Communication Skills Term Paper by mcopland
Communication Skills
A discussion on various methods of communicating.
# 144700
| 1,599 words
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| APA
| 2009
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Description:
This paper discusses different types of business and everyday communication, such as cross-cultural, group and inter-level communication. The paper focuses particularly on interpersonal communication, also known within organizations as 'F2F' (one-on-one) communication and provides a comparison of two different interviewers. The paper also explores interpersonal communication.
From the Paper:
''One of the basic skills of conversation is questioning. Questions are a form of verbal communication that gains an informative response. Many types of question exist, each to their own effect on the interviewee when used by an interviewer. On BBC One's "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross", he interviews Sarah Michelle Geller. Ross uses a variety of questions; mainly he uses Open, Closed, Probe and Multiple questions and avoids Leading, Reflective and Hypothetical questions. This indicates the entertaining nature of the interview. Open and Probe questions encourage a self-disclosure response2 which effectively keeps the other person talking. Useful for a television interview where it would seem irregular if there was a large pause in conversation. Evidence of this is when the interviewer asks, "What about the toilets?" an open question introducing an entertaining four minute funny anecdote from the interviewee. Probe questions have a similar function as they are used to follow up on an open question in order to gain further information and usually receive shorter responses. Interviewer one frequently uses multiple questions, which are used to either confuse the listener or to give them a choice of question to respond to2. I suppose the function here is to give the interviewee the choice of what answer to give. However, this does not seem particularly effective because the general pattern seems to be that the earlier questions are ignored and latter are focused upon. For example, Ross asks, "What did you like most, did you like the food, did you like the politeness of the people, did you like the weirdness of the culture, what was it that most excited you?" The interviewee focuses on "the weirdness of the culture" which led to the four minute story. This causes the interviewer to repeat his previous questions later in the interview. At this point, the interviewee takes control of the conversation, where control should normally lie with the interviewer. Instead, he is reduced to nodding his head in indication of active listening to confirm he is paying attention3. The interviewee takes control a few times, talking directly to the camera and interrupting the interviewer. Not significantly an issue with this type of interview, as it provides good audience entertainment. But it would not be as welcome in a more formal interview, such as the BBC News where the interviewer remains always in control, asking all the questions with the interviewee answering. My advice would be for the first interviewer to organize his questions more efficiently throughout the interview instead of bunched together. The second interview from BBC News similarly uses open and probe questions for the same purpose. The interviewer uses a multiple question once, "And who do you think the culprits might be, where do you think the suspicions lie?" But the questions are both so similar that they could be collected as the one question. An interview on the news follows the general pattern of interviewer asks the questions and interviewee provides the answers. For the purpose of news this is an effective structure of communications as it remains factual and simple for the audience to gather information on the latest news. And this structure forms that of most organizations technique to interviewing. As opposed to interview one, that offers audience entertainment, often goes into tangents leading to humorous stories.''Sample of Sources Used:
- Thompson, P. and McHugh, D. (2002) Work Organisations (3rd edition) PALGRAVE, Hampshire.
- Huczynski, A. and Buchanan, D. (2007) Organizational Behaviour (6th Edition) Prentice Hall, UK.
- McKenna, E. (2000), Business Psychology and Organizational Behaviour: A Student's Handbook (3rd Edition) Psychology Press Ltd, East Sussex.
- Pease, A. (1997) Body Language: How to read other' thoughts by their gestures (3rd Edition) London: Sheldon Press
- Moss, F.A., Hunt, T. (1927) Are you socially intelligent? Scientific American, 137, 108-110.
Cite this Term Paper:
APA Format
Communication Skills (2010, September 24)
Retrieved September 24, 2023, from https://www.academon.com/term-paper/communication-skills-144700/
MLA Format
"Communication Skills" 24 September 2010.
Web. 24 September. 2023. <https://www.academon.com/term-paper/communication-skills-144700/>