Book excerpt: This book offers students a comprehensive, theoretical, and practical guide to communication theory. Croucher defines the various perspectives on communication theory—the social scientific, interpretive, and critical approaches—and then takes on the theories themselves, with topics including interpersonal communication, organizational communication, intercultural communication, persuasion, critical and rhetorical theory and other key concepts. Each theory chapter includes a sample undergraduate-written paper that applies the described theory, along with edits and commentary by Croucher, giving students an insider’s glimpse of the way communication theory can be written about and applied in the classroom and in real life. Featuring exercises, case studies and keywords that illustrate and fully explain the various communication theories, Understanding Communication Theory gives students all the tools they need to understand and apply prominent communication theories.