Assignment: Interpersonal Interview

When you read the synopsis of a story on the back cover of a book, how much can you accurately predict about the entire book? The book cover is meant to give a few important or interesting details about the whole to make the reader want to know more.

In the same way, an introduction to a new person or the brief post you made to the Class Café is like the synopsis on your own personal book cover. It gave a snapshot of what you wanted others to perceive about you in a few interesting or important facts.

This Application gives you the opportunity to test your perceptions of someone in your life who you do not know very well by learning more about them in an interview.

Afterward, you will analyze how much of your initial judgments were accurate and what changes you may make in your perception once you have engaged more with someone else's "self." If the saying is correct, then you will find you "cannot judge a book by its cover."

To Prepare for this Assignment:

• Read Chapters 2 and 3 in Understanding Interpersonal Communication: Making Choices in Changing Times.

• Read Chapters 11, 14, and 16 in Composing Relationships: Communication in Everyday Life.

• Think about people in your life whom you do not know very well. It could be someone you see (or communicate with electronically) almost every day for years, but you never really got to know them.

The likely candidate might be at your place of work, a neighbor, or someone at church. Just make sure you choose someone whom you do not know a lot about already.

You may also choose to try and connect with one of your classmates in this class. Read through the Class Café bios and then email a fellow classmate to see if he or she might be interested in interviewing each other.

• Review the Required Interview Questions listed below and located in the Doc Sharing for five beginning questions to ask your interviewee.

To Complete the Assignment:

1. Contact your interviewee and set up a time to do the interview. The interview can be done face-to-face, over the phone, or via email.

2. Devise five more questions (use the 5 required first) to ask in the interview so that you ask ten questions in total. Make sure your questions are open-ended (in other words can't be answered with just a "yes" or "no" or other one word answer).

3. If you do a face-to-face or phone interview, determine some way to record the interview. You could actually audio or video record the interview, or be ready to take detailed notes as you ask your interviewee questions.

4. Compose a 2- to 5-page paper in which you evaluate the interview you had with your interviewee and your resulting perceptions about the person and the interview as a whole. In the paper, please do the following:

a. Write a clear introduction where you ease the reader into the topic of the paper, provide a clear thesis for the topic of the paper, and preview the main points you will have in the paper. Please see the document called "How to Write an Introduction" located in the Doc Sharing area for help in writing this introduction.

b. You will have 3 main points in this paper. In main point #1, you should introduce the person you chose to interview.

Give a brief background explaining how you know this person, what you knew about them before the interview, and why you chose to interview him or her for this assignment.If you are interviewing a fellow classmate, your information may come from their Class Café bio or other information they revealed in discussions.

Also, give a brief description of your perception of the person before the interview. Were there stereotypes you had about the person, or inferences you had made about the person?

This main point should be one paragraph long with 200-400 words.

c. In main point #2, you are discussing the format of the interview and how that affected your perception. You should address these issues:

Which format (face-to-face, phone, email) did you choose to communicate with your interviewee? Why did you select that format?

Did the format affect your perception of your interviewee? How so?

If you did not meet face-to-face, do you believe the information you gained from the interviewee would have been different if you had been physically sitting across from one another? Why or why not? If you did meet face-to-face, how might the interview have been different if you had done it via phone or email?

At some point in this main point, you need to "apply" at least one term from chapters 2 or 3 in the Understanding Interpersonal Communication textbook.

Use the "How to Apply Terms" document located in the Doc Sharing area of the classroom to help you apply a term. Remember, when you "apply" a term, it needs to support something you are talking about in the paper. It should not just be thrown into the paper to meet this requirement.

This main point should be one paragraph with 300-500 words.

d. In main point #3, you will analyze the kind of information you learned in the interview and discuss how that affected your perception. In this main point, you should address these issues:

What questions did you choose to add to the interview questionnaire and why? In other words, what kind of interpersonal information were you hoping to learn by asking these questions?

Did your initial perception of the person whom you interviewed change after you communicated with them in this interview manner? Were any stereotypes and inferences you had wrong? How so?

What did you learn about the interviewee's culture?

Do you think that your future relationship with this person might change because of this interview? Why or why not?

At some point in this main point, you need to "apply" at least two terms from chapters 2 or 3 in the Understanding Interpersonal Communication textbook or chapters 11, 14, or 16 in the Composing Relationships textbook. Use the "How to Apply Terms" document located in the Doc Sharing area of the classroom to help you apply a term. Remember, when you "apply" a term, it needs to support something you are talking about in the paper. It should not just be thrown into the paper to meet this requirement.

This main point should be 1-2 paragraphs long totaling at least 400-600 words.

e. Finish the paper with a proper concluding paragraph that eases your reader out of the paper, reviews the main points and finishes memorably.

f. Include your ten interview questions at the end of your paper. This does not count as part of the 2-4 pages.

g. When you apply terms from the textbooks, provide a citation in parentheses and reference the textbook at the end of the paper.

h. Please double-space the paper, use 12 point font and 1 inch margins.

Interpersonal Communication : Essay Assignment

Introduction

In this paper, I interviewed one of my friends, which I don't know very well. I will first ask some basic question regarding her friends and family. Second, I will describe her different situation and also three accomplishments have given you the most satisfaction. Finally, I will ask regarding her personality and her weakness and how she can improve.

Interview Questions

The five interview questions below are required for your interview. You are expected to create five additional questions to ask your interviewee.

1. How do you think a friend or family member who knows you well would describe you?

2. What motivates you to put forth your greatest effort? Describe a situation in which you did so.

3. Describe a situation in which you had to work with a difficult person (another student, co-worker, customer, supervisor, etc.). How did you handle the situation?

4. What two or three accomplishments have given you the most satisfaction? Why?

5. Who is one person who inspires you to achieve your goals and why?

6. What do you consider is your greatest strength?

7. What do you consider is your weakness, and how do you hope to improve?

8. Why did you choose your profession?

9. How can you make a difference in the world?

10. How would you describe your self?