Understanding how to identify and respond to the communicative patterns of others is necessary when one seeks to improve their interpersonal relationships. However, it is just as important to develop the ability to understand and adjust your own patterns of communication if you desire to become a better communicator. Therefore, in this assignment you will be required to write a 3 to 5 page paper analyzing your own patterns of interpersonal communication. You will identify and apply specific course concepts and/or theories from the textbook to conduct your analysis while providing your own personal insights on how you can use this knowledge to improve your communication skills.This assignment is designed to get you to reflect on what you have learned about interpersonal communication throughout the semester and to come up with a plan for how you can improve your interactions with others. Thus, there should be two distinct parts to your paper: 1.) Your reflective analysis and 2.) Your plan for improvement. The first section, the reflective analysis, will make up the bulk of your paper. In this section, make sure to explain what aspects of your own interpersonal communication style you are analyzing by providing relevant examples. In the second section, your plan for improvement, you should provide a minimum of three specific ways you plan to improve your communication with others by using what you have learned throughout the semester.When completing this assignment, you will choose a minimum of three concepts from the textbook and utilize them in your self-analysis. You may decide to analyze one specific experience, or a small set of related experiences, thus you should home in on course concepts/material that help articulate how you intend to improve your communication based on these textbook concepts.You may choose to write about topics such as: a set of work-related experiences you have had in the past in which you did not communicate as effectively as you would have liked to (i.e. getting into arguments, unclear communication with co-workers that resulted in mistakes being made, being misperceived by a supervisor because of something you said or how you communicated, etc.); your tendency to be a poor listener and how it has had a negative impact on your relationships; a time when you failed to articulate yourself well enough and wanted to improve the clarity of your communication with others; etc.Since you will be choosing textbook concepts for this assignment, you will need to provide a reference page including in-text citations in APA style. Your paper will be judged according to the following criteria:1. Your ability to support your analysis through the use of relevant examples2. Your ability to connect classroom learning to your own patterns of communication3. The application of appropriate communication concepts and/or terminology from lecture or the textbook4. The demonstrated ability to think critically about your communicative style and to create a specific plan for improvement (quality of your writing/insights)5. Proper grammar, spelling, and overall formatLearning ObjectivesThis assignment is designed to help you:1. Apply interpersonal communication concepts in order to improve your interactions with others2. Organize information and facts into a cohesive, coherent essay3. Improve your critical thinking and writing skillsAssignment RequirementsPage limit: 3-5 pages, double-spaced, typed, 12-point font, with APA-style referencesPoints: 100 points
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I also needed to make improvements regarding how I deal with conflicts. When my relationship with my siblings became estranged due to my smile, my response was not the best. I let the conflict go on for too long before sorting it out. In my culture as the eldest child in my family, the responsibility to mend any broken relationships within the family rests on me. However, I chose to stand up for myself when the disagreement started instead of addressing the problem, after which I ignored the conflict. By taking this approach towards conflict, we all lost. I need to make improvements, which means that instead of choosing to avoid conflicts, I should instead adopt an accommodative approach (Adler & Proctor, 2011).
Listening is an essential component of communication (Adler & Proctor, 2011). In the course of a conversation, I tend to hear rather than listen. Doing this has affected my ability to communicate with others effectively. I need to make improvements that will allow me to listen to people as they talk to me mindfully. Consistently interrupting the person speaking is one of the reasons why I am a poor listener. Therefore I will have to learn how to restrain myself during a conversation, which makes it easier for me to understand what the other person is saying.
