COM Reading Bank: Communication

Excerpt / Summary:
Recalls the experience of the author at a French class in Paris. Reason for his relocation to Paris; Attitude of the teacher; Efforts exerted by the author.

Keywords: Communication, Language
Format: Essay
Source:Esquire

Keywords: Communication; Identity; Media & tech; Science & ethics; Society & culture
Format: Short story
Source: The New York Times Magazine

Keywords: Canadian Content; Society and Culture; Identity; Health and Wellness; Communication; Indigenous Issues
Format: Article
Source: Transgender Quarterly

Excerpt / Summary:
Jamila Lyiscott is a “tri-tongued orator;” in her powerful spoken-word essay “Broken English,” she celebrates — and challenges — the three distinct flavors of English she speaks with her friends, in the classroom and with her parents. As she explores the complicated history and present-day identity that each language represents, she unpacks what it means to be “articulate.”

Keywords: Communication, Language
Format: Video
Source: TED Talk

Excerpt / Summary:
In our louder and louder world, says sound expert Julian Treasure, "We are losing our listening." In this short, fascinating talk, Treasure shares five ways to re-tune your ears for conscious listening -- to other people and the world around you.

Keywords: Communication, Listening
Format: Video
Source: TED Talk

Keywords: Communication, Language
Format: Infographic
Source: Author's blog

Excerpt / Summary:
This chart separates each of the 14 major punctuation marks (asterisks are excluded from this list) and identifies most all of the ways you could possibly use each punctuation mark. Note that some punctuation marks, like the en dash, have very few rules (only one this case), whereas others, like the comma, have over a dozen.

Keywords: Communication, Language
Format: Infographic
Source: Artist's blog

Keyword: Communication
Format: Video
Source: TED Talk

Excerpt / Summary:
Marina Abramović's art pushes the boundary between audience and artist in pursuit of heightened consciousness and personal change. In her ground-breaking 2010 work, "The Artist Is Present," she simply sat in a chair facing her audience, for eight hours a day ... with powerfully moving results. Her boldest work may still be yet to come -- it's taking the form of a sprawling art institute devoted to experimentation and simple acts done with mindful attention. "Nothing happens if you always do things the same way," she says. "My method is to do things I'm afraid of, the things I don't know, to go to territory that nobody's ever been." [TED]

Keywords: Art, Communication
Format: Video
Source: TED Talk

Excerpt / Summary:
From YouTube: Storytelling has continually evolved over time and the advancement of technology has helped to shift how we create stories. Using personal stories David explores how storytelling has evolved and been molded by new technologies.

Keywords: Communication, Storytelling
Format: Video
Source: TED Talk

Keywords: Communication; Media & technology; Society & culture
Format: Article and videos
Source: CBC

Keyword: Communication
Format: Video
Source: TED Talk

Excerpt / Summary:
Follow along with this robot conversation as one robot uses logical fallacies to justify why it believes that robots should take over the world. Luckily for human-kind, its friend is there to set it straight. [Artists for Education]

Keywords: Communication, Logic
Format: Infographic
Source: Author's blog

Excerpt / Summary:
Listening to stories widens the imagination; telling them lets us leap over cultural walls, embrace different experiences, feel what others feel. Elif Shafak builds on this simple idea to argue that fiction can overcome identity politics.

Keywords: Communication, Storytelling
Format: Video
Source: TED Talk

Keyword: Communication
Format: Video
Source: TED Talk

Excerpt / Summary:
When most well-intentioned aid workers hear of a problem they think they can fix, they go to work. This, Ernesto Sirolli suggests, is naïve. In this funny and impassioned talk, he proposes that the first step is to listen to the people you're trying to help, and tap into their own entrepreneurial spirit. His advice on what works will help any entrepreneur.

Keywords: Business, Listening
Format: Video
Source: TED Talk

Excerpt / Summary:
Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses -- and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person "being" a genius, all of us "have" a genius. It's a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.

Keywords: Communication, Creativity
Format: Video
Source: TED Talk

Keywords: Communication; Society and Culture
Format: Article
Source: The Conversation

Keywords: Health & Wellness
Format: Article
Source: The Conversation

Excerpt / Summary: The article discusses student excuses for missed work and attendance as of February 2014, with a focus on efforts by academic institutions and professors to ensure academic honesty. Topics include websites that contain fake doctors' excuse notes, documentation policies requiring proof for excuses such as death and illness, and empathy for students suffering from sexual assault and mental illness.

Keywords: Communication, Identity
Format: Magazine Article
Source: Maclean's

Keyword: Communication; Society and Culture
Format: Article
Source: Parents.com

Keyword: Communication
Format: Article
Source: The Source (Washington University in St, Louis)

Keywords: Communication; Science and Ethics
Format: Article
Source: Gawker

Keywords: Communication, Society & Culture
Format: Essay
Source: George Orwell Foundation

Keywords: Communication, Identity, Society and Culture
Format: Article
Source: Medium.com

Keywords: Communication, Education
Format: Article
Source: The Guardian

Keywords: Science & Ethics, Communication, Media & Technology
Format: Article
Source: Rolling Stone

Keywords: Communication; Society and Culture
Format: Article
Source: The Conversation

Excerpt / Summary:


Keywords: Indigenous topics; Communication
Format: Article
Source: The Tyee

Keywords: Communication
Format: Article
Source: The Atlantic

Excerpt / Summary:
"Paul Auster's acceptance speech for the Prince of Asturias Prize for Letters, Spain's premier literary honour.

Paul Auster, one of America's greatest living novelists, argues that fiction is 'magnificently useless', but the act of creation and the pleasure of reading are incomparable human joys that we should savour."

Keywords: Communication, Storytelling
Format: Speech
Source: The Guardian

Excerpt / Summary:
"It was just one word in one email, but it triggered huge financial losses for a multinational company.

The message, written in English, was sent by a native speaker to a colleague for whom English was a second language. Unsure of the word, the recipient found two contradictory meanings in his dictionary. He acted on the wrong one."

Keywords: Communication, Language
Format: Article
Source: BBC

Excerpt / Summary:
A detailed look at an old email from Steve Jobs teaches some important lessons.

Keywords: Communication
Format: Article
Source: Inc.

Keywords: Communication, Identity, Society & Culture
Format: Article
Source: The New York Times

Excerpt / Summary:
While some spelling mistakes are harmless and funny, many aren’t. The humble typo not only has the power to make us appear less intelligent than we are. Poor spelling can also create confusion, a loss of clarity and meaning and in extreme cases it can cost millions in missed sales and job opportunities. It has the potential to wreck customer relationships and even ruin your chance of finding love online.

Keywords: Communication, Language
Format: Article
Source: BBC

Excerpt / Summary:
"Writing is balancing, making choices while considering audience, purpose, occasion. The rhetorical situation has been at the core of writing instruction forever, and yet much of the writing we ask developing writers to do keeps them from fully wrestling with those choices because we strap on the training wheels and never take them off.

For me, the key to changing this is to make writing more engaging in every sense of the word, to require students to make meaning about subjects that are meaningful to them, to create stakes that go beyond assessments that mostly measure how good students are at passing an assessment."

Keywords: Communication, Language
Format: Article
Source: Inside Higher Ed

Keywords: Education; Communication; Media and Technology
Format: Article
Source: The Conversation

Keywords: Communication
Format: Article
Source: The Guardian