But age is a social construction that changes over time. Thus it would appear that women’s changing bodies and changing discourses of early menopause are in the process of recreating age and social norms around menopause. In Chapter Six I draw upon women’s narratives that describe a connection between early menopause and sexuality. Yet the respondents were not unified in their constructions of sexuality. For instance a number of the women rejected the containment of their sexuality as absolute and defined in terms of bi-lateral hetero-sexual opposition. The discourses of these women constructed their sexuality as continuously flexible. Some early-menopausal women described this sexual mobility as an equivocal relationship between their sexuality, reproductive capacity and female organs. Other women articulated their sexuality as vacillating, ambiguous and unrepresentative of the so-called ‘true woman’. Several felt that they were not meant to have female reproductive organs at all. Nearly one third of the women had had their uterus removed at hysterectomy and the reproductive organs of two women were rudimentary. Women’s narratives showed that the social value of fertility influences constructions of early menopause. In Chapter Seven I record the contrast between the poignant responses of women who wished to have a baby of their own and other women who resisted discourses that entwine reproductivity with being a woman. For instance some women negotiated fertility through economic discourses of consumerism with the expectation that they could purchase conception as a commodity. Other women welcomed their early menopause as freedom from contraceptive concerns and others had no interest in reproduction at all. Thus discord arose through discourses that problematize early-menopausal women as non-reproductive and discourses that value variability. In addition many of the women’s accounts constructed their subjectivity as mobile, challenging the notion that discourses of the self are immutable. Chapter Eight presents narratives which suggest that the subjectivity of many women was altered continuously by early menopause. Yet some of the women rejected the construction of their subjectivity as unfluctuating. These contradictions reflect the uncertainties of the contemporary world. Nevertheless most respondents found that the tethering of menopause to constructions of midlife was incongruous with their own experiences. Many women refused to accept the label of social redundancy attached to middle-aged women. They moved their subjectivity beyond the reproductive body to a shifting and tractable identity of the self. This thesis demonstrates that the medical construction of early menopause as a rare and natural female flaw varies from women's experiences which suggest that early menopause is common and discursively constructed. This disparity has occurred through the privilege placed upon the construction of bodies as immutable and sexually static. This privileging has obscured the multi-dimensional causes of early menopause and given preference to a mono-causal theory. By exposing the variety of causes of early menopause the medical construction of women through a universal and unalterable body of reproduction is challenged. Moreover, women's discourses of early menopause demonstrate that the medical reduction of early menopause to a spontaneous bio-chemical malfunction has ignored the volatility of women’s embodied experiences. Women experience early menopause variously and through mercurial discourses. I suggest here that women's discourses of their experiences of early menopause reflect recurring and restructuring philosophical quandaries of fertility, sexuality and subjectivity. While there can be no representative claims made from this thesis it contributes to an understanding of the embodied experiences of early menopause. It provides an understanding of the creation of early menopause through social practices and goes part way to redressing the problematics of what Fraser terms ‘cultural non-recognition’. But, more importantly, it acknowledges early menopause as a variety of experiences where women interpret their changing bodies through changing discourses.

Professional identity and pedagogical space : negotiating difference in teacher workplaces

This paper explores ‘spatial struggle’ in the formation of professional identities of overseas born teachers. The basis of this struggle arises from a limited number of subject positions available for them in pedagogical spaces of the Australian system of education. We argue that relations of power/professional knowledge in teacher workplaces as well as the binary strategy of ‘us’ and ‘them’ generate marginal locations for overseas born teachers within schools. This construction of marginality is informed not only by discourses of what counts as being a professional but also by the conception of workplace – spaces of the school, staffroom and classroom – as monocultural, pre-given and bounded entities (McGregor, 2003). By rethinking workplaces as relational, as spaces that are connected to other sociocultural places as well as spaces of semiotic flows, we can also rethink the professional becoming of overseas born teachers. This involves a critical understanding of their positionality, which can be conceptualised as a struggle for voice within “a cacophony of past and present voices, lived experiences and available practices” (Britzman, 1991, p.8). It is because of this polyphony of voices and multiplicity of experiences that the process of professional identity formation for ‘alien’ teachers should be seen as becoming in continual negotiation of power/knowledge relations within workplaces. Recognising this dynamic is important for re-constructing our pedagogical spaces and, in turn, for a more equitable workplace practices.

Editorial : the construction of academic literacy and difference

In recent years, academic literacy has been a subject of heated scholarly and political debates. How academic literacy is defined, whom it serves, and what its purposes are shape both educational policies and the pedagogical practices adopted in classrooms. Any definition of academic literacy, its purposes and its learners also constructs powerful notions of difference. For instance, many traditional definitions of academic literacy posit “out of school” literacy (or literacies) as its opposite; current literacy standards and performance measures create categories of students as able or struggling; and so on. At a time when English classrooms around the world are becoming more multicultural, multilingual and international, how might understandings of academic literacy respond to cultural, linguistic, gender, economic, (dis)ability and other differences? How can literacy be taught to difference without reducing it to sameness? Framing the curriculum around dominant cultural literacy and establishing communal homogeneity, whilst de-legitimizing the Other and announcing ever-new strangers, is not feasible in a new multilingual, multiculural order. There is an increasing need to resist conservative tendencies and to continue a socially critical model of literacy education that is more response-able to the lives of strangers and other forms of difference in a late-modern, globalized society at the same time that it provides opportunities for all students to expand their communicative repertoires and to gain agency in the “design of their social futures” (New London Group, 2000). Articles in this issue respond in different ways to this agenda.

The ethical difference of Organization

Noting that from its very inception Organization laid claim to having a central interest in the ethics and politics of organization, in this article we review contributions to the Journal over the past 20 years in order to consider the ethical thinking that has developed. We suggest that there is a common thread of ethical interest that characterizes much of this work—one that clearly differentiates it from more conventional approaches to business ethics. While business ethics has as its locus of interest the ethicality of organizations themselves, central issues that have emerged in Organization concern how individuals might (or might not) maintain a valued experience of themselves as ethical subjects despite the behaviour of organizations, and how organizational arrangements might be politically contested in the name of ethics. We explore this in relation to a question that unites much of the study of ethics in Organization: how do we live (and work) together in a world beset by difference? We consider this question in terms of the issue of ethical subjectivity and the relation between an ethics of consensus and an ethics of difference. The article concludes much as the Journal started—with the proposal that ethics remains a pressing challenge for critical scholarship and practice.

Rules of origin: an unfinished negotiation

Many countries are also engaged in trade negotiations on FTAs. RO are a central theme on each of theses fronts. A detailed analysis of the key questions surrounding the harmonization process is compelling, given that RO talks at the WTO will affect the negotiation of FTAs. Many developing countries are waiting the results from WTO to define their own RO. Since the impasse continues, they are creating their own systems and multiplying different ROs to satisfy their needs. This article seeks to provide some clues why it was impossible, till now, to finish this multilateral negotiation. It is organized as follows: i) review of the main issues in the ARO; ii) present the main points of contention in the harmonization work; iii) analyze the implications of a harmonized system of rules of origin to the other major WTO agreements as well as to other national trade policy instruments; and to present some possible scenarios how to conclude the negotiation