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:

  1. 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).
  2. 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.
  3. Compose a set of questions to ask during the interview (word-processed)
    1. Use the concepts we discussed in Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8
    2. Refer to course handouts on interviewing and non-verbal communication to prepare for interview.
    3. Fifteen to twenty questions is a guideline.
    4. Questions should be mostly open-ended, to allow for more complete answers.
    5. Attach a copy of these questions to the essay you turn in.
  4. Conduct the interview in a place you both feel comfortable in, considering privacy, etc.
  5. 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:
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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:

 

  1. Briefly describe the person you have chosen to interview and why. 
  2. Ask questions to understand how the person became involved in the issue: was it one of choice or of circumstance? 
  3. 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?
    1. Keep in mind setting, point of view or orientation; did they carefully select and interpret verbal and non-verbal messages? Did you? Describe how.
    2. 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?
  4. Are there cultural influences involved in the interview? Ethnic, social or gender related? What are they and how do they affect the interview?
  5. Is the interviewee a good listener? How about your own listening skills? How do you know and why or why not?
  6. 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?
  7. 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?
  8. What is the power structure in the interview – describe. Why and how?
  9. Analyze your communication competence and that of the person you interviewed, based upon Rothwell and the chapters we have studies thus far.