Communication

Here's some useful, sensible advice on communication.

Wikipedia

I see that the History Department at Middlebury College has banned the use of Wikipedia in student papers. This is a truly incredible response to an apparent error that appeared in Wikipedia and that several students had cited. Wouldn't it be a lot better to teach students to evaluate research findings and conclusions regardless of where they come from rather than dictate that certain reference materials can and others cannot be used? And I find it a little surprising that other institutions have not criticized the actions of Middlebury. Are they giving up on teaching students critical thinking, to evaluate what they read and hear whether it comes from the New York Times, a college student's blog, or a commercial website? Perhaps someone should tell the History Department that all assertions, all conclusions, need to be evaluated, not just those from Wikipedia. And, to members of the History Department and to Middlebury in general, if you're not teaching your students to evaluate information, what are you teaching them? You have set education back to the Dark Ages and should be ashamed of yourselves.

Today

Today is the birthday of George Washington who, among other things, established the practice of the presdiential inaugural address, a copy of which you can see by clicking on this link.

Conflict management

Here are lots of things you'll find useful in connection with interpersonal conflict and conflict management.

Correction for TICB

A student brought an error to my attention. In TICB11/e, page 40, 3rd paragraph under How Cultures Differ I say I'm going to discuss 5 cultural differences but only discuss 4 (power distance, masc and fem cultures, individual and collective, and high and low context). The 5th difference (time) I moved to the nonverbal chapter (pp. 189-190) but didn't change the 5 to a 4 on page 40. I apologize for this and will try to get it corrected in the next printing.

Today

Today, in 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born. If you want to read some of Lincoln's speeches, the American Rhetoric website is a great start.

Nonverbal Communication

Here's a somewhat "silly" article but one that might be interesting in a research unit on nonverbal communication--how would you go about testing these suggestions?

Today

Today in 1884, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is published and is today still considered the authority on the pronunication, meaning, and history of over 500,000 words.