A new book by Jason VanRuler about discovering your communication type

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on February 4, 2020 I blogged about how The Toastmasters Pathways Level 2 project on Understanding Your Communication Style says there are four communication styles. Where did they come from?

 

At my friendly, local Ada Community Library I found and am reading a useful 2026 book by Jason VanRuler titled Discovering Your Communication Type: The 5 paths to deeper connections and stronger relationships. He asserts that there are five different types (as shown above), described by the acronym of PATHS: Peacemaker, Advocate, Thinker, Harbor, Spark. There is a brief preview just through page 17 at Google Books.

 

PART 1 has the following eight chapters (and starting page numbers):

 

1] PATHS Overview                03

    Discover Your Type        15

2] Peacemaker                       21

3] Advocate                             31

4] Thinker                                41

5] Harbor                                 51

6] Spark                                    59

7] Attachments and PATHS  67

8] The PATHS Effect               79

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Information about the five types is presented in those separate ~ten-page chapters. I have summarized them via a series of tables. Two-sentence summaries for those five types are shown above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four-sentence descriptions of the communication patterns for those five types also are shown above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And three-sentence descriptions of the Strengths and Challenges for those five types are shown above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, one-sentence descriptions of the Core Fears for those five types are shown above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally, how those five communication types are wired relative to the Big Five and the nine Enneagrams are shown above. Jason’s types are different from the Big Five personality traits of Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Openness. 

 

PART 2 is about applications and has the following eight chapters (and starting page numbers):

 

 9] Off-Ramps to Communication         087

10] On-Ramps to Communication          103

11] Conflict                                                  117

12] Saying Hard Things                              131

13] Practicing Communication                147

14] Responding to Hard Things               159

15] Communicating with the                   169

16] Uncommunicative                 

17] Special Circumstances                        181

18] Using the PATHS framework             195

      Conclusion                                             203

 

Jason has a 46-minute Typology Podcast on June 4, 2026 titled The Way You Communicate Is Costing You Connection | Jason VanRuler.

 

The pentagram was adapted from OpenClipArt.

 

 

The academic plagiarism saga of Jason Arday

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Wikipedia page says that Jason Arday was appointed as a professor of Sociology of Education at Cambridge University in March 2023. In April 2026 he gave a keynote speech at the seventy-fifth anniversary conference of the British Sociological Association that was titled Wanted Dead or Alive: The Playbook. It was discussed in an article by Lanre Bakare at The Guardian on August 1, 2026 titled Playbooks, plagiarism and a pig’s head: new claims surrounding a star Cambridge professor. That article described that Arday had plagiarized his 2015 PhD thesis from one six years earlier by Paula Zwozdiak-Myers.

 

A second article by Caitlin Doherty at BBC News on August 5, 2026 is titled Cambridge professor at centre of plagiarism row resigns. A third article by Danica Kirka at the Associated Press [The Hill] on August 6, 2026 is titled Youngest Black professor at Cambridge resigns as university investigates allegations of plagiarism.

 

His memoir Great and Unfortunate Things just was published. Yet another article by Rikki Schlott at the New York Post on August 10, 2026 is titled Plagiarist prof Jason Arday’s life story is published tomorrow, and it gets more unbelievable by the page.

 

I first saw the professor mentioned in still another article by Edzard Ernst on August 10, 2026 titled The Jason Arday saga – a “vile campaign to undermine his credibility”???.

 

The grasping hand image came from Wikimedia Commons.  

 

 

Who really is a thought leader?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A thought leader is a real expert, with a capital E. (On June 20, 2026 I blogged about Who is a pseudoexpert?) There are two posts by Nick Morgan at Public Words titled What’s a Thought Leader. Nick begins his first post on July 1, 2025 by stating:

 

“What’s a thought leader?  It’s someone who understands a particular sliver of knowledge as well or better than everyone else.  It’s someone who has added to the world’s awareness of the possibilities that exist for a group of people so that they see themselves in a new way.  It’s someone who understands how to apply one kind of expertise to a field where it hasn’t been applied before.

That knowledge is usually developed over a decade or more, and it comes from a genuine passion, a desire to break open some locked mystery box that has puzzled everyone up until now.”

Nick then said in his second post on July 15 that people are paid to speak for three reasons. One is that they are a celebrity. Another is that they have an important title. And the third is they have marketable expertise. The fourth paragraph of his second post says:

 

“To be able to join that coveted third category of speaker you have to become a thought leader first – a recognized expert in a category of knowledge.  Speaking is something you do once you’ve established that expertise.  You might have an academic title, you might teach, you might do research, you might invent a process, you might coach people to achieve extraordinary things, you might write a book about a compelling subject – all of these are ways to become recognized as a thought leader.  Once you’ve established that expertise, you can then start the next chapter of your thought leadership career.”

 

And in an article at Medium on January 23, 2021 by Mike Olson titled Thought follower he said:

 

“When someone claims that they themselves are a thought leader, I assume they’re really not, and also that they are a little bit of a dick.”

 

Similarly, I ended a post on July 10, 2014 titled Is the advice you’re getting about public speaking almost as ancient as a fossilized tribolite? by saying thought leader means that I thought I was a leader, but I’m not.

 

The paper plane was adapted from here at Wikimedia Commons.  

 

 

A blog post from Seth Godin about having or doing a good job

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A simple graphic like a 2x2 table can explain something more clearly than lots of words. There is a post by Seth Godin on July 21, 2026 at Seth’s Blog titled The Having/Doing job gap. His six-paragraph post is neither concise nor clear. I have described things more clearly, as shown above, via a 2x2 table with four quadrants. On January 19, 2024 I blogged about The joy of 2x2 tables, or charts, or matrixes.

 

At the upper left is when you don’t have a good job but still do a good job, which is better than expected and thus is a gap. At the lower right is another gap when you have a good job but don’t do a good job, and need to improve.

 

At the lower left is when you neither have nor do a good job, which is the worst situation. Finally, at the upper right, is when you both have a good job and do a good job, which is the very best situation and a success.

 

Seth’s long, full post is as follows:

 

“It’s a dance between workers, bosses, and the market.

 

The most stable quadrant happens when a thoughtful and consistent boss hires the right person, pays them fairly, creates positive working conditions and useful training. In return, the company gets extraordinary performance. That’s someone doing a good job who also has a good job.

 

A particularly unstable quadrant is the worker who gets all of the above, but because of culture, choice, or lack of enrollment doesn’t do a good job. That mismatch could last for a while, but it’s shaky.

 

Consider for a moment the boss who takes advantage of people (and the system) by creating lousy conditions and paying too little but still manages to enforce output that they consider acceptable. Once workers realize that they don’t have a good job, they leave, if the culture and economy permit it. Government is critical in helping people doing a good job get unstuck once they realize they don’t have a good job.

 

And the last quadrant is all too common: you don’t have a good job and you don’t do a good job. It’s not clear which came first, but they often go together.

 

Everyone deserves to have a good job. And smart bosses show up to help make that possible.”

 

 

Ending your speech by circling back, also known as using a callback

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On April 21, 2022 I blogged about a Free e-book on Advanced Public Speaking from the University of Arkansas. Chapter 9 is titled Closing a Speech: End with Power and Let Them Know It is Time to Clap. Lynn Meade says to End by Circling Back to the Opening:

 

“Another type of ending is to circle back to what you said in the beginning. You can revisit a quote, share the end to an illustration that was begun in the beginning, or you can put away a prop you got out in the beginning.”

 

Similarly, an article in the April 2023 Toastmaster magazine on pages 15 and 16 titled 5 Simple Tips for Better Speechwriting says:

 

“There are two common ways to wrap up your speech. First, you can do a callback, where you refer back to the story, question, or quip you told at the beginning. Or you can summarize the three points you made in your speech (based on your outline).”

 

And there is a post at the Benjamin Ball Associates blog on June 30, 2016 titled How to End a Speech – 9 Great Examples. The first one is to Close Your Speech by Circling Back to the Beginning:

 

“Refer to an anecdote, quote, or case study from the start of your speech. Reiterate the message you want people to remember. If you can, expand on the anecdote or re-conceptualise the quote. Or provide a follow-up result from your case study. This will feel even more satisfying for your audience.”

 

Back on March 22, 2011 I blogged about Speech geometry: lines, circles, forks, and combs.

 

Images of a woman using a telephone and a circular arrow were adapted from OpenClipArt.

 

 

What was Mark Twain’s speechwriting philosophy?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a useful article by Steve Siebold at LinkedIn Pulse on July 24, 2026 titled Mark Twain’s Speechwriting Philosophy? He says that:

 

“Twain was one of the most successful professional speakers of his time. He was also a master wordsmith who believed deeply in the discipline of world-class writing. He is famously quoted as saying:

 

‘The difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.’

 

That distinction is the heart of great speechwriting.

 

The almost right word communicates the idea. The right word makes the audience feel it. The almost right word fills the sentence. The right word brings the sentence to life. The almost right word earns polite attention. The right word can produce laughter, silence, tension, emotion, or a standing ovation.

 

…If you want to become a stronger professional speaker, become a more disciplined speechwriter. Stop settling for language that is close enough. Search for the precise word, the sharper sentence, the cleaner transition, and the more powerful ending. Write it. Deliver it. Study the reaction. Rewrite it. Then repeat the process until the vignette sounds effortless.”

 

But that simile wasn’t quite what Twain said. It is a paraphrase, an example of the almost-right words. I blogged about it back on February 3, 2015 in a post titled Missing the boat by botching a quote. What Mark really said was that:

 

“The difference between the almost-right word & the right word is really a large matter - it’s the difference between the lightning-bug & the lightning.”

 

And on July 16, 2024 I blogged about Making fine distinctions: Using the right word versus the almost-right word.

 

An etching of Mark Twain came from the Library of Congress.

 

 

Effective Scientific Presentations Across Formats - A Modern Guide for Science Trainees, Researchers, and Others

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a very detailed 17-page pdf article by Steven C. Grambow and Kevin P. Weinfurt at Advances in Social Science Research on September 19, 2024 (Volume 11, number 9, pages 42 to 55) titled Effective Scientific Presentations Across Formats: A Modern Guide for Science Trainees and Researchers.

 

The abstract says:

 

“This paper presents a comprehensive tutorial on delivering effective scientific presentations in the modern era, addressing a landscape altered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The shift to virtual and hybrid formats has fundamentally changed the norms of how scientific findings are shared, creating new challenges and opportunities for presenters.

 

Drawing from over a decade of experience teaching and refining presentation skills, we address a soft-skill gap in clinical and translational science training. The tutorial outlines four key topics: (1) identifying your scientific story, (2) using effective slide design, (3) presenting data, and (4) delivering your presentation. These lessons, developed through extensive seminars and individual coaching at various academic institutions, enable researchers to enhance communication and audience engagement across presentation formats.

 

Our approach, informed by cognitive processing and data visualization principles, has adapted to the new reality of virtual and hybrid presentations. This work contributes practical insights for optimizing presentation skills in this changed communication landscape. By offering actionable recommendations derived from real-world experience, this tutorial provides valuable guidance for science trainees, junior faculty, and established researchers across disciplines. It aims to equip readers with the necessary tools to deliver compelling scientific presentations in any format, advancing effective academic discourse in an era where virtual and hybrid presentations have become the norm.”

 

This article is useful for most presenters, not just scientists. There are four particularly useful figures that are shown by individual images:

 

Figure 1. Comparison of a Slide with More (top) versus Fewer (bottom) Words

 

Figure 2. Directing the Audience’s Attention Through Outlined Shapes or Highlighted Boxes

 

Figure 3. Elements of an Effective Presentation Palette

 

Figure 4. Presenting a Complex Figure in Steps to Support Your Storytelling

 

Back on January 7, 2019 I blogged about A good (but not great) article on how to give a scientific talk. And on February 19, 2014 I blogged about how Assertion-Evidence PowerPoint slides are a visual alternative to bullet point lists.

 

The 2013 image of Edward C. Stone came from Wikimedia Commons.