Syllabus
Questionnaire
Take This Class?
About Presentations
Presentation Schedule
Presentation Samples
Pres. Bibliography
Rating Sheet
Extra Credit
Grades

12/20/01: Final Grades are available via the "Grades" link to the left. Have a happy holiday!

12/4/01: A review sheet is available for the final, see below under the Class Calendar.

Nov 21: The final will be held on Dec 11 from 4:30-6:30 pm. No tests will be administered before this time.

Nov 6: Midterm and presentation grades are now available via the "grades" link in the upper left corner of this screen. I grade the first test and presentation (where you get accustomed to my test style and to giving presentations) higher than the second test and presentation (by which time you will know what my tests are like, and will have had more chances to observe good presentations). As I mention elsewhere in this website, "If you want more feedback about how you're doing in the class, schedule a time to meet with me or the reader to review your progress. I consider it your responsibility to seek out information about your progress." We can give you feedback and advice concerning tests and presentations at any time during the semester.

Limited Time Offer (between now and Thanksgiving): Extra Credit topics are available. Read the page under the "Extra Credit" link above left for more info. This offer ends by Thanksgiving--you'll need to contact me before then.

• Interpersonal Communication: A Goals-Based Approach (2nd Ed.) by Canary, Cody, & Manusov.

Check in the USC bookstore for availability of the text before ordering online. If you are having difficulty locating the text, you may contact a number of online book sellers including amazon, barnes & noble, borders, campusi, ecampus, and others.

Professor: Dr. Kelton Rhoads
Kelton's Office: USC Office Room ASC 129
Kelton's Office Hours: Tuesday 2:30-3:45, Thursday 5:30-6:45 pm. You can also arrange a phone appointment with me at other times. If there's a lot to talk about, please come by during office hours.

Reader: Michelle Gradis (Michelle is a PhD student at Annenberg.)
Michelle's Office: ASC 326
Michelle's Office Hours: Tuesday 1:30-3:30, Wednesday 1-2, and by appointment.
Michelle's email: placeholder@usc.edu

Please note that Michelle and I rely on filters to keep our mailboxes free of spam, so if you want to send either of us an email, it's important that:

1) you put the words "COMM 304" in the title/subject line of the email (this will allow the message to pass through the filters);
2) Please don't send unsolicited attachments. If I've asked you to send me a particular email attachment that we've discussed, please send textual material with either Microsoft Word, RTF, or TEXT formatting, and send graphics as JPG, EPS, Photoshop, or Illustrator files. You can "zip" or "stuff" documents before sending them, and you can use binhex or mime encoding to send them.

This course is designed to introduce you to a broad range of interpersonal communication topics, including social cognition, nonverbal communication, deception, self-presentation, self-disclosure, defense tactics, excuses & justifications, starting, maintaining and ending relationships, tools of influence, compliance, conflict, person variables and communication competence. Since your professor is a social psychologist by training, the course will have a distinctly psychological and scientific slant to it. We will engage in some in-class exercises and explore a number of journal articles on the topics we're studying. Students will become experts on particular topics and share their knowledge with other students via informal presentations. You'll have two presentations (representing 40% of your grade) and two objective tests (representing the other 60% of your grade) which will form the basis of your grade in this course.

Aug 28
Intro & Methods
Complete the on-line questionnaire. See the link in the upper left hand corner.
Read the complete syllabus and decide whether or not you agree with the class rules as outlined in "Take This Class?" above. If you do not agree with the class rules, please drop this class.

Sept 4
Goals & Social Cognition
Read: Ch 1 & Ch 2
Demonstration of a Presentation.
Assignment: Find Your Articles in the Library!

Sept 11
Nonverbal
Read: Ch 4
You can find an outline of the lecture here.
Assignment: Find Your Articles in the Library!

Sept 18
Deception
Presentations Begin!
Student Presentations: See Presentation Schedule

Sept 25
Self-Presentation & Self-Promotion
Read: Ch 5
Student Presentations: See Presentation Schedule

Oct 2
Self-Promotion & Self-Disclosure
Read: Ch 5 & 6
Student Presentations: See Presentation Schedule

Oct 9
Defense
Read: Ch 7
Student Presentations: See Presentation Schedule

Oct 16
Midterm Exam (Multiple Choice)
Midterm Review Sheet Available Here in PDF/Acrobat format.
(See bottom of this page if you need to download Acrobat.)
No Presentations

Oct 23
Starting & Maintaining Relationships
Read: Ch 8 & 9
Student Presentations: See Presentation Schedule

Oct 30
Maintaining & Ending Relationships
Read: Ch 9 & 10
Student Presentations: See Presentation Schedule

Nov 6
Conflict
Read: Ch 13
Student Presentations: See Presentation Schedule

Nov 13
Influence
Read: Ch 11
Student Presentations: See Presentation Schedule

Nov 20
Persuasion & Compliance
Read: Ch 12
Student Presentations: See Presentation Schedule

Nov 27
Person Variables & Communication Competence
Read: Ch14 & 15
Student Presentations: See Presentation Schedule

Dec 4 - No Class

Dec 11 - Final from 4:30-6:30 pm. Review Sheet (in Acrobat/PDF format) available here.

A typical class will consist of a lecture, sometimes followed by an in-class exercise, followed by concurrent student presentations.

Readings & Participation: Please read assigned text readings before class, so we can have informed discussions. It's important to keep up with the reading. If you wait until the week before the test to read the assigned material, you won't learn or retain the material as well and you'll likely do poorly on exams. Readings that are assigned in addition to the text will be found linked to this website under the calendar section. A thorough understanding of the assigned readings will be necessary in order to obtain top grades on the exams and in your project. If you must miss a class, please contact a fellow student for notes, since class notes are not available from the instructor. Not allowed in class: phones or pagers or other electronic or manual devices that are audible; audio or visual recording devices. Allowed in class: computers (if they are used for taking notes and don't become a distraction) and PDAs (ditto). Class participation will be considered for scores that border between a higher and lower grade. An unexcused absence on the day you are assigned a presentation or on a test day will result in your losing points. Excused absences require documentation and a compelling reason for your absence.

Exams: There will be two multiple choice exams which will count for 60% of your grade. The exams will concentrate on your knowledge of the material we've covered and your ability to apply the principles we've learned. You should know 1) the material assigned as reading, 2) the material presented in lectures, and 3) the material given in the student presentations, to do well on the tests. I rely on the tests to motivate your reading of the text assignments and class attendance. Some of the standardized test questions that come with the textbooks will be used in the construction of tests.

Information Presentations: One of the "deliverables" of this class is a database of information to which you may refer later in your career. In other words, one of our collective goals is to acquire and understand the topic relevant information that's found in journal articles or book chapters. To this end, information of this sort will be collected, analyzed, and presented in a number of student presentations that pertain to various aspects of this course. You will make two brief presentations based on articles or chapters you'll read. You will present your findings to small subgroups within the class (depending on class size, subgroups may be as small as only 5 -10 people). Those of you who have participated in "poster sessions" already have a good idea of what these student presentations will be like. The presentations are given in a casual and interactive atmosphere. Past students have told me they liked the presentations--both doing them and listening to them--because peer-to-peer teaching is an effective and fun way to learn. Our class will foster a supportive atmosphere for the presentations, which are graded in such a way that most of the presentations will receive high grades (As and Bs). You will not be graded on your presentational style, but rather on your ability to convey the information you've been assigned to understand and encapsulate. In other words, it's the preparation for, not the execution of, your presentation that's graded. Questions from the student presentations will show up on the tests. Your presentations will be worth 40% of your grade. (See "About Presentations" in the top left of this page. We won't be able to start working on presentations until I have a stable count of the number of people in the class; I expect to post assignments during the second week of class.)

Paper: At this time, I'm planning on having no final paper for this class. I think students prefer a modest amount work all along (the presentations) rather than a big assignment at the end of the semester, when everything else is coming due simultaneously. If we pace ourselves, there'll be no need for "finals week heroics." (If you think otherwise, tell me in the questionnaire.)

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