Theories are ways for people to compress notions and ideas as defined in the book Thinking Through Communication: An Introduction to the Study of Human Communication. They are tools that people use that ultimately help them predict, explain, and/or control ideas. In class a few weeks ago, one of my classmates mentioned that people should not make fun of their significant other. It could make the other person become upset and put a negative impact on their relationship. For instance if a guy named Bill had a girlfriend named Sally and she asked him if the dress she had on made her look fat and his response was “yes, you look like a fat cow in polka dots”, she would more than likely not respond well. She could potentially get extremely upset and it could disassemble their relationship. One may never know what others find to be big matters, so they should never attempt to make jokes about or demean their significant other. The phrase “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” does not apply in this theory. This is because though something may not physically hurt, the damage that is done can be more brutal. This theory in my opinion is good. The student used the function of prediction in order to come up with their conclusion. This is seen as inductive reasoning seeing as they looked up evidence and then came up with a conclusion. In terms of standards, I find this theory to not be parsimonious at all seeing as the explanation to why significant others should not make one of one another is quite long and detailed. The scope seems to be quite broad because the student focused on one side of the theory/idea and never touched on anything broad about the issue. I find the theory to be quite useful, for it tells people about the dangers of miscommunications. The heuristic value made me realize that I must watch what I say to people sometimes, because I do not want them to think that I am being mean or that I have bad intentions, for I