Project #1
Interview & Interpersonal
Analysis Essay
Purpose & Goals of This Project:
This interview project and paper has two overarching
goals:
·
To help you analyze your own interpersonal communication skills and the
interpersonal communication skills of the person you are interviewing
·
To begin research for you second project – the Informative Speech
Symposium – and to write about what you have learned about your public policy
subtopic from your interviewee.
Instructions:
- For your interview, choose an expert or professional or someone
who is involved with the issue or topic you are investigating. This person should have solid
experience, skills or expertise, or a significant interest in the topic (i.e.
they benefit from or are in someway harmed by the policies of the status
quo).
- Interviews should be one-half to one hour long, and arranged in
advance for the convenience of the interviewee. Interviews may also be via
email or telephone – but most credit will be given for face to face
interviews. You may do more than one interview if you wish.
- Compose a set of questions to ask during the interview
(word-processed)
- Use the concepts we discussed in Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8
- Refer to course handouts on interviewing and non-verbal
communication to prepare for interview.
- Fifteen to twenty questions is a guideline.
- Questions should be mostly open-ended, to allow for more complete
answers.
- Attach a copy of these questions to the essay you turn in.
- Conduct the interview in a place you both feel comfortable in,
considering privacy, etc.
- Write a 3-5 page analysis essay of the event using a first person
narrative to describe how the interview went, crucial information you
learned from the interviewee and answering the including the questions
about interpersonal communication skills in the next section. Suggested
organizational methods for your essay:
- Use the interpersonal communication questions below to guide the
structure of your essay and use specific examples from your interview -
of verbal and non-verbal responses - to illustrate the concepts.
- Use your public policy topic – broken down into 2-4 main subtopic
areas – to structure your essay. Within these policy subtopic areas –
give examples of how interpersonal communication concepts below were used
by you and interviewee – to answer questions – using specific examples.
- Simply break the essay into three sections: your own
communication competence during interview (using specific examples from
interview); your interviewee’s communication competence (using specific
examples from interview); and important information you learned about
your subtopic from the interview.
Details: Essay should be three to five
pages in length, double-spaced, 12 point type (Arial or Times
New Roman font preferred), with one inch margins. All references to the
concepts in our text should include a footnote or endnote to reference the text
used to support your analysis.
Interpersonal
Communication Content:
- Briefly describe the person you have
chosen to interview and why.
- Ask questions to understand how the person
became involved in the issue: was it one of choice or of circumstance?
- Analyze whether the individuals you are
interviewing are competent communicators based on verbal and non-verbal
communication concepts discussed in our text. How do you and the
interviewee use the elements of communication competence discussed
in the text? How and why?
- Keep in mind setting, point
of view or orientation; did they carefully select and interpret
verbal and non-verbal messages? Did you? Describe how.
- Evaluate participant’s listening
skills and types of responses. Determine whether you have adapted
your communication to the other person and visa-versa; what are the
adaptations and how do they meet the ethical standards discussed
in the textbook on pages 23 & 109?
- Are there cultural influences involved
in the interview? Ethnic, social or gender related? What are they and how
do they affect the interview?
- Is the interviewee a good listener? How
about your own listening skills? How do you know and why or why not?
- What relationship to the topic or issue
does the interviewee have? Personal, professional? How is the interviewee
affected by the issue or topic? Personally, financially, health,
relationships – how?
- What conflicts with the issue has the interviewee
endured? What did the conflicts involve, and what process did the interviewee
use to work through it?
- What is the power structure in the interview
– describe. Why and how?
- Analyze your communication competence and
that of the person you interviewed, based upon Rothwell and the chapters
we have studies thus far.