sutton028

In this continuing effort to identify and explain (briefly and practically) the skills/strategies of interpersonal communication, here is a brief discussion of empathy. </span><span style='color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; display: none; mso-hide: all; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-no-proof: no;'>     Empathy is feeling what another person feels from that person’s point of view without losing your own identity. Empathy enables you to understand emotionally what another person is experiencing. (To sympathize, in contrast, is to feel for the person—to feel sorry or happy for the person, for example.) Women, research shows, are perceived as more empathic and engage in more empathic communication than do men. So following these suggestions may come more easily to women. </span><span class="BX3HD"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style='font-family: ...

Here's a brief article recommended to me by the publishers. It's clever. I think another problem that acronyms may create is that when a person raised on acronyms reads a textbook (or novel or magazine article or newspaper) that doesn't talk in acronyms (and most don't), it's going to seem unreal, to some degree. And perhaps overly long winded. There's a cultural divide here. The alternative, BTW, is to go with the flow and start writing our textbooks with popular acronyms, though, as I write this, I can hear editors cringing! OMG!

Here's a brief discussion of the most annoying phrases--"Whatever" tops the list. This would make an interesting opening discussion for verbal messages.

In some of my books, I'm integrating much of the material on skills that I once had in boxes. But, some may still prefer the box presentation. This one is on expressiveness. Others are all labeled "Communicaton Strategies: Skill ". Expressiveness is the skill of communicating genuine involvement in the conversation; it entails, for example, taking responsibility for your thoughts and feelings, encouraging expressiveness or openness in others, and providing appropriate feedback. As you can easily appreciate, these are the qualities that make a conversation exciting and satisfying. Expressiveness includes both verbal and nonverbal messages and often involves revealing your emotions and your normally hidden self—bringing in a variety of interpersonal skills noted earlier. Communicating Expressiveness.  Here are a few suggestions for communicating expressiveness. <   Vary your vocal rate, pitch, volume, and rhythm to convey involvement and interest. Vary your language;...

Here's a brief article on the reasons you should run a background check on yourself. All the reasons given are good ones. I would also add one other and that is to learn about yourself, to increase self-awareness. an interesting in-class discussion could easily be centered around what you can learn about yourself from searching the Internet.

In a continuing effort to integrate politeness into my communication textbooks and into communication generally, here is a useful set of guidelines for teaching children proper phone etiquette.

Here's an interesting little piece on complimenting someone that would work well with any unit on conversation in interpersonal communication. It provides 10 ways to tell someone you think he or she is beautiful and would be a great introduction to complimenting in general.