Communication -- It's Not Just the Words

There is Effective Communication and Non-Effective Communication.  With Effective Communication, you know exactly what you want to communicate, you communicate it and the receiver knows exactly what you intended to say.  Non-Effective Communication is all about words with mixed meanings.

Communication is not just about the words we use.  In the verbal world, it is all about inflections, pauses and body language.  In the print arena, it is punctuation that counts.  Most of us do not have a problem with the verbal side of communication.  It is the print side where we usually fall short.

There is a written example of Non-Effective Communication that I frequently use in my lectures.  It is an example where the audience knows the exact words that I am using and they stimulate high emotions but the words result in two completely different perceptions among the audience participants.  How would you interpret the following?

"Woman without her man is completely useless."

Did you read the sentence as if it was saying the woman is completely useless without her man?

or

Did you read it as meaning that man is completely helpless without a woman?

Without punctuation, either interpretation is possible.  But consider the same sentence with two different sets of punctuation:

"Woman, without her, man is completely useless."
"Woman, without her man, is completely useless."

One comma's location can completely change the meaning of the sentence.

I don't trust my writings to my ability to effectively communicate.  I have two exceptional young ladies checking my Views before they are distributed.  They correct my spelling, punctuation and even the meanings.  I want my readers to know exactly what I mean to convey.

It is all about the art of confirmation.  It is confirm, reconfirm and confirm again.

Do you independently confirm your communication in your research and in the reporting of your research?  Isn't your work worth the extra effort?

An Honor Received

On December 17, 2003, I was inducted into the Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame.  An honor I did not think I deserved but the committee did.  I felt very honored.