Communication 202
Introduction to Communication II

Introduction

Communication 202 is an introduction to the subject of human communication as it has been addressed by the communication discipline. The title of the textbook for this course is Thinking Through Communication, and that title reflects what we will do in this course. The basic premise of the course is that by paying attention to communication—by not just taking it for granted—we can learn something about it that enriches our lives as individuals in a social world. This course:

• provides an introductory treatment of human communication—it has no prerequisites;
• emphasizes face-to-face human communication rather than the mass media of communication;
• integrates theory and practice in applying the theory to cases and examples; and
• samples fundamental topics in the field. It does not treat any aspect of the field in depth but, rather, surveys a few important themes.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, you will have increased your ability to

• interpret communicative activity;
• recognize the social consequences of communicative conduct;
• achieve increased control, as you wish to do so, over the social effectiveness of your communication behavior; and
• use the vocabulary of human communication to analyze communication situations.

Required Reading Materials

Course Textbook

Trenholm, Sarah. Thinking Through Communication: An Introduction to the Study of Human Communication. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 5th ed., 2008

We chose Thinking Through Communication: An Introduction to the Study of Human Communication because it presents an up-to-date, perceptive, and well-organized survey of some of the main themes of the discipline. Reading this book will provide you with an excellent orientation to the subject of communication, in terms of both theory and practice.

In some courses, the textbook carries a heavy burden in terms of the total instructional load; that is, it presents all the facts, theories, and concepts that the student needs in order to learn the subject. We think that the burden of learning about human communication cannot be carried primarily by a book. In our view, an introductory book about human communication works best when it is used to help stimulate and focus one's active experiencing of and thinking about the subject. For these purposes, a useful book helps the student move beyond its pages to a consideration of life experiences. This active approach to learning is one of the features of Communication 202. The book provides a starting point for your own thinking and investigation.

Supplementary Essays

The required reading for the course also includes three supplementary essays, each of which is the basis for a writing assignment. These essays are assigned in Lessons Two, Five, and Eight. You can find these essays in appendices B, C, and D in the packet of supplementary material you received in the mail. In addition, appendix A contains a sample essay of the type we would like you to use in Assignment 1.

1. Goldberg, Carey. "Welcome to New York, Curse Capital."
2. Conroy, Frank. "Think About It."
3. Birdwhistell, Ray. "The Family and Its Open Secrets."
4. Kristol, Irving. "Men, Women, and Sex."

About the Online Environment

Your online course offers several advantages to the traditional classroom, including the comprehensive Online Student Handbook, the ability to communicate electronically with students and with your instructor, and links to a rich array of online resources.

Online Student Handbook

This handbook answers questions about your online learning course, such as how to purchase your text, schedule an exam, obtain a transcript, and get technical help if you need it. The handbook also provides additional resources, such as how to order books or journals from the library and how to study for an online course.

Communication with Your Instructor and Student Peers

This course includes an online student discussion forum. It is the place for you to informally share your reflections about the course material with other students and build a sense of community with them. Feel free to post biographical information about yourself and tell other students about articles, books, or television programs that you have seen that relate to the course material. Your participation in the forum is not graded. We will occasionally look at the forum, but please use e-mail to ask me all questions about course materials and policies.

Library Resources

As an online student, you have access to a wealth of library resources compiled to provide fast, easy access to information that supports your online learning experience. Organized by subjects, Library Resources link you to sites with help for writing and research, study skills, language learning, and other library reference materials. All links have been assessed for credibility and reliability, and they are regularly monitored to ensure their usability.

Course Overview

Human communication is a pervasive and important feature of an individual's social life. It affects our relationships with others, the quality of our work and our working life, our participation in the social and political life of our community, and our sense of personal well being.

Given the importance of human communication to individuals and to society, it should be no surprise that there is an academic discipline devoted to its study. Sometimes this discipline is called "communication," sometimes "communications," sometimes "speech communication," and sometimes "communication studies." But whichever name is used, the discipline is concerned with the ways people create meaning in social life and with the ways that we can communicate effectively, productively, and wisely.

There are, broadly speaking, two distinct strands in the fabric of the communication discipline. One of these is the study of the mass media of communication and the "communications" that circulate in society through newspapers, radio, television, electronic networks, and the like. The other is the study of the face-to-face interactions of individuals in society. Communication 202—Introduction to Communication II—emphasizes the latter approach. We will examine how mass communications affect face-to-face communication, and vice versa, but our emphasis will be on face-to-face interaction.

Course Organization

This course consists of ten lessons and ten assignments. You will complete and submit one written assignment for each of the ten lessons, and you will take a final exam at the end of the course.

The lessons begin with an overview of the lesson content, highlighting important concepts from the text, and include some or all of the following:

Reading Assignment

Each lesson ties into a chapter or a portion of a chapter in Thinking Through Communication. If the lesson ties into only a portion of the chapter, the pertinent section numbers are given. Lessons Two, Five, and Eight each include a supplementary reading that is an integral part of the assignment for that lesson.

Objectives

Each lesson specifies an objective or objectives. Each lesson has the common objective of asking you to express your understanding of key concepts in the reading assignment and of providing you with experience in using new vocabulary and applying concepts.

Key Terms

Since an introduction to human communication requires you to master a new vocabulary, the first nine lessons begin with a number of key terms that we have identified as being important to your understanding of the lesson. Knowing what these terms are in advance will help you focus your reading of each assigned chapter. To help you prepare for the final exam, Lesson Ten includes a list of terms that you will have learned throughout the course.

Commentary

Each lesson includes a brief commentary on its theme, with particular reference to the assigned reading(s) and to the written assignment that forms part of the lesson.

Assignment

A written assignment is an important part of each lesson. You are required to complete the first ten assignments before you can take the final exam. See About the Assignments below for assignment details.

Lesson Overview

The following overviews the content of each lesson:

Lesson One: The Communication Tradition

Surveys the history of the study of communication. It answers the question, "Why study communication?" by tracing through history some of the practical needs that motivated people to study communication.

Assignment1 asks you to think through and write about some of the ways that various social conditions have made knowledge about communication important to human beings and how differences and new circumstances in society have prompted new approaches to communication study.

Lesson Two: Definitions, Models, and Perspectives

Begins with the idea of defining communication. Then it introduces four different perspectives on communication—four different ways to think through communication.

Assignment 2 asks you to think and write about a series of human experiences reported in the essay titled "Think about It" (found in appendix C in the packet of supplementary material) from the standpoint of each of these models of, or perspectives on, communication.

Lesson Three: Decoding Messages: Perception, Planning, and Paraphrasing

Raises the question of how we as receivers of messages construct the meaning of these messages.

Assignment 3 raises questions about the various ideas on message reception presented in the textbook and also provides an experience in reflective receiving.

Lesson Four: Encoding Messages: Spoken Language

Presents a series of perspectives on language as it is used in spoken interaction.

Assignment 4 asks you to think through some of your own and others' language practices with regard to how these practices reflect their users' assumptions about self and other. This assignment also asks you to think through how spoken language works in social life.

Lesson Five: Encoding Messages–Nonverbal Communication

Is concerned with the other "languages" that we "speak" in social interaction, the ways we express meanings through gestures, body movements, paralanguage, and other means of communication.

Assignment 5 asks you to think about how various nonverbal messages are functioning socially in a series of episodes described in a personal essay titled "The Family and Its Open Secrets" (found in appendix D in the packet of supplementary material).

Lesson Six: Interpersonal Communication

Introduces the study of how communication works in forging, negotiating, changing, and managing close relationships with other people, including friend, mate, and family relationships.

Assignment 6 is an application of theory to practice through the examination of messages and an instance of interpersonal communication.

Lesson Seven: Group Communication

Examines the nature of groups and how spoken interaction in groups can be managed so as to help a group achieve a high level of productivity, in general, and quality in its decision making, in particular.

For Assignment 7, you will answer questions based on the assigned reading for the lesson, and you will analyze group communication in a filmed case of group decision making or in another case of your choice.

Lesson Eight: Public Communication

Is concerned with understanding the dynamics of public messages that are designed to be persuasive.

Assignment 8 will be an experience in applying theoretical ideas about persuasive communication to an instance of persuasive speech. You will look at the argumentative structure of Irving Kristol's editorial, "Men, Women, and Sex" (found in appendix E in the packet of supplementary material).

Lesson Nine: Methods of Discovery

Introduces you to the world of original research into spoken interaction through a review of four important research methods.

Assignment 9 is an exercise in original research and will involve you in doing a creative interpretation of the meanings of several messages

Lesson Ten: Preparing for the Final Examination

Reviews the nature of your proctored final examination. and prepares you for taking the final examination for this course.

For Assignment 10, you will complete and turn in a practice final exam. This will be graded and returned to you in order to help you prepare for your final task in the course—taking the proctored final. Key terms are listed in this lesson for review purposes.

About the Assignments

The first nine assignments for the course (1) are tied directly to a single chapter in the textbook and, in three instances, to a supplementary essay as well and (2) ask you to apply your understanding of the reading(s) to an experience of yours or to material that is provided in the lesson commentaries.

That is, in each of these assignments, you will be asked to demonstrate your understanding of a theory presented in the text and to apply your understanding of the text to materials or experiences outside the text. This weaving together of theory and experience is an important part of studying human communication. Being able to use the key terms given in each lesson is also an important part of the assignments.

Tip! When working on a lesson assignment, review the objectives for that lesson to see that you have demonstrated a mastery of the objectives in your response to the assignment.

The Sample Assignment is a much simplified and reduced version of a typical assignment for this course. If this were a real assignment, we'd ask you to write down your answers to these questions and turn them in. But this is an illustration as part of the introduction to the course. So we'll just invite you to think about this for now. It should give you a concrete sense of what you'll be doing in this course, both in terms of working with theory drawn from the book and working with your own experience.

About the Final Examination

You will take a proctored final examination after completing the assigned lessons. You must submit Assignments 1–10 before you can take the final. The final exam is comprehensive and draws on chapters 1 through 8 and chapter 11 in Thinking Through Communication; the lesson commentaries; and the supplementary readings. The exam is closed book and is worth 50 points toward your course grade. You will have two hours to complete the exam.

Preparing for the Final Exam

The earlier lessons will help prepare you for the final exam in the following three ways:

1. Mastering the vocabulary of human communication is an important part of this course. Each lesson emphasizes a few key vocabulary items, which you should learn for the final exam. Part I of the final will ask you to define, from memory, a sample of approximately 10 of the key terms presented in the lessons. The exam will draw from several of the lessons across the course, and you will not know in advance what the items will be. You will need to have memorized the definitions of the key terms or be able to accurately paraphrase the definitions. The definitions will comprise approximately one-third of the final exam.
2. Each lesson emphasizes your active use of these key terms in the written assignment that is part of the lesson. Parts II and III of the final exam will ask you to write a short essay. In part II, you will discuss the meaning of the term communication in relation to the four perspectives on communication. In part III, you will be provided a stimulus (for example, a description of a short incident). You will then be asked to analyze and interpret that situation and to use in your commentary the concepts and themes that you will have studied in this course. The assignments in every lesson will provide you with practice in the kind of writing that you will need to do for the two short essays on the final.
3. The last lesson (Lesson Ten) will help you prepare for the final. It includes sections that will help you study for both the vocabulary and essay portions of the exam. Assignment 10 is a practice exam that includes several vocabulary words for you to define and two essay questions in which you will be expected to display your knowledge of course material. Because it is part of Lesson Ten, you can go over the practice exam as much as you need to before submitting it as Assignment 10. Your practice exam will be graded and returned to you prior to the final exam. The practice exam is similar to the final exam in terms of length, format, and difficulty.

Evaluating Written Work

COM 202 meets a University of Washington writing ("W-course") requirement. Therefore in our grading, we emphasize the quality of your written work. What this means in practice is that we pay attention to sentence structure, word choice, spelling, punctuation, and organization of ideas. If we find more than one simple error, such as spelling or punctuation, in the answer to a question on a given assignment, we will deduct a point (or more, depending on how many errors there are) from the total points earned for that answer. Fortunately, we do not have to do this very often. We are, however, stating this here so that you know of this expectation. Our experience is that most students have no trouble with this requirement if they simply make an effort. Sometimes making an effort means taking some care to do things right, including proofreading your answer. Although we require you to use e-mail to submit assignments, remember that sometimes e-mail induces in some of us (and we include ourselves in this) a bit of sloppiness that we might not fall into as easily as when we are writing on paper. Perhaps all of us, or at least most of us, need to be more careful when we use e-mail for academic purposes. In any case, we will pay close attention to the quality and the mechanics of your writing.

Most of the many students who have taken this course in the past through Online Learning have done very well with the writing aspect of the course. In drawing attention to this, here, at the beginning, we are trying to make sure that all students do well in this aspect and we are trying to signal as clearly as we can our expectations.

Somewhere in your university experience, you should become familiar with the standards of writing that are set forth in one of the many excellent handbooks that are available for students and other writers. One that we have found to be very helpful and very easy to use is Andrea A. Lunsford, The Everyday Writer (2nd Ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001). It is adaptable to courses in the arts and humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. We look at this elementary handbook everyday. In fact, we looked at it while composing this paragraph. We especially recommend that you read the section titled "FAQs about Errors. " The information in this section can help you with exams and papers in many of your classes.

Grading

The ten written assignments are worth 10 points each for a total of 100 points. The final exam is worth 50 points.

Your final course grade will be based on the following standard: 95 percent = 4.0, 94 percent = 3.9, and so forth. Based on 150 possible points, here are some sample percentage, points, and grade-point equivalents:

Percentage (× 150)	Points	Grade Point
.95	142	4.0
.92	138	3.7
.88	132	3.3
.85	127	3.0
.82	123	2.7
.78	117	2.3
.75	112	2.0
.72	108	1.7
.68	102	1.3
.65	97	1.0
.62	93	0.7

How to Succeed in COM 202

• Time management is one of the skills you'll need to succeed in a distance learning course. Use the Assignment Due Dates form to fill in the target dates for completing your assignments. It's helpful to start with the date on which you'd like to take the final exam and work backwards.
• Set aside time each week that is dedicated exclusively to this course. If you block out the time right away, it'll give you more incentive to get started right away.
• For each lesson, read the online commentaries first, as they serve as an introduction to the assigned textbook readings. Then complete the textbook readings.
• Don't hesitate to contact us if you don't understand the concepts or the assignments.

About the Developers

Original Developer: Professor Gerry Philipsen

Gerry Philipsen, Professor of Communication at the University of Washington, has been on the faculty since 1978. He previously served on the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara, from 1972 to 1978. Professor Philipsen received a BA in speech and social science from the University of Denver in 1967 and a PhD from Northwestern University in 1972. He is interested in many aspects of communication studies and his research specialization is the study of different cultures and their ways of speaking, with a particular emphasis on United States cultures and subcultures. He also has long-term interests in effective decision-making within discussion groups, in communications as a means to enhance cooperation, and in public speaking and persuasion. For more about Professor Philipsen see About Your Instructor on the Course Syllabus.

Revised Edition Developer: Lisa Coutu

Lisa Coutu is a Senior Lecturer in Communication at the University of Washington, where she has been on the faculty since 1997. She received her BA in Communications from the University of Massachusetts in 1988, her MA from the University of Washington in 1992, and her PhD, which focused on the ethnography of communication, from the University of Washington in 1996. Lisa is interested in a broad range of communication topics, and her area of specialization is the study of culture and communication. For more about Lisa Coutu see About Your Instructor on the Course Syllabus.

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