The Chatty Professor Blog

A tenured professor of Communication Studies helps students correctly–not cluelessly–speak/deal with those who teach them. The outcome? Better student-prof relationships, improved grades, and confident and competent communication skills for college and beyond. The opinions expressed are my own or those of commenters. All student situations described are real (at least one term old to protect current students); identifiers have been omitted and carefully disguised to protect student privacy.

Students, Before You Hide in Your Large Lecture Course, Read This

Posted by on Sep 6, 2012 in General, General College Success/Responses to Other College Entities | 6 comments

Students, Before You Hide in Your Large Lecture Course, Read This

(I’m back a little late! My daughter started her first day of 4th grade, so my blog is a bit delayed. Quick news! If you are in the Seattle area:  I will be making my first author appearance!!!! University of Washington Bookstore!!!!!! September 18th 7 p.m. Come visit! Yay!!!!!!! Okay, enough exclamation points. Let’s talk large lecture classes because I do not want you to disappear! Grab some tips!)   Day #1 of my Intro to Comm class (Okay, and my Interpersonal Comm and my Public Speaking class):  Pipe cleaner...

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Freshmen: Wondering About Textbooks & What To Call Your Prof? Just Ask!

Posted by on Aug 28, 2012 in Communicating with Professors, General, General College Success/Responses to Other College Entities | 13 comments

Freshmen: Wondering About Textbooks & What To Call Your Prof? Just Ask!

I think I’m going to pop an artery by the time I go back to school in late September. I already wrote about five college success tips that you don’t have to take. This was in response to college success advice that concerned me… remember? Now I’m seeing article after article of even more success tips for freshmen (and students in general) that I find incredibly overcomplicated. Why? Because the advice tells students what they should do six ways from Sunday… research this, look up that. The advice so rarely tells students to...

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Week One College Students: Check Your Class Tech Today!

Posted by on Aug 22, 2012 in Communicating with Professors, General | 3 comments

Week One College Students: Check Your Class Tech Today!

(Still in back-to-school mode here at The Chatty Professor, though I’m celebrating two exciting shout-outs this week: The Austin-American Statesman did a beautiful piece on Say This, NOT That, and I was honored to be in a KING-5 segment. But let’s get to important business–a recommendation I think is critical for all students and a first week tip I don’t think is discussed often enough…) Wonderful student, this could happen to you! Several years back, my campus implemented a college-based student e-mail...

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Who Needs to Build Word Capital? We All Do! Here’s One Way…

Posted by on Aug 17, 2012 in General, General College Success/Responses to Other College Entities | 11 comments

Who Needs to Build Word Capital? We All Do! Here’s One Way…

(A bonus Friday post! My second book review! This wasn’t a genre of books I intended to review, but stay with me and see why I enthusiastically put these gems in my queue!) Full disclosure: I never took the SAT. I took the ACT back in high school and didn’t do so well. I took the GRE before grad school and let’s just say that it’s a good thing that my grad school entry wasn’t contingent on a high score (Just to save face here, I did beautifully in grad school). I’m a troubled test-taker and maybe some of you...

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Five Must-Say Tips for Week One of College Classes

Posted by on Aug 16, 2012 in Communicating with Professors, General, General College Success/Responses to Other College Entities | 3 comments

Five Must-Say Tips for Week One of College Classes

(Wow! I can’t thank everyone enough for the ongoing support for the grade dispute posts and also the incredible feedback for the post about college success tips not to take. I figured it would be a good idea to twist the latter topic to what college students should do now that we’re nice and early in back-to-school, so read on!) During my fifth visit to Women’s View Radio, I was recently had this call-in question, “What are the first steps that a student should take when going to college?” I’m sure that...

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Another Grade Dispute: When an A Isn’t Really an A

Posted by on Aug 13, 2012 in Communicating with Professors, General, General College Success/Responses to Other College Entities | 0 comments

Another Grade Dispute: When an A Isn’t Really an A

Here we go again! Remember the grade dispute that turned into a four-part series? How could you forget, right? Well, another interesting write-in, this time from a student at a major university. A different situation and for the sake of anonymity, I’m going to heavily paraphrase, but keep the general theme. One other note: At the end of this piece, I found an interesting link written by an attorney about “legally sound syllabi.” Very interesting! Are you ready? Let’s go…) Before I start with this student’s...

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Five College Success Tips You Don’t Have To Take

Posted by on Aug 8, 2012 in General, General College Success/Responses to Other College Entities | 21 comments

Five College Success Tips You Don’t Have To Take

Back-to-school advice is ramping up all over the place. There are some fabulous tips out there and others that I quite frankly find worrisome. I thought I’d knock out a quick post to respond to five of them:  5.  Figure out what topics are important to your profs because those topics end up on tests. I find it very hard to believe that a freshman, or even seasoned college students, can decipher what information is “important” to a prof in the confines of an hour-long (or even longer!) lecture. If you asked me to pick out...

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If Your Prof Sends a Cryptic Message, You Deserve a Translation

Posted by on Aug 6, 2012 in Communicating with Professors, General | 4 comments

If Your Prof Sends a Cryptic Message, You Deserve a Translation

(On the heels of the recent grade dispute posts, another e-mail arrived with a student question about a failing grade. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough details yet to adequately present this situation, but one piece concerned me. I’ll focus on that part now and elaborate on the specifics once I have further information). “I do not plan to fail anyone. That’s all I’ll say.” This was a response that a student apparently received from a professor, via e-mail, when asked why they failed their course and if...

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What You Can Learn From My Advice to the Student Petitioning the ‘Grade Tank’

Posted by on Jul 30, 2012 in Communicating with Professors, General | 6 comments

What You Can Learn From My Advice to the Student Petitioning the ‘Grade Tank’

(Not my usual blogging day, but if you saw last Friday’s post, you already know that the student whose grade tanked is going to petition. Just coming into this unexpected series? Start here and continue here and here. I’m continuing this discussion through one more post because I believe other students could face a similar issue and the add-on advice (that I provided via e-mail) is important to share. What I told the student is universal, not only when challenging a grade, but if you ever have to stand up for yourself. I have had...

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The Latest “Grade Tank” Update, Big #STNT News & Exercise Improving Grades

Posted by on Jul 27, 2012 in Communicating with Professors, General | 2 comments

The Latest “Grade Tank” Update, Big #STNT News & Exercise Improving Grades

A quick series of Friday updates (because you know I’ve been totally enjoying these this summer!). It has been one heck of an exciting week on many levels: -For those who have been following the student whose grade tanked, here is the latest (I’m going to paraphrase. You can see the full comment on the last post): “I met with the Dean face to face today. He will allow me to file a Final Grade Review because there “may be a chance of grade mistake,” as he put it. He also told me his secretary was incorrect in telling me...

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