Talk:Communication Skills Development

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Please feel free to join me in writing this book Bob Lawlor (discuss • contribs) 14:35, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Anyone know how to make a figure look bigger?


 * Hi. I've been meaning to drop in and make some comments. You can adjust the size of an image by specifying a field with an integer pixel width followed by "px", like this:
 * Sacred-Chao.svg
 * (There is some flexibility in the order of these fields; The file name goes first, I always put the caption last though I'm not certain whether it has to be, pretty sure the others can go in any order.)

''Hi PiZero, thanks for your help with that figure size question. The figures now look the way I want them to. I'm new to this editor and still getting used to many of the features.''


 * This book page you've created has, on one hand, a wonderfully spontaneous, relaxed feel to it.

''Thank you for that positive comment. One of the fundamental points which I'm trying to communicate (by practicing what I preach) through the book is that a monologue is by definition a form of information delivery whereas real communication requires dialogue. Just like the asynchronous dialogue (online discussion) which you and I are now engaging in.''Bob Lawlor (discuss • contribs) 12:23, 8 August 2017 (UTC)


 * On the other hand, it's got some features that aren't textbook-like.

''I know what you mean. However, as indicated above, because the theme of the book is communication skills development, I'm trying to integrate dialogue throughout the book. Ideally I'd like to integrate dialogue with target readers of the book i.e. 13 to 23 year-olds (approx) who stand to benefit most by learning how to develop their communication skills.''Bob Lawlor (discuss • contribs) 12:23, 8 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep in mind that we don't want to squeeze all the uniqueness and personality out of each individual book;

''I guess this book is as much an experiment in communication as it is a book about it. One of the primary motivations for taking this approach is the teachings of Ernest L. Boyer. Two all too often forgotten central principles of Boyer's approach are connectedness and dialogue. I've worked in higher education for many years and I see way too much fragmentation and one-way delivery of course content and way too little connectedness and dialogue in and of course content.''Bob Lawlor (discuss • contribs) 12:23, 8 August 2017 (UTC)


 * there shouldn't be a threshold test, that to gain admittance your book must be at least this dry. However, right now the page is written as a personal message from you.  First-person-singular narrator.  This gives it a sense of being something written by an individual, rather than being a collaboration.

''I'm hoping that as other interested readers (including you!) engage and contribute the book will become a collaborative work which actually shows just how right Boyer was in the sense that real communication requires dialogue. I guess for this to work, then there probably does need to be an indication of who said what and when they said it.''Bob Lawlor (discuss • contribs) 12:23, 8 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Is the book meant to be written in a conversational style?

''I think the dialogue needed to facilitate collaborative development of the book does need to be in conversational style and I also think that the discussion tab of the wikibook editor is ideally suited to this. In time, however, this will probably need to be condensed into a concise communication of the key points which we're trying to communicate to the target reader.''Bob Lawlor (discuss • contribs) 12:23, 8 August 2017 (UTC)


 * If so, at a minimum it needs to use first-person plural.

''My understanding of the latest thinking in relation to such 'rules' is that its ok to break them if it helps to communicate (and/or demonstrate) the key point. Whether I'm successfully achieving this objective is another question and one which I'm totally open to correction on.''Bob Lawlor (discuss • contribs) 12:23, 8 August 2017 (UTC)


 * A conversational style is not the way a typical textbook is written, though, as I say, we don't want to require that your book must be at least this dry. :P If it is meant to be conversational, how that is to work needs to be thought through, keeping in mind that a successful collaborative book should be something any reader can come across and see easily how to make small or large contributions to.

''I agree and I think you've hit on a really important point here. For this book to succeed, it needs to be engaging and to actually make target readers want to contribute. To date I've failed miserably on this front but I'm prepared to persist with it because I'm convinced that its directly aligned with what Boyer was recommending.''Bob Lawlor (discuss • contribs) 12:23, 8 August 2017 (UTC)


 * If the conversational style isn't meant to be the final form of things, well, changing the style of presentation would be an awfully high bar for a would-be contributor. Just some preliminary thoughts.

''And good points well made! I do hope that I've succeeded through this dialogue in communicating what it is that I'm trying to achieve. If I've failed then the fault lies with my wording rather than your interpretation. But the solution is the end-goal of this on-going dialogue.''Bob Lawlor (discuss • contribs) 12:23, 8 August 2017 (UTC)


 * It's not impossible I could offer some more specific advice, but I'd want to understand better the direction you're hoping to take things in.

''You've already been hugely helpful by engaging in the above dialogue as you did. At last I've managed to integrate some dialogue into this experimental book. Hopefully, we'll get some input from our target readers soon.''Bob Lawlor (discuss • contribs) 12:23, 8 August 2017 (UTC)


 * --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 14:30, 4 August 2017 (UTC)


 * My point about using first person plural rather than first person singular was not meant to invoke any sort of a general rule of writing, nor a rule of writing textbooks. This isn't just a textbook, it is a wiki textbook.  A successful wikibook should, in the long term, attract readers to contribute to it.
 * A digression on the subject of contribution-friendly wikibooks: Several years back, I discovered that there had been several attempts to start Wikijunior books about religion, all of which had effectively failed for various reasons, and I wanted to try to do something about it.  One of these books had failed because, like many Wikijunior books, it had a standard set of questions to be answered for each religion covered, but unfortunately the questions were poorly chosen so that they could really only be answered usefully for religions sufficiently similar to Christianity.  Which made it kind of impossible for passing readers to contribute.  I revised the set of questions, and to be certain the questions were general enough, I made extensive contributions to the page on atheism &mdash; if the questions can be used for that, I figured, they're general enough.  Since then, although the book isn't hugely active, it does get contributed to from time to time, thanks to its improved set of questions.
 * My thesis here is that when the book is written in a way that makes it seem like the work of a single person, that is likely to discourage others from attempting to contribute to it. (Like the Wikijunior religions book that discouraged readers from contributing by making it difficult to envision doing so.  Btw, feel free :-P.)  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 04:21, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

''Hi Pi Zero, Thanks for posting that and for your very interesting digression. I had a look at that Wikijunior religions book. Its very impressive. I’ve just emailed it to my 13 year-old daughter whom I think thinks about that kind of stuff. I take your point about posing stimulating questions to encourage contributions. So I’m going to have a go at re-wording the book along those lines. Its certainly well worth a try, particularly in light of the number of contributors to date! Bob'' 149.157.140.179 (discuss) 11:33, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Usage of
Please use  and   to make navagation easier. When there are 4 or more of these chapters/subsections, a Table of Contents shows up. PokestarFan*Talk*Contributions 14:33, 4 August 2017 (UTC)