Conversation isn’t taught in school the way writing and public speaking are, so we have to pick it up on our own—which is one reason there’s such wide variation in how satisfying our conversations are.

To complicate matters, conversing can demand considerable attention. We need to anticipate the information needed by other people, provide enough context for what we say (but not too much), and quickly accommodate changing subjects and differing perspectives. Managing all these factors successfully can be difficult. We do it, but often not very well.

Given how multifaceted and challenging conversation is, how can we consistently improve our talks? To answer this question, I turn to linguistics and psychotherapy—two areas of knowledge that offer rules and strategies for successful and meaningful dialogue.

The most basic structural rule of conversation is taking turns, with a corollary that conversational turns should be similar in length.

If someone is dominating a conversation, then they are violating this basic structural rule. In that case, turn-taking can be encouraged with a direct request to the speaker for turn-yielding or with more diplomatic approaches. Inclusive observations work, such as “We haven’t heard from Joan in a while.”

Humor also works. When my father wanted to enter a conversation, he would say, “Stop........

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