Myself as a Communicator

Did you know that we as humans are always communicating no matter what, even when
we’re dead? That’s crazy, right? I learned more than I expected to in my Communications 1010
class. The biggest thing I learned is to become a better overall communicator through speaking
and listening. There are so many ways we can communicate - with ourselves or others. Although
there were many topics covered in class, the four most beneficial units were perception and self,
verbal communication, listening, and nonverbal communication.

Perception and Self

I have been given a few positive labels throughout my life. These include labels like
smart, reliable, friendly, organized and honest. Being “smart” has changed the way I view
myself. I think this label has a powerful meaning, to which I enjoy, but also sets an expectation
for how I perform in school, especially throughout my middle and high school years. I wanted to
impress others with how good I could perform academically. This motivated me to study harder,
focus harder in class and even answer questions I knew the answer to. I was always hesitant to
answer questions unless I was one hundred percent certain. The class that I always participate
most in is math because it is my strong subject. Being “smart” has affected the way I
communicate because I want to sound intelligent to those around me.
On top of positive labels that have been given to be over the past couple of years, I have
received plenty of negative ones as well. These negative labels include dramatic, bossy, nosy and
sensitive. Being called “sensitive” has changed me in more ways than I can count. This label has
given me such a negative self-concept because I feel like I’m being criticized for the way I act. I
am human. I have feelings and emotions, maybe I just tend to show that differently than others.
This has greatly affected the way I communicate with others because I don’t want to appear as
“sensitive” to potential friends or family. I tend to become more reserved and try to hide my
feelings around people I am not super comfortable with and release those hidden emotions when
I am alone.
My parents are divorced and they have very different expectations of what is right and
what is wrong. My mother has set the expectation that I do not give others negative labels, even
when it comes to teasing or using sarcasm. She sees this as very disrespectful and humiliating.
This is an extremely hard expectation to follow because this form of teasing has been used with
my dad’s side of the family for as long as I can remember and it has never been seen as a bad
thing. I agree with my mom’s reasoning. I can understand what she means since I have seen it
directly within my older brother’s previous relationships. According to The Communication
Age, language is one of the four major influences on perception, (Edwards, 2016, pg. 38). I have
incorporated not using negative labels as a form of teasing around neighbors, strangers, friends,
significant others and certain family members to respect their self-concept. I like to use positive
labels as a form of helping, giving advice, and developing their self-esteem in a positive manner.
I don’t like being given negative labels even from my own family members sometimes so I
believe others shouldn’t have to hear it from me. Both sarcasm and teasing have been a work in
progress for me. At the end of the day, I do not want others going to bed upset because of
something I said to them.

Verbal Communication
I enjoyed reading this chapter about Verbal Communication. One of the things I enjoyed
most about it was the importance of using “I Statements”. According to The Communication
Age, “When you share your ideas and thoughts with ‘I statements’ you make it clear that you
accept responsibility for your own feelings,” (Edwards, 2016, pg. 70). Communicating using
these statements is more effective when explaining your feelings, rather than coming off as
blaming or accusing the other person. This will help the person you are communicating with
understand and not have to react in a defensive manner. I enjoyed this part of the chapter because
it helps clarify how effective it is to learn how to incorporate this skill into your own
conversations. I will use this information when communicating with my family, friends and
future relationships. This will help reduce tension where there is conflict and provide clarity as to
how the situation makes me feel. Incorporating these statements will be much more effective
than using phrases like, “Well you did ​this​ during ​that time​,” which comes off as blaming rather
than defending yourself.
As we adapt our messages to make them more effective, there is usually an ethical line to
not be crossed. Depending on the given scenario and environment you are in, there are different
types of ethical lines that shouldn’t be crossed. For example, at a work conference, you probably
should talk about the date you went on last night. It’s all a matter of what is appropriate in your
situation. To me, it’s self-explanatory when it comes to appropriate conversations allowed in the
workplace. A majority of where our ethical communication skills and the ethical line that we
think should not be crossed comes from personal experiences. Personally, sarcasm has become
such a huge part of my communication.
My entire family (besides my mother) uses sarcasm every day to communicate with each
other, especially on my dad’s side of the family. It is important that I set standards when
throwing this around because not everyone understands my intentions. It’s common for my
family to refer to previous mistakes we’ve made and use them in a joking manner in the current
situation. Sometimes this does not come off in a joking manner, which can turn into conflict very
quickly. My brother is a great example of this. My mom always tells him he should be careful
around his significant others because it can be seen as hurtful. I have caught myself in similar
situations as well. It makes the communicators extremely uncomfortable when this happens and I
tend to get myself stuck. Verbally or nonverbally, I can tell it upset the other person. This makes
it hard because no matter how many times I try to explain myself or say “I’m just kidding,” the
other person still feels awkward which then leaves me feeling really awful for what I said.

Listening
I believe I am an effective listener, especially when it comes to personal talk. Although I
will admit, there are plenty of other times I just hear the situation rather than listen. Listening and
hearing have two very different meanings. In the Communication Age, listening is defined as “an
active process of receiving and understanding messages received either through listening to
words or by reading text.” On the other hand, hearing “is what happens when sound waves are
received by the ear and brain,” (Edwards, 2016, pg. 106). Just because you hear someone does
not mean you listened to them. Listening is shown using your ears, eyes and gestures to reassure
the other person that you understand what is being said. In social situations I find myself doing
these gestures a lot (i.e. nodding, facial expressions, saying “mhmm”). To show others I am
effectively listening, I almost always ask a question. When a question isn’t used, my other option
is to give my opinion on the topic. An example of this would be having a personal conversation
with my step sister and our parents. When my step sister would address a concern, I bounced off
her idea and gave my perspective on the situation. Another example from last night is when my
step dad responded to our concerns. To have an effective conversation, I had to make sure to
maintain eye contact and ask follow up questions to fully understand his side of the story.
Listening has played such an important role when it comes to my relationships with
others. Relationships range from significant others, family, friends, coworkers and even people
in your community. Listening is an essential skill to learn in developing any relationship. When
having conversations with others, I try to use the six-step process, HURIER, to help understand
and interpret what was said. HURIER is the process of hearing, understanding, remembering,
interpreting, evaluating, and responding.There are many problems that can occur when it comes
to listening. These can include distractions, bias, judging too soon, and listening anxiety. After
taking a listening anxiety assessment, I learned that I had high listening anxiety. This makes it
hard for me to effectively listen in scenarios as I occasionally have anxious thoughts fill my head
when trying to focus my attention to others. Another listening problem I notice I have is being
distracted by my surroundings. It is important that I try to limit these distractions to my best
ability when learning to become an even better effective listener.

Nonverbal Communication
Depending on the situation, who I am talking to, and what we're talking about, my
nonverbal communication may vary. I am a person who likes to communicate with their hands.
Somehow, I think this helps me get my point across and be more expressive. Or maybe it just
distracts the other person, I don't know. Using my hands to communicate is a great example of
kinesics. Kinesics is the body’s way of communicating including posture and gestures,
(Edwards, 2016, pg. 81). I hate being touched while chatting, unless it’s a significant other or a
family member having a personal conversation with me. I get very uncomfortable when others
touch me. This makes it distracting for me to focus on the conversation. With this being said, I
maintain my distance when talking to others. This transitions me into proxemics, the study of
how people use space and distance to communicate, (Edwards, 2016, pg. 83). I don’t believe I
am a close talker at all unless I am with a significant other. When it comes to my close family
members, we can talk within two to ten feet apart. With strangers it’s a little different for me. I
don’t like it at all when strangers get within a four feet distance from me. On the other hand, I
will admit I think six feet is almost too far which has been a hard thing to adjust to during this
time in our society.
If I am having a personal face-to-face conversation, I almost always maintain eye contact.
There are times I tend to have wandering eyes when thinking about something I want to say in
the future or when I am giving a detailed description of someone or something. To be better at
this, I will try to adjust from looking off into space to looking at their eyebrows or their nose and
eventually transition to looking at their eyes. Another thing I need to work on is that I am a very
sarcastic person around people I am comfortable with. I am not always the best at
communicating in a sarcastic manner as I said before, it can lead to others questioning what my
intentions were. Oftentimes when I make sarcastic comments, it's meant in a jokingly way. When
someone doesn't understand my comment or they don't see it as humorous, I begin to feel bad
which makes me worry for an excessive amount of time after the situation that I should never
make sarcastic comments in the first place because it hurts others. Scenarios like this seem to
repeat for me and it's an ongoing struggle. Some sarcasm builds a stronger relationship when I'm
around the right person, but for others I tend to upset them. Sometimes, I end up pushing those
away without even noticing it. The sarcasm I use in communication is seen as the accenting
function of nonverbal communication. I can improve this use of non verbal communication by
verbally communicating I was being sarcastic and apologizing if it was too much.

Communication is a human behavior that never ends. Each day throughout this course, I
have learned a new way to become a more effective communicator. This class has made the
biggest impact on me, especially given the circumstances the world is in right now. I have
learned many valuable things in this course that will stay with me for a long time. While
researching about a culture very important to me, I finally understood what makes me, me. I
learned how to organize and conduct an interview when interviewing a stranger with a potential
career I would be interested in. While having a conversation with my interviewee, I learned the
value of having an education and getting a degree. This was much more powerful to me than
finding a career. Conducting research about the housing crisis in Longyearbyen, Norway and
giving a ten minute presentation with other group members helped me realize the good and bad
that can come from working with others. Some group members motivate me and push me to do
my best while others can stall the group. Thankfully, I can take this as a learning experience and
remember this situation in the future when working in a group. I was frustrated when one group
member didn’t have their portions complete by the due date so I won’t make others frustrated by
doing the same. To conclude, I learned how to manage all of this in a virtual world using only
the internet, webcams, and mute buttons.
I will take all of what I have learned in this course and apply it to my own life. I will
remember to use “I statements” whenever there is conflict. I will continue to grow as a listener
by focusing on not interrupting when people are talking, even if I have a question. I will write it
down or wait for a pause after another person’s sentence is complete. I will be careful when I use
sarcasm as I will be aware of my surroundings and use it only with the right people. I hope to
take another communications class here at SLCC before transferring to a university. The class I
am really interested in is interpersonal communications because I want to go into more depth
about how I can be an effective communicator and listener in my personal relationships. I think
this class will provide the education I am hoping to learn in the near future. I will not stop
improving my communication skills because communication is always evolving and there will
always be a way for me to improve.

Myself as a Communicator Paper - Instructions

For each of the following reflection sections you should:

1. Write 2-3 paragraphs answering the prompt questions.

2. Use examples from your own life as well as course material when answering the questions.
○ For this assignment you have "used course material" when you ​name and apply a
concept​ (i.e. design messages, group think, cognitive complexity, proxemics,
HURIER, culture) to your own life experiences. Your ability to ​showcase how a
concept relates to your life is the purpose of this reflection​, not your ability to
summarize course material.
○ If you choose to quote material directly from the textbook or other course material,
make sure to properly cite them. It is not required to directly cite from the
textbook/course material, but it is required to use course terminology and concepts
when writing your responses.

Perception & Self

For this section you will reflect on your perception of self and others. Understanding perception and how
it affects your communication is an important lesson in this course. The way we communicate not only
creates who we are, but can affect how others see themselves. In Chapter 1, it states "labeling practices
are a prime example of how communication creates social reality". For this reflection think about the
labels that you hold and the labels you have given other people, and answer the following questions:

1. What is a positive label that has been given to you in your life? How has that label affected your
self-concept? How has this label affected the way you communicate with others?
2. What is a negative label that has been given to you in your life? How has that label affected your
self-concept? How has this label affected the way you communicate with others?
3. Is it your ethical responsibility to be careful of the labels you give others and adapt your
communication to accommodate others? Why or Why not?

Use personal examples from your life as well as course content from Unit 1 and textbook Chapters 1 and
2 when answering these questions.
You originally answered these questions in the ​ePortfolio Reflection: Perception & Self​ assignment. Look
back to your original answers and your instructor feedback. Take that feedback and your knowledge
gained from the rest of the semester to improve your reflection response.

Verbal Communication

For this section you will reflect on your verbal communication. Understanding how messages work and
how to adapt them, is key to your ability to create effective messages. As communicators we often adapt
the way we interact with one another depending on the situation. We do this for many reasons, including
in order to facilitate effective communication, to avoid conflict, to build relationships, to be respectful. As
we adapt our communication styles and messages, is there a point where adaptation can become unethical
and disingenuous? Include answers to the following questions in your reflection:

1. In Chapter 3 and Unit 3.1 you learned about effective verbal communication. What course
concept did you find the most helpful for improving your adaption of verbal messages? Why?
How do you plan to use that concept, in your relationships and interactions moving forward?
2. As we adapt our messages and make them more effective is there an ethical line to not be
crossed? Hitler is a good example of this. An effective communicator, yes, an ethical one, no. Can
you think of an example in your life or someone close to you where this "ethical line" may have
been crossed? Also loop back to the discussion on ethics in Chapter 1 and Unit 1.1, make
connections.

Use personal examples from your life as well as course content from Chapter 3 and Unit 3.1 when
answering these questions.

You originally answered these questions in the ​ePortfolio Reflection: Verbal Messages​. Look back to
your original answers and your instructor feedback. Take that feedback and your knowledge gained from
the rest of the semester to improve your reflection response.

Listening

For this section you will evaluate yourself as a listener. Listening is said to be one of the most important
communication skills you can learn. Listening to others can also enhance your ability to empathize. Think
about the interactions you have daily and think about all the times you needed to listen and/or empathize.
Include answers to the following questions in your response:

1. Do you believe you are an effective listener? Why or why not? Use what you learned in Unit 3.2
and Chapter 5 as evidence for your answer.
2. How has listening and empathy played a positive or negative role in your relationships and
interactions with others? How might you improve?

Use personal examples from your life as well as course content from textbook Chapters 5 & 7, as well as
Unit 3.2 when answering these questions.

You originally answered these questions in the ​ePortfolio Reflection: Listening Skills​. Look back to your
original answers and your instructor feedback. Take that feedback and your knowledge gained from the
rest of the semester to improve your reflection response.
Nonverbal Communication

For this section analyze what aspects of your nonverbal behavior are effective and what can be improved.
Although nonverbal communication makes up most of our communication, it seems to be the skill talked
about the least. With effective nonverbal communication, you can accomplish a lot; when nonverbal
communication is ineffective, it can truly inhibit and strain interactions. Pay attention to what you are
doing right now: what kind of nonverbal messages are you sending? If no one else is around, would you
change something about your nonverbal behavior if someone did walk in? Now that you have thought
about nonverbal messages broadly, includes answers to the following questions in your response:

1. What types of nonverbal behaviors do you succeed at? Look to Chapter 4 for specific behaviors
you can speak about.
2. What types of nonverbal behaviors do you need to work on? What might you do to improve?
Look to Chapter 4 for specific behaviors you can speak about.

Use personal examples from your life as well as course content from textbook Chapter , and Unit 3.1
when answering these questions.

You originally answered these questions in the ​ePortfolio Reflection: Nonverbal Messages​. Look back to
your original answers and your instructor feedback. Take that feedback and your knowledge gained from
the rest of the semester to improve your reflection response.

Myself as a Communicator Paper Format

In a ​single spaced​, word document, please format your paper as follows:

1. Include a short introduction

1. What you will be speaking about in your reflection (i.e. reflection topics from
above)?
2. Body of the reflection separated into the following headings (these relate to each of the topics
above):
1. Perception & Self
2. Verbal Communication
3. Listening
4. Nonverbal communication
5. Final Summary
3. Under each heading write 2-3 paragraphs that:
1. Follows the prompt questions from above
2. Includes examples and experiences from your life
3. Names and applies specific course concepts
4. The Final Summary section, should include:
1. 2-3 paragraphs on what you learned overall about your communication abilities and what
changes (if any) you might explore for the future.