The Communication Capstone: The Communication Inquiry and Theory Experience (CITE) is the first textbook explicitly designed for graduating seniors in a Communication Capstone course, whether taught in small or large sections, or taught as a conceptual review or as a project- or skills-based course.

The text features chapters authored by active, well-published, and award-winning scholars and teachers in their respective areas of study. CITE is built on an integrated approach that moves across four conceptually-ordered units:

—Knowing Who We Are and Where We've Been: The history of the discipline and orienting principles of the communication process

—Knowing How We Know What We (Claim to) Know: Theoretical and methodological paradigms

—Knowing Where We Are and What Our Communication Is Doing: Core functions and contexts of communication, including as exemplars chapters on: interpersonal, gender, argument and persuasion, conflict, organizational and leadership, health communication, intercultural communication, political communication, and mass and mediated communication

—Knowing Why Knowing About Communication Matters: Careers and opportunities available to those who study communication

Mastery of the knowledge base in CITE, facilitated by the assessment-oriented student learning objectives that introduce each chapter, represents solid evidence that students have learned a core and specifiable set of knowledge in the field.