Communication and Persuasion in Speech Pathology

At the end of this BYU road, I hope to be a speech pathologist, or one who studies communicative disorders. My entire field of study is rooted in how individuals communicate, discovering why their methods of communication may be ineffective, and designing and implementing therapies to improve their ability to communicate with others. If it isn't already obvious from my use of the word communicate four times in two sentences, my major deals pretty heavily with communication and persuasion, in fact that is the major!The attractive aspects of this major are that it is a blend of social science and the medical field, there are various settings for employment (hospitals, schools, nursing homes, and private practice to name a few), and we deal with a wide range of individuals. We work with babies, the elderly, and everything in between. Because we deal with such a large populous, this includes a variety of disorders such as: stroke recovery, physical malformations, swallowing problems, emotional problems, learning disabilities, etc. These are some of the things that really excite me about the Communication Disorders major.

Because this is the science of communicating effectively, all types of communication are utilized. It my understanding from the discussions I have had with professors that as a speech pathologist, I will be utilizing various methods to communicate with insurance companies/ doctors, clients, and their families. Professionally, I will utilize paperwork and documenting to reach persuasive ends with third parties. Recording observations and also improvements will allow me to use logos to properly advocate services for my clients and their families. It is part of my job to prove that action is necessary. With the clients, paperwork and documentation will not be persuasive in the slightest. With this audience, my goal is to establish independence, a sense of capability, and motivation within the individual. Since this job will include helping those on the autistic spectrum, those recovering from strokes, those with physical malformations, and so forth, no single intervention program will be exactly like the program used for another person (even for another person with a similar primary problem). Finally, to communicate persuasively with the family members of clients will also require a different approach. The goal in communicating with the family is to aid with the grieving process and convince them that intervention is necessary and can only be beneficial. The grieving process requires a very sensitive, understanding form of communication. It is extremely hard to learn that someone you love has a disorder, and a speech pathologist needs to be sympathetic to that and need to be able to evaluate when it will be appropriate to suggest an intervention program.       

Communication and Persuasion in English Teaching

     English has always been my knack, and teaching has recently solidified itself as my niche. As a result, I have chosen to enter the English teaching field. As I often say, "I am attending college so that I can spend the rest of my life in a high school."

     There is something appealing about the kairos connected to teaching in a high school. Maybe that's why I want to go back.
Time: Early morning to mid-afternoon (The opening hours of the day are the intellect's playground). Date: Every day throughout autumn, winter, and spring (The teacher can easily develop relationships with students when they are together on a daily basis; also, the teacher must maintain a consistent yet creative rhetorical style in order to gain students' trust and interest.)
Place: Every type of classroom, ranging from stuffy and dimly lit to open and bright. (The teacher's position, the desks' arrangement, and the art on the walls can affect persuasive appeal. My seventh grade English teacher sat at her desk the entire year, which disengaged the class, whereas my twelfth grade teacher walked around the circular desk formation, which kept us engaged and alert.)
Katie Johnson also wrote about further times and places for communication through the internet.

    I have not yet chosen whether I would prefer to teach in a middle-school or in a high-school. Each group possesses specific psychological profiles that affect the way a teacher might employ rhetorical skills. Middle-school students are childish, simple, and immature. They base their view of a teacher's ethos not upon his or her academic achievements but upon the teacher's charisma and compassion. They thrive on pathos-directed appeals. Often they misunderstand logical arguments, or at least need guidance in order to comprehend them. On the other hand, high-school students are in the process of maturing, making complex decisions, and preparing for the future. They perceive strong ethos in a teacher who is intelligent and professional, yet relatable. High schoolers want their teachers to be their friends and their guides. Further analysis of the attributes of each group of students would prove helpful in determining the most effective uses of rhetoric in the classroom.

     While the students are most often the audience, communication in this field is not limited to the teacher-to-student sphere. Teachers also interact with administration personnel, parents, and fellow staff members. Each of these groups holds at lease one value in common: literacy. The desire to teach young people how to read and write effectively drives teachers to do what they do. Teachers employ all three branches of oratory in order to teach good literacy. They make judicial speeches whether they are defending the importance of a great classic or the validity of a grade. They teach how to write epideictic essays to analyze literature. And they take advantage of deliberative oratory when they need to convince the class to read Crime and Punishment over fall break.

When I began college, I realized that I was not nearly as well-read as many of my peers. But I do share their view that literacy is important to society. I want to teach English not only because the atmosphere, the students, and the challenge excites me, but because I want to teach something inspiring, and English inspired me.

   

Communication and Persuasion in Medicine

Similar to James, I also plan on going into the medical field.  Much of what I have to say is similar, as our two fields coincide, but I will attempt to make my post as unique as I can, or at least give it a different flavor through my own voice. 

I am still ambivalent and oscillating as to what exact study I am going to devote my career to, but I have narrowed the choices down mainly to pharmacy and surgery (and also maybe neurology).  Though the realms are quite different in terms of prescribing and physically applying learned medical skills, the rhetoric employed is nearly identical. 

One must know what to put in the syringe,
and where best to put the syringe, while also
convincing the patient to accept the syringe.

As a physician or surgeon, communication first takes place in the office or in the operation room, depending on the patient's current circumstances being dire, or slightly less so.  Either way, be it an emergency or a routine checkup, the patient must be convinced via oral or written reasoning and information as to whether or not to go through with what the doctor professes is "best."  This can be an easy process at times, as the authoritative presence of someone who has spent a large portion of their life to study and practice bears much weight.  Conversely, a stubborn or skeptical patient might require substantial counseling before accepting or rejecting aid.  The outcome of this decision is in part determined by urgency and the gravity of the patient's condition, but much of the time is also heavily reliant on how effective the doctor is in persuasion. 

"To take this medicine or that medicine—or no medicine," or "to go under the knife and radiation, or risk it" are some of the dilemmas patients must acquire an opinion on.  "Is it worth it," and "what is 'it?'"  Before making a decision to heed or dismiss the advice of the doctor, the patient must better understand the nature of their own condition, a worrisome need readily assuaged by said physician or surgeon. 

Take the right one and you live, but take the wrong one and you die.
Better ask the doctor first.

In theory, the doctor is the more knowledgeable of the two with regards to the patient, no doubt due to numerous years of learning and practice before actual application even begins, but this is not always the case.  In general, yes, the patient feels a sense of inferiority to the doctor, or possibly just respect for the medical position, but this does often lead to excessive pride in the doctor.  This "God Complex," as James put it, is a force that must be monitored. 

In my own personal experience, I had a medical tragedy that kept me out of school for two years (and continues to inhibit my success in academics even now).  Fearing for my health and even my life, I consulted a doctor for their professional diagnosis.  Going into the meeting, I had a theory as to what had happened to me, but the doctor disregarded the thought and labeled it "impossible."  Putting me through all the motions for the tests that he thought I needed to go through, the results concluded that nothing was wrong with me—a self-fulfilling prophecy that deeply offended me.  My proposition was to look into a second, "impossibly" rare scenario, but I was merely stuck with a massive painkiller shot and sent home. 

Though the Tenth Doctor might be experienced,
I do not think that he has the appropriate
"experience" for solving most medical issues,
nor of harboring the corresponding ethos.

Months later, I was still unable to properly function, and after attempting to return to school, was forced to go back home and seek further medical assistance.  Something was wrong with me, and after meeting with another, more receptive doctor, we found that I indeed had suffered the exact condition that I had suspected and feared. 

To make a long story short, a doctor must make excellent use of logos in assessing issues in a patient and providing a train of thought leading said patient to accepting help.  This is not all, however, because though the doctor must exercise skillful epideictic oratory (and even judicial oratory to demonstrate prior experiences and results), they must do it in a way so as not to dissuade the patient from accepting the physician's or surgeon's ethos.  Additionally, in order to be the most effective doctor, one must be willing to listen to the plea of the patient, as neither of the two parties are operating or prescribing for themselves.  Without a proper connection of minds under mutual respect, a doctor's rhetoric can still fail him or her.  Looking back at my own interest in this field and my unfortunate, but eye-opening event, I wish to pursue the path of biology with a wiser gait.   

Communication and Persuasion in English Teaching

            English teachers, especially high school English teachers, use communication in more diverse ways than arguably any other career.  They not only teach communication and persuasion; they live communication and persuasion.  Their whole career basically revolves around communication and persuasion. 

Every school day, high school English teachers teach the finer points of communication to their students during class. They hold conferences with students to help them with their writing skills.  They might tutor after school as well.  All of these activities require effective communication to a specific audience of students.  All students differ in personality, motivation, engagement in class studies, and intellect.  How an English teacher communicates to his or her class is largely dependent on the students.  AP, IB, and Honors students are typically more engaged in English and learning in general than College Prep or regular classes.  While honors students might appreciate an entertaining lesson just as much as non-honors students, honors students are typically more able to engage even in classic lecture lessons without YouTube videos and PowerPoints than non-honors students.  English teachers must be aware of their students’ personality in order to communicate effectively the lesson given.  Teachers are inherently quite different from students.  They are older, more mature, and in a leadership position.  These differences sometimes make students pull away from the teacher.  The English teacher must be able to highlight the similarities between him or her and the students.  The similarities are that both students and English teachers want the student to learn about English.

In order to communicate effectively to their students’ demographic, English teachers also need to know popular communication techniques.  Social media, YouTube, and multi-media presentations are all extremely popular.  In order to communicate effectively in the classroom setting, the English teacher must know how to not only classically lecture and inform but also incorporate modern communication techniques.  Though most of the classroom communication is oral, more and more English teachers are using written social media and emails to interact quickly with their students.  They therefore use types of “e-communication” regularly.  Apps and websites like Edmodo give English teachers ways to quickly and easily communicate with students over a social media platform.

English teachers differ greatly of how they communicate knowledge to their students.  Some feel lecturing is best.  Others like back-and-forth communication, posing questions to their students and having them answer.  Written communication also occurs as English teachers give tests and quizzes and send emails.  Their communication techniques, however, all alter with where they are communicating or persuading.  They mostly communicate in their classroom, but they also must one-on-one communicate in their offices.  English teachers must be available to communicate with during class, after class and at home using email or social media.  Large amounts of informative communication usually occur when students email questions about large assignments to him or her. 

Therefore, although most people assume that the teacher is usually the speaker and the students are the audience, a lot of the time, students are speaking to the teacher and the teacher must be the audience.

 Despite the obvious fact that English teachers use communication regularly and even teach the art of communication, what is lesser known is the persuasion that English teachers must use.  For example at least a few times a year, they must use effective rhetoric to stave off angry parents or students upset about a bad grade on an essay or grammar test.  Persuasion through body language and enthusiasm is often common.  English teachers must make students “buy into” their lessons.  Furthermore, a few times a year, frustrated English teachers will usually give speeches to their students about how important English is and how they cannot relax their engagement and attentiveness in the class.  Oftentimes, English teachers will be in direct conflict between administrators, other departments, or even other English teachers about what is best for the school and students or how best to spend the budget.  Though all faculty wants what is best for the students, administrators are bound by government laws and have different views of the best way to effectively teach than English teachers might.  Thus, English teachers must also be persuasive as well as informative, though they usually persuade in dialectic oratory.  Clearly, both communication and persuasion are vital to the high-school English teacher.

I found my information chiefly from email correspondences with my high-school English teacher Christopher Rice.

Communication and Persuasion in Business and Accounting

Communication and persuasion have integrated themselves into the world of business. As my field of choice is accounting, I will address the roles of communication and persuasion in the world of business generally, and then apply it to the field of accounting specifically.

Like the ever-ticking hands of an ornate grandfather clock, the world of business clicks on at an undeviating and unrelenting pace. Only the most competent and most exact companies survive the grueling grind of the free market. This medium of exchange, for innumerable vendors and consumers, demands specific type of communication -- a communication that one only understands by understanding the nature of business itself. This nature has two underlying fundamental principles that drive everything in the world of industry – efficiency and accuracy. Companies must produce every product and every service on time and to proper specification. Therefore, essentially all material communication works to meet those ends.

Some industries require more communication than others. For example, tech companies thrive on innovative thinking and break-through ideas. This need lends for a more open and free exchange of information. On the other hand, accounting firms have a more focused and restricted environment of communication. Information is exchanged almost exclusively on need-based circumstances. Accountants will use any type of communication necessary to obtain the requisite information as efficiently and accurately as possible. They will make phone calls at almost any time of day, they will send emails as soon as problems arise, and if necessary, they will physically visit other employees or customers in search of a solution. Accounting firms provide services to clients and charge those clients based on the amount of time it takes them to render those services. Therefore, the only way a firm can lower the cost of services it provides to the client, and consequently make the client happier, is to reduce the amount of time spent on each project. To that end, accountants will preference communication, over any medium that resolves their concerns as quickly as possible.

Along with communication, the ideas of efficiency and accuracy greatly influence how businesses will implement persuasion in their own lines of service. For example, a manufacturing company will put forth a herculean effort to ensure they pay the lowest price on any raw materials utilized in their manufacturing processes. Back in the world of accounting, persuasion most often occurs internally when making management decisions as opposed to external with the customer because more often than not rates are fixed and comparable to the competition. The main differentiation between one firm and another is their ability to produce a more quality product sooner (and thus cheaper). When management decisions are being made, a team of executives will gather to discuss the issue. They do not mince words and do not particularly care about how they come across to their peers. They all have one goal in mind, discus the facts and reach the best conclusion for the company. A high-performing management team will set aside egos, pride, and pleasantries, to optimize the efficiency of their persuasion as well as its accuracy.

The way accountants will tend to try to persuade one another reflects accurately on their personality. Most accountants have a straightforward, brash personality. They will make comments that seem rude and callous, when in truth offensive is rarely intended. Their observations tend to be unfiltered and unflattering. However, this means that a compliment from an accountant is more sincere, albeit rare, than most.

I have always wanted to be successful in the world of business. My dream is to own my own company. However, I have never wanted to be an accountant and frankly do not particularly enjoy this field of study. Instead, I always wanted to work with computers and about a year and a half ago I was debating on whether I should pursue an IS degree or an Accounting degree. I had a very influential and "moving" conversation with my dad that went something like this:

Me: “Dad, what do you think? What should I do?”

Dad: “You want to go into business right and manage a company?”

Me: “Yep”

Dad: “Then you would be stupid to not receive a degree from the nations top accounting program”

Me: “Ok, I’ll major in accounting”

And this is how life decisions are made in the Noren Home.

Communication and Persuasion in Psychology Professoring

Sorry you guys, another post about an educator. Hopefully I'll be able to make this unique so it will be an asset to be able to compare the educationally-based posts instead of mine just sounding repetitive.

I have always been interested in going into education. As I have gotten older I have changed from wanting to be a fifth grade teacher, to a high school AP teacher, to finally wanting to be a college professor, either at a junior college or at a university. (Notice I never wanted to be a middle school teacher... for a reason. Those teachers definitely have my respect because I would not be able to put up with middle-schoolers every day.) I am still technically trying to choose which subject to teach, but for the purpose of this assignment I chose psychology. Most of the information in this post comes from my own observations, things my psychology teacher has mentioned, and information I gathered in a career explorations class last semester.

So a professor has a slightly different job than a teacher because they deal with adults instead of children or teenagers. This means they relate to their students on a different level. When teachers get respect from their students it is often because they are older and in the authoritative position. As the students get older they tend to respect their teachers less and less because they start to think of themselves as being intelligent. This perception is usually crushed freshman year of college when students realize they do not know as much as they thought they do. Professors are respected because they are knowledgeable in a field the students are usually interested in and because the students actually want to be in school. A professor just has to be fair and students will usually respect them. Professors also usually work with a different class size than a normal teacher; either much larger or much smaller. The size of the class will affect how a professor addresses his students and whether he/she will often work with students one-on-one.

Psychology adds a different twist because some of its concepts are theoretical. A psychology professor has a couple of options for what they could persuade their students; and the decision between them is often subconscious. The professor can either persuade the students that his/her option toward the theoretical side is accurate or he/she can try to be as impartial as possible and let the students decide for themselves. Most of the rhetoric a psychology professor does would fall under the epideictic and legislative forms of oratory since a professor is either exposing students to new information or defending why scientists have come to the conclusions they have about certain things. 

Professors are also unique in that they also have to communicate with the intellectual world through research, discussions, and publishing. Researching and publishing, since they are written down, add an aspect of persuasion that teachers do not have to experience. The audience also changes since a published work is addressed to people who are just as competent in the field as the professor is. In some ways that makes it easier, the professor doesn't have to rely on definitional rhetoric and can instead focus on interpretation. However, defending an interpretation in the intellectual world can be difficult in and of itself. Especially for a psychology professor who has slightly different views than other psychologist; such as a Mormon who believes in altruism. (Religion and self-sacrificing natures do not mix well with popular psychology.)

Feedback and research studies are important to psychology professors in both of the above sides to their jobs. As an educator, a professor should try to improve his/her teaching methods by listening to both what the students and the grades say. If many university students complain about a single professor then that professor is usually doing something to warrant such wide-spread dissatisfaction. If grades are too low or too high then either the professor's grading or the teaching style needs to improve. Among the intellectual community professors have to pay attention to how they are perceived by their peers to make sure they are still seen in a respected light because a discredited psychology professor will have a hard time keeping his/her job.

Communication and Persuasion in French Teaching

I am currently not a French Teaching major. BUT. I am a French major who is not quite sure where she's going, and teaching has interested me for a while, so I decided to explore rhetoric in this career.

Le tour Eiffel

It all began in eighth grade in French I. My teacher was a lovely woman from southern France, and my tongue felt like it was dripping with warm honey when I repeated after her the Bonjour's and the Je m'appelle's. She made me love French.

That in itself takes some rhetorical talent. Teaching is persuading, and Mme Benford was persuasive. If I wanted to become like her, I'd have to do a few things and persuade a few people.

Right now, I'm probs 
somewhere near the 
Intermediate Low section.

Before I even began teaching, I'd have to prove (at least to BYU) that I had reached a minimum level of Advanced Low on the ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) scale. To do this, I would have to take a speaking test. Though this test mostly involves showing off your skill, rhetoric could be involved in how confident your delivery is. Artful pausing, as well, would give you time to sort your thoughts without being too obvious. These things would help with the fluidity of your speaking and show the "specialized language professional" conducting your exam that you know your stuff.

So say I miraculously pass the ACTFL exam and complete an internship. Then I land myself a place teaching French I or French 101. Très cool ! I'll tell myself. Then I'll take up the task of persuading my students to participate, learn, and do well in my class. Depending on what grade level I'm teaching, I may be the older person who's less innocent and less excited about life. I'd be the one communicating information to the kiddies most of the time in this classroom setting, and in order to persuade them, I'd need to get to their level.  Technology! Deliberative oratory! Praise and encouragement! These are the things that would capture a young student's attention and (hopefully) help them love French.

L'arc de triomphe

A few years pass and I'm getting really good at this whole teaching thing. I decide to join the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF) and go to the annual convention. While I'm at it, I create a presentation to give at the convention based on the theme they chose for that year. My extensive knowledge of French helps me craft metaphors, chiasmi, and proverbs into my presentation. And wouldn't ya know it, it's a hit! People comment on my exquisite accent and my boss tells me I just have to give the same presentation to the foreign language teachers at the school. In order to appeal to them, I tweak my presentation a little and use a more casual tone while giving it. Once again, c'est un succès !

Then I think to myself, Golly, that one assignment in Rhetoric and Civilization...it was worthwhile...

Communication and Persuasion in the Actuarial Field

For those who have never heard of an actuary before: actuaries calculate and minimize the financial consequences of risk, using mathematics, statistics, finance, economics, and other areas dealing with risk management. Most actuaries work for insurance companies or large consulting firms. My interest in the actuarial field resides mostly in the consulting side of the industry, in which communication and persuasion skills are not just valuable but absolutely necessary in becoming a successful consulting actuary.

Consulting actuaries’ most common circumstance for communication will be with clients. Many of these interactions will be through email, phone, or even video calls for the lower level associate actuaries. For the partners or fellowship actuaries, a lot of travel and actual face to face contact with clients is necessary. These face to face interactions is where the persuasion takes place. It is here that the client really needs to feel like they can trust the firm that is analyzing their risk. It is the actuary’s job to persuade them that their company needs their risk minimized by the actuary’s specific consulting firm and why they aren't better off going to another actuarial consulting firm. This interaction between the head actuaries and the clients is at the heart of the business of consulting actuarial work. It is also important that not only skills of persuasion can be applied in these situations, but that clear communication, with respect to the clients understanding of analytical terms, is achieved. Without strong communication and persuasion skills it is harder to accomplish the goals of these personal interactions.

The actuarial field is very unique, especially the consulting side. It requires advanced analytical and interpersonal skills. Communication is mostly deliberative, but judicial and epideictic also play a role in actuarial profession. Those who can master both the required analytical skills, and these genres of communication can become very successful actuaries.

I became interested in becoming an actuary during my first semester of college after my LDS mission. I learned about what they did during a basic accounting class and it seemed to fit what I was looking for at the time. During my mission I saw the power of communication and business. This gave me a desire to find a career where I could combine my mathematical skills, with my growing communication and interpersonal skills. The actuarial field was a perfect fit!

The information I have shared today came from interacting with professionals in the industry, and others in information sessions and internship interviews for actuarial positions. This information is clearly valuable, and only increases my desire to continue pursuing this career path.