Communicate!

The book is good but was a requirement for speech class but I don't believe I would run out and buy the book unless I really needed it for class or other reasons. Then again speech is not a great topic for me. I do not like public speaking.

This book was brand new and I purchased for over half the cost that they wanted at my sons school. Fast shipment

The previous reviewer who has mentioned that this particular text is rather demeaning perhaps needs to re-examine his statement. He laments about the text being too simplistic and emphasizing too much on the basic values of communication. However this type of erroneous approach is the reason why these reviewers fail to communicate their ideas clearly- it is obvious that they themselves need to learn the art of communication better.

The book is extremely detailed in explaining the necessity of communication and many basic concepts. This is extremely important because too often we forget about the reasons behind communication. The book provides a comprehensive sketch on every form of communication- examples are provided and sections are clearly dilineated. Is there anything wrong with explaining the basic functions of communication? The author provides six of them: to meet needs, to enhance and maintain our sense of self, to fulfil social obligations, to develop relationships, to exchange information, and to influence others. It is often important for many of us to be reminded of the reason behind why we communicate. It may sound boring and uninteresting, but such knowledge provides us with a solid foundation on the principles of communication and why we shouldn't take the art of communicating for granted.

This is not a book for those who intend to take a crash course on how communicating can earn you more money in 30 days. Rather, it is the type of book that clearly explains all the various elements that are a part of communication in our day to day lives. This is a perfect text for both students who wish to improve their communication skills, and for teachers who plan to use it as a classroom text or reference on the subject.

I had to buy this book for a class I am taking. The accompanying CD-ROM and website are extremely helpful and make reviewing the information in the book more interesting. The crossword puzzles of the important terms are a fun twist on studying. The glossaries that can be printed out from the website to accompany the chapters make studying for a test a breeze.

Perhaps this book is considered, by some people, to be a college-level volume, but the simplification of the subject is of the most demeaning of sorts. It begins by teaching you the most basic of ideas, the communication process (entailing the meanings of words like context, participants, messages, channels, noise, feedback, and so on), drudges through some page-filler slush about why we should communicate, and finally, in chapter twelve, gets to a little something on public speaking - what I thought the book, considering its useage, was designed for.

To illustrate the simplicity of this book, the content (broke into four sections) is as follows:
(1) Foundations of Communication, the first 100 pages - including some topics like verbal and nonverbal communication, plus the perception of self and others.
(2) Interpersonal Communication, the next 110 pages - includes topics ranging from listening and job interviews to communicating in relationships.
(3) Group Communication, ranging at only 20 plus pages of content - tells you how to participate in groups and about leadership in groups.
(4) Public Speaking, the last 160 pages - finally touches on how to pick a topic, research it, adapting to an audience, and takes a lot of time differentiating between informative vs. persuasive speaking.

If you need something to teach you the ABC's of speech, perhaps you might want to look into this. Still, if you actually want to know something more than the most basic thoughts on this subject, I would advise skipping this altogether and thanking yourself for it later.