The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copyrighted by BookRags, Inc.
Any change that involves random behavior. The term "sto chastic" is derived from the Greek stokhiastikos, meaning to guess at random. Stochastic changes obey the laws of probability. A familiar example of such a change is a series of card games. The way that cards fall in each hand is a random event, but well-known mathematical laws can describe the likelihood of various possibilities. For instance, if a traffic engineer wants to study traffic patterns at a busy downtown intersection, the engineer can use stochastic principles to analyze the traffic flow, since the movement of vehicles through that intersection is likely to occur at random. Some natural processes, such as genetic drift, also can best be characterized as the result of a series of stochastic changes.