Information Strategies for Communicators

Reviewed by Cayla Thomlinson, Communication Associate Professor, Garden City Community College on 12/9/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

Covers content as expected. The 'contents' expand and lists sections, but it is the closest you get to an index, minus it being in alphabetical order. No glossary or collection of key terms or definitions.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

Provided relevant and accurate information and examples.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Should be fairly easy to go in and replace links and examples.

Clarity rating: 5

I could tell writers composed the book and had no problem reading and understanding it.

Consistency rating: 5

The book is consistent.

Modularity rating: 5

This text is divided into section that are easy to read and navigate. Some lengthy blocks of text are present, but none are too outlandish.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The inclusion of personal/professional skills of successful communicators is valuable addition, especially based on the careers it is addressing.

Interface rating: 4

Dislike that many hyperlinks are to subscription sites. Also wish all the links opened in new tabs.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I did not see any grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The information is based on U.S. legal and ethical expectations.

Comments

This book introduces and explains how journalism, advertising, and public relations majors are expected to identify, find, manage, and develop information. Appreciated the organization and choices the authors made in order to create this comprehensive and straightforward text.

Reviewed by Burton St. John III, Professor, Public Relations, University of Colorado Boulder on 6/11/20

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

This book provides extensive conceptual and some applied understandings to strategic communication as regards three fields: PR, Journalism and Advertising. It does a more than adequate job of showing the readers how to progress through applying such things as careful audience analysis, deliberative message creation. There is no considerable discussion of message delivery or how to garner feedback after message delivery. It does not offer an overarching glossary of key terms, not does it have an index. The Table of Contents, however, is well developed and helps mitigate the lack of an index to a small extent.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

The content does not display bias, In fact, the authors treat carefully and equitably the fundamentals of strategic communication across all three fields they address (PR, Advertising and Journalism). Some areas where the book could run the risk of being inaccurate due to new developments, for example in the legal or ethical arenas, are kept very short and fundamental, which minimizes the risk of inaccuracies.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

This book is full of evergreen and fundamental information in such areas as researching, idea formation, message creation and message delivery. Since its 2015 inception, it displays no considerable "dated" aspects. The book does not provide specific case studies that could become quickly dated. The book's technical structure -- short sections within chapters that focus on fundamentals -- make it easy to update.

Clarity rating: 4

The prose is straightforward and jargon free. Any particular terms, for example within the research sections, are clearly contextualized.

Consistency rating: 4

Yes. This is a strong suit for the book as it clearly aligns relevant terms consistently with the three fields it speaking to.

Modularity rating: 5

This is a strong point for the book. As I teach in only one of the three fields it covers (PR), I find that the book clearly lays out particular understandings and applications to PR in clearly divided sections. It speaks to specific strategic communications aspects for that field that the reader does not necessarily have to read across other fields or other sections.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3

Yes. It importantly talks first about thinking of your aim, then understanding how that aim can align with various relevant audiences. Then how you distill that process down to the message and the sources used to inform your message. It then goes into several sections of how to better research (which is a real problem in PR campaigns, for example). The one weak spot is that the book does not discuss in detail aspects of dissemination and how to gather feedback after the dissemination.

Interface rating: 5

No interface issues detected.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

I saw no pattern of grammar/technical issues.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

I saw no insensitive depictions. Many of the photos used seemed to disproportionately show white people, but that may be a function of what was freely available for the authors to use at the time they created this book.

Reviewed by Sarah Faris, Assistant Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University on 2/8/17

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

A strong introductory text. The content is well-rounded and takes diligent care to address concerns from multiple perspectives without making assumptions about culture or the students' baseline knowledge. Some elements fall short of addressing communications challenges with an audience who do not understand the nature of information, or who have been systematically misinformed.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

The authors go out of their way to present unbiased perspectives, and take diligence to describe the nature of bias.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

Some elements fall short of addressing communications challenges with an audience who do not understand the nature of information, or who have been systematically misinformed. Greater address of educational challenges, 508 compliance/accessibility, and confirmation bias would be helpful.

Clarity rating: 5

Well written with overarching ideas presented first and details rounding out the picture.

Consistency rating: 5

Ideas, language, and scope are consistent.

Modularity rating: 5

Readers are not compelled to skip around to tie information together due to implementation of accessible language. The lessons behave well in modular fashion. Instructors who teach communications courses for specialized fields/industries will find this very helpful as a supplement to texts that address more specific content areas.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

While each lesson moves from large ideas to smaller supportive concepts and details, a stronger approach to doing this with the entirety of the book would add another layer of precision.

Interface rating: 4

The PDF version is less comprehensive than the online versions; table of contents and appendix not included, but resources available with the online version are well structured. Images in the PDF version are glitchy in the page layout.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

Minimal grammatical errors. Some sentences read awkwardly, but in some places it encourages the reader to review the content to positive effect.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

Authors establish trust and credibility by building a humanistic lens that embraces psychology, ethics, and responsible stewardship.

Comments

Overall a strong text for an introductory course in communications, or a supplementary text to communications related coursework.

Reviewed by Fred Reeder Jr., Instructor, Miami (OH) University on 8/21/16

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

It's difficult to try to cover, in one text, the basic roles of journalists, advertisers and other professional communicators. However, the authors cover these various professions well, providing examples in each chapter to help students see these roles.

The authors explore each topic thoroughly. An example: the authors detail what a public library is. While this might cause eye rolls from instructors of a certain age, the authors realize that the audience -- college students -- might very well not have the context that we might expect them to have.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The authors provide accurate information, supplying sources when necessary (although they use Wikipedia for one reference).

The authors present each subject in an unbiased manner.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

The authors start the book by providing the basic attributes all employers seek when hiring people -- attributes that will never be obsolete. The analogies and references used by the authors ensure minimal updating of the text will be necessary.

I would suggest more moments from journalism, PR, etc., that would engage students and present fodder for class discussion -- whether it's Time magazine's decision to alter OJ Simpson's mug shot on the magazine's cover, or PR person Justine Sacco's tweet that got her fired, these examples highlight real-world decisions and consequences.

Clarity rating: 5

The authors write in a breezy narrative, creating easy-to-read sections. The authors provide graphs when necessary to help students visualize concepts, and any jargon / technical terminology is explained clearly.

Consistency rating: 5

The text maintains a consistent tone, and the authors provide a framework that never alters, giving comfort to readers, who like to know what to expect.

Modularity rating: 5

All chapters first begin with key concepts: bulleted items detailing what students will learn. The next section highlights learning outcomes: what students will be able to do. These two sections offer a clear understanding for students in a concise format.

The authors keep the chapters -- and the sections within each chapter -- short, bowing to today's audience. The shorter sections make reading palatable, even when students might find some of the content dry (the light at the end of the tunnel is never far away).

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The authors begin the textbook with life skills before detailing any specific writing, research or interviewing skills needed by professional communicators. This strategy helps answer the question all students ask when introduced to a text: "Why should I care about this?"

The authors then logically present their topics, following the opening section with the various types of media messages, before getting into the specific skills that great communicators must possess. The format does allow for instructors to jump around if they desire -- the text doesn't have to be presented in linear fashion.

Interface rating: 5

There were no interface or navigation problems in this text.

Grammatical Errors rating: 3

The authors struggle at times, mainly with:

* commas after introductory phrases
* the Oxford comma
* pronoun agreement with the subject
* relative pronoun use
* weak sentence structure (e.g. "There are" sentence constructions)

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The text isn't culturally insensitive or offensive in any way.