Interpersonal Communication
Course Project

Purpose: To demonstrate and apply your knowledge about interpersonal communication in a real life situation.

Assignment: For your paper you need to pick a major topic covered during the quarter that is of particular interest to you (e.g., self-fulfilling prophecy, self-disclosure, equivocation, listening, etc.). You will be asked to research this topic and apply it to an actual interpersonal event in your life. The goal of this paper is to have you analyze your communicative behavior in light of what you have learned in class and from your own research.

Steps: To complete this assignment you will need to:

  1. Choose a topic covered in the course. Topics must be handed in by the third week of class. Failure to have your paper topic approved by the instructor will result in your paper not being graded.
  2. Find at least four research articles related to your topic. Abstracts from these articles must be handed in by the sixth week of class. Failure to hand in abstracts will result in your paper not being graded.
  3. Choose a communicative event in your life (an interpersonal transaction -- where you were an actual participant) in which your chosen topic is applicable, relevant, and salient (i.e., stands out).
  4. In light of your topic, analyze your behavior and the other person’s behavior in terms of what you have learned from your research and the material presented in class.

Your paper should: (emphasis should be on parts 2, 3, & 4)

  1. Introduce the topic. Define your topic and provide a brief description about the communicative event that you are going to be analyzing.
  2. Review the Research on your Topic. Describe the research that has been done. Integrate and summarize what you know about your topic based upon what you have learned in class and from your research articles. Be sure to highlight important concepts, findings (inconsistent findings and consistent findings across the different studies), as well as providing your own insights on the topic.
  3. Analyze your communicative behavior in terms of your topic. This includes:
  1. describing the types of communicative behaviors you engaged in. Provide examples.
  2. describing how your behavior, feelings, and outcomes were consistent with the knowledge you have about the topic.
  3. describing how your behavior, feelings, and outcomes were different from what you have learned about your topic. Provide explanations why you think these differences occurred.
  4. analyzing and describing how you thought your behavior was effective in light of your knowledge about the topic. That is, describe the types of communicative behaviors that you thought were effective, and provide reasons -- build an argument based upon your knowledge of communication that explains why you think these types of behaviors were so effective.
  5. analyzing and describing how you thought your behavior was ineffective or problematic. Identify the types of behaviors that you thought were problematic. Provide reasons why you thought these behaviors were ineffective. Also describe what you think you should have done differently -- based upon the knowledge of your topic. Just do not state what you would have done differently, but argue (provide a rationale based upon your knowledge of the topic) why you think other types of communication would be more effective.
  1. Analyze the other person’s behavior. This includes:
  1. analyzing and describing how you thought their behavior was effective in light of your knowledge about the topic. That is, describe the types of communicative behaviors that you thought were effective, and provide reasons -- build an argument based upon your knowledge of communication that explains why you think these types of behaviors were so effective. Also describe what you will do to encourage this type of behavior in the other person.
  2. analyzing and describing how you thought their behavior was ineffective or problematic. Identify the types of behaviors that you thought were problematic. Provide reasons why you thought these behaviors were ineffective. Also describe some of the things you can do to get the other person to behave differently in the future.
  1. Conclusion: State what you learned from this assignment. Also identify the various questions that remain unanswered about your topic. In other words, identify what it is about your topic that it would be particularly useful to know, but that you were not able to discover through your research efforts.

Mechanics: Your paper should be 7-9 pages in length (not including the references). All papers must be typed, double-spaced, and with one-inch margins. To avoid the appearance of plagiarism, be sure to cite all your sources in the text of the paper. Also include a reference list. Use APA style when citing references and making a reference list. Please keep a copy of your paper for your own records.

Due Date: See Course Calendar

Grading Criteria: Your paper will be graded according to the following criteria:

Introduction 5 points
Review of research 30 points

How well did you integrate and synthesize the research findings?
How well were important concepts and findings highlighted?
How well did you explain away inconsistent findings across studies?
How well did you integrate your own insights on the topic?

Analysis of your behavior 30 points

How well did you describe the consistencies between your interaction and knowledge of topic?
How well were differences between practice and knowledge explained away?
How good of an argument did you make explaining why you thought some of your behaviors were effective?
How good of an argument did you make explaining why some of your behaviors appeared to be ineffective?
How well thought out were the future actions to be taken?

Analysis of other person’s behavior 30 points

How good of an argument did you make explaining why you thought some of their behaviors were effective?
How good were the solutions you proposed to encourage these positive behaviors in others
How good of an argument did you make explaining why some of their behaviors appeared to be ineffective?
How well thought out were the future actions to be taken to try and change these problematic behaviors?

Conclusion 5 points
100 total points

You are encouraged to discuss your papers with me throughout the quarter.