Unit 04

1. Watch Professor Gernsbacher’s lecture video, “How Is the Internet Changing the Way We Communicate?” [a captioned version of the video is here, and a transcript of the video is available here].
2. Read Codova’s (2019) tweet (and its response tweet).
3. Skim read Jaschik’s (2017) article, “Michigan State Will Ban Whiteboards from Dormitory Doors,” for an example of how brief forms of anonymous communication have been used, sadly and unfortunately, for bullying for decades (prior to the Internet).
4. Read Kirp’s (2017) New York Times article, “Text Your Way to College.”
5. Read an excerpt from Blumenstyk’s (2022) The Chronicle of Higher Education article, “The Science of Text Nudges is Growing. That’s a Good Thing.”
6. Go to the Unit 4: Assignment #1 Discussion Board and make a new post, of at least 200 words, in which you do the following:
   1. According to Professor Gernsbacher’s lecture video, is the Internet making our communication briefer (shorter and more succinct)? Why or why not?
   2. According to Professor Gernsbacher’s lecture video, is the Internet making our communication less formal? Why or why not?
   3. What does it mean to prefer intransient communication over transient communication?
   4. What does it mean to prefer asynchronous communication over synchronous communication?
   5. Identify and describe a specific situation, either from Professor Gernsbacher’s lecture video, Cordova’s tweet, Kirp’s article, Blumenstyk’s article, or your own life, in which there was a preference to communicate asynchronously.

Unit 4: Assignment #2 (due before 11:59 pm Central on TUE FEB 13):

1. Read “How To Email A Professor.”
   1. To appreciate the value of students proofreading their email before they email their professors, see this Tweet by a University of Illinois professor (reporting an email he received from a student — and a follow-up with a happy ending about proofreading!).
      • Related, but not required, to appreciate the statistical reason to not ask a professor for a grade bump, watch Andrews’ (2020) lecture video “When Continuous Measurements Become Discrete.” [a transcript of the video is available here]
   2. Show (via email, text message, Facebook, or another communication medium) the How To Email A Professor to five other college students (they can be UW-Madison students or students at other colleges).
   3. Ask each of the five students to identify which of the suggestions they were the least familiar with before reading the document AND which of the suggestions they were the most familiar with before reading the document.
2. Go to the Unit 4: Assignment #2 Discussion Board and make a new post, of at least 200 words, in which you provide a summary of the five students’ responses by
   1. listing each of the five students by their initials (e.g., GS) and
   2. then telling us which recommendations each student was the least familiar with before reading the document and which recommendations each student was the most familiar with before reading the document.

Unit 4: Assignment #3 (due before 11:59 pm Central on WED FEB 14):

1. Read all the other Chat Groups’ summaries of their Unit 3 Chat (on challenges faced by colleges and college students). These summaries will be reproduced for you on the Unit 4: Assignment #3 Discussion Board, when they are available.
2. Write one reply of at least 200 words in response to the Chat Group who identified challenges and proposed solutions most similar to your Chat Group.
3. Write a second reply of at least 200 words in response to the Chat Group who identified challenges and proposes solutions the least similar to your Chat Group.

Unit 4: Assignment #4 (due before 11:59 pm Central on FRI FEB 16):

1. Read from Professor Gernsbacher’s (2014) article, “Internet-Based Communication” the section titled, “Example Internet-based Communication Research Program,” which starts at the bottom of p. 368 (p. 10 of the pdf) and ends at the bottom of p. 369 (p. 11 of the pdf).
2. Read two pages from Pew Research Center’s (2017) study, “Personal Finance Questions Elicit Slightly Different Answers in Phone Surveys than Online.”
3. Go to the Unit 4: Assignment #4 Discussion Board and make a new post, of at least 200 words, in which you speculate why research surveys conducted via text message rather than conducted via telephone are more accurate. That is, when research surveys are conducted via text message rather than via telephone:
   1. Why do you think respondents are less likely to straightline? (Be sure you understand and explain in your post what it means to straightline when responding to a survey.)
   2. Why do you think respondents are less likely to satisfice? (Be sure you understand and explain in your post what it means to satisfice when responding to a survey.)
   3. Why do you think respondents are less likely to fall prey to socially desirable responding? (Be sure you understand and explain in your post what socially desirable responding means in the context of responding to a survey.)

Unit 4: Assignment #5 (due before 11:59 pm Central on SUN FEB 18):

1. Meet online with your small Chat Group for a one-hour text-based Group Chat at a time/date that your Chat Group has previously arranged.
2. Prior to your one-hour Group Chat, ALL members of your Chat Group must do the following:
   1. Read Bogle’s (2017) article, “It’s Been 25 Years Since the First-Ever Text Message and the Kids Are Alright.” The Bogle article is a popular press article that previews some of the research that individual Chat Group members will also be required to read.
   2. Read Stromberg’s (2014) article, “OMG! Texting Doesn’t Actually Hurt Kids’ Grammar or Spelling Skills.” The Stromberg article is also a popular press article that also previews some of the research that individual Chat Group members will be required to read.
   3. Read the abstract from Tagliamonte et al.’s (2016) article, “So Sick or So Cool? The Language of Youth on the Internet.”
3. Prior to your one-hour Group Chat, individual members of your Chat Group must do the following:
   1. If your last name comes last alphabetically in your Chat Group, read Plester et al.’s (2008) article, “Txt msg n School Literacy: Does Texting and Knowledge of Text Abbreviations Adversely Affect Children’s Literacy Attainment?”
   2. If your last name comes first alphabetically in your Chat Group, read Wood et al.’s (2011) article, “The Effect of Text Messaging on 9- and 10-Year-old Children’s Reading, Spelling and Phonological Processing Skills.”
   3. If you are in a three-student Chat Group and your last name comes neither first nor last alphabetically in your Chat Group, read Kemp’s (2010) article, “Texting versus txting: Reading and Writing Text Messages, and Links with Other Linguistic Skills.”
4. Begin your one-hour Group Chat by doing the following:
   1. First: Each Chat Group member needs to indicate ONE of the NINE “How Are You Feeling at the START of Today’s Group Chat?” images. More than one Chat Group member can indicate the same image if that’s how they are feeling, and please refer to each image by its number.
   2. Second: Each Chat Group member needs to tell the other Chat Group members about the article they read (in requirement c. above).
      • Explain to the other members the study’s methodology: How many students were recruited to the study? What tests were administered in the study? Why were these tests administered?
      • Explain to the other members the major results of the study: What did the researchers find?
      • Explain to the other members what the major results mean.
5. During each Chat Group member’s description of the study they read, other Chat Group members MUST ask questions to the member describing the study that member read.
6. Then, as a group, come to a conclusion about what the different studies mean. What, for example, would you tell a parent who is concerned about their child using textisms in their text messages and wondering what that means for their child’s vocabulary, grammar, and other aspects of linguistic skill in their non-text message writing?
7. At the end of your one-hour Group Chat.
   1. First, nominate one member of your Chat Group (who participated in the Chat) to make a post on the Unit 4: Assignment #5 Discussion Board that summarizes your Group Chat in at least 200 words.
   2. Second, nominate another member of your Chat Group (who participated in the Group Chat using the browser Chrome on their laptop, rather than on their mobile device) to save the Chat transcript, as described in the Course How To (under the topic, “How To Save and Attach a Chat Transcript”).
      1. Then, this member of the Chat Group needs to make a post on the Unit 4: Assignment #5 Discussion Board and attach the Chat transcript, saved as PDF, to that Discussion Board post.
      2. Remember: To attach the Chat transcript, saved as PDF, click on the word “Attach.” (Do not click on the sidebar menu “Files.”)
   3. Third, nominate a third member of your Chat Group (who also participated in the Chat) to make another post on the Unit 4: Assignment #5 Discussion Board that states the full name of the assignment (Unit 4: Assignment #5), the full name of your Chat Group, the first and last name of each Chat Group member who participated in the Group Chat, the day and date of your Group Chat (e.g., SUN SEP 3), and the start and stop time of your Group Chat.
   4. If only two persons participated in the Group Chat, then one of those two persons needs to do two of the above three tasks.
   5. Before ending the Chat:
      • Each Chat Group member needs to indicate ONE of the nine “How Are You Feeling at the END of Today’s Group Chat?” images. More than one Chat Group member can indicate the same image if that’s how they are feeling, and please refer to each image by its number.
      • NOTE: The “How Are You Feeling at the END of Today’s Group Chat” grid of images differs from the “How Are You Feeling at the START of Today’s Group Chat” grid of images.
      • As a group, the Chat Group needs to arrange the day, date, and time for the Group Chat you will need to hold during the next Unit (Unit 5: Assignment #5).

Unit 4: Assignment #6 (due before 11:59 pm Central on SUN FEB 18):

1. Complete the Unit 4 Course Review Sheet (which is a fillable PDF; refer to previous Units’ instructions for how to download onto your own device, save on your own device, rename on your own device, and then fill in on your own device — by typing, not copying — a fillable PDF).
   1. Rename the unfilled PDF to be YourLastName_PSY-532_Unit04_CourseReview.pdf; then fill it in by typing, not copying.
   2. Remember that each Course Review Sheet in this course will be cumulative, so be sure to fill in by typing ALL pages
2. Review the Term Project Instructions. If you have any further questions, feel free to email Professor Gernsbacher.
   1. Settle on ONE project and ONE presentation medium.

   2. If you’ve chosen the Whole Course option, begin overviewing/journaling the previous units (i.e., Units 1, 2, and 3).

      • Take a partial screenshot of the overviews/journals you have completed during this Unit. Make sure your partial screenshot shows the Unit numbers of the Units you have overviewed/journaled.
      • Remember that a partial screenshot is a screenshot of ONLY the part of your screen that contains the RELEVANT content — not a screenshot of your entire screen.
      • If you can’t remember from Unit 1 how to take a partial screenshot, this website will help you.

   3. If you’ve chosen the Deep Dive option, begin your research by learning (or re-learning) the material in this course that relates to the Deep Dive topic you have chosen.

      • If the material in this course that relates to your Deep Dive topic is in Units 1 through 4, review that material.
      • If the material in this course that relates to your Deep Dive topic is in Units 5 through 14, skip ahead and skim through that material.
      • Write detailed notes on the material in this course that relates to the Deep Dive topic you have chosen.
      • Take a partial screenshot of the detailed notes you have written on the material in this course that relates to the Deep Dive topic you have chosen.
      • Remember that a partial screenshot is a screenshot of ONLY the part of your screen that contains the RELEVANT content — not a screenshot of your entire screen.
      • If you can’t remember from Unit 1 how to take a partial screenshot, this website will help you.
   4. Compose at least 200 words describing
      • which project you’ve chosen (if you’ve chosen the Whole Course option of assembling a detailed overview of the course for an audience other than college students, be sure to identify your intended audience; if you’ve chosen the Deep Dive option, be sure to tell us which topic/question you’ve chosen);
      • which presentation medium you’ve chosen; and
      • what work you completed on your Term Project during this unit.
   5. Save your at-least-200 words as a PDF that includes your partial screenshot (embedded within your PDF) and that is named YourLastName_PSY-532_Unit04_TermProject.pdf. Note that the text in your partial screenshot does not count toward the at-least-200 words you are required to write.
3. Go to Unit 4: Assignment #6 (which is an Assignment link, not a Discussion Board) and do the following:
   1. First, use the “File Upload” tool to attach/upload your completed Unit 4 Review Sheet (click “Choose File” to attach/upload your filled-in PDF);
   2. Second, click on the “+ Add Another File” to attach/upload your 200-word composition about your Term Project (saved in PDF; remember to include your partial screenshot within your PDF); and
   3. Third, immediately after submitting your assignment, check to make sure that your filled-in PDF is really filled-in (isn’t empty) and that your PDF about your Term Project is also attached and complete.

Congratulations, you have finished Unit 4! Onward to Unit 5!