CTA 162 Interpersonal Communication
Bill Petkanas
PAPER
The paper for this course will be an application of one of the ideas or topics discussed during the
semester. If at any time you are confused or unsure about this paper, your topic, how to do
research, or anything else concerning this assignment, I encourage you to contact me. I am
available for advice and direction and I'm very happy to make this as pleasant as possible. The
idea here is that you should: 1) know what you are doing, 2) feel confident about what you're
doing.
The purpose of this assignment is for you to gain some experience in the process of researching
and writing a paper, with emphasis on the non-verbal aspects of a paper. You will accomplish
this by looking at a topic from this course in a little more depth and applying this information to
some interpersonal communication event.
CONTENT
The paper is a “how to improve your communication skills” and it should be divided into two
sections:
1. The topic: This explains the topic you are writing about. Use the textbook as a your source
and two references from the textbook as secondary sources. I will explain this procedure to you
in class.
2. Application: Here you take the topic and use an example or two to illustrate how to improve
interpersonal communication skills.
FORM & STYLE
The language of the paper should be crisp, clear, academic style. Carefully written and even
more carefully proofread. Avoid awkward sentence structure by proofreading your paper out
loud.
The entire paper should be four or five pages, double spaced.
subtitled, (like the subtitles on this sheet).
Each part, or section, should be
Make sure that you include the proper citations and bibliography for the style you use. Some of
them use endnotes, some footnotes, and some use in-text citations. Some styles call your
sources "references," others "works cited," or "bibliography." The most commonly used styles
are APA and MLA, available in the library.
Important notice and policy on plagiarism
Since the development of the Internet, there has been a drastic increase in the number of cases
of plagiarism. When I detect a plagiarized paper, it is my policy to give a student an "F" for the
course and report the case to the Dean of Student Affairs. I have done this in all cases, without
exception. I will explain what constitutes plagiarism in class.