Many college students go to school filled with the idea that they will learn the subjects they chose to study. No one tells them that the most important thing in their life is going to be the ability to communicate. Even Einstein with all of his brilliance worked at a low level in the Swiss patent office until he published his famous papers.

Study after study shows that after college communications: be it written, oral and interpersonal communications is the most important thing in the minds of recruiters, teachers, and of course the other gender. While we all know how to talk, write and think we can communicate, there are basic rules about communicating that will improve our abilities.

This book is now in its eleventh edition. It continues to be better polished based on feedback from users. It reflects the latest research to report on the best theories we have on communications. Finally, this book discusses the American culture. Culture provides the common basis we have in order to be able to communicate at all.

This book is not really orientated at making you a better interpersonal and intercultural communicator (although it could be a start towards this), it is more of a book on interpersonal and intercultural theory. This book was the basis of my Interpersonal and Intercultural Communication Studies course at UQ in Australia. It is very simple to read, a high school student could easily understand this. I think this is a good thing, however, because as some of my lecutures demonstrated, interpersonal communication theory can be very dry and dull at some points! So I am giving this book five stars because althoug simplistic, I believe it tells you the basics of interpersonal comunication theory, and is a great starting book if you are interested in this!