Essay 4: Principles of communication.

Communication is symbolic: We communicate using words, but the words are only symbols, not the actual objects themselves.

Communication involves words, pictures, sounds, and marks, all of which may represent something else.

Communication involves a shared meaning: When you speak with a friend, and she tells you of an experience that she recently had, you are able to understand her experience because you have a shared meaning of the words and symbols that she uses to describe the experience.

Communication is a process: It evolves over time and after multiple engagements that build upon each other. This ongoing interaction changes the relationship.

Communication is culturally determined: We all grow up in a culture and in that culture, we learn to speak and behave according to that culture. So when we communicate it will be based on which culture we grew up in.

Communication occurs in a context: When we communicate it takes place in a certain area, and we have certain expectations based on that location. We have to take into account that people talk differently in different situations, you would not act the same in class as you would in a baseball game.

Communication is purposeful: We communicate for a reason. There are five key reasons to communicate:

Physiological Needs

Safety Needs

Social Needs

Esteem Needs

Self-Actualization Needs

Choose two of the principles of communication.

Provide two examples for each of the principles (so you will have a total of 4 examples by the end of your post).

How could you apply your knowledge of these principles in a future interaction to prevent or reduce misunderstanding?

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.