COMM 120 Analysis Paper

Assignment Description

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 examples

2. Your ability to connect classroom learning to your own patterns of communication

3. The application of appropriate communication concepts and/or terminology from lecture

or the textbook

4. 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 format