Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Post #1 - Effective Communication Skills

Communication is an integral part of life that no one can escape from. Despite communicating everyday, we still cannot grasp the correct method of communication. Having brilliant ideas but not being able to relate them well to others is a waste. Not practicing effective communication can result in misunderstandings and create unnecessary problems be it in the workplace or in our relationships with family and friends.

Especially for me, the written communication such as report writing is rather important. As a chemistry major, I spend a fair bit of my time in the lab performing experiments and expressing my results in a report. Without the skills to write a good report, the data collected in the lab will be of little use.

Besides the written communication, verbal communication is also of high importance. During an interview or when meeting someone new, the interviewer or the other party will start forming impressions of and judging you based on the way you speak. Not expressing oneself well through speaking will certainly put one at a disadvantage. In addition, as part of verbal communication, one must also consider the feeling’s of others when talking to avoid causing hurt and trouble.

Non-verbal communication cannot be neglected. Very often, a person’s tone of voice and body language says a lot on how that person is feeling or what is on that person’s mind. Being able to recognize non-verbal cues can reduce the chance of conflicts happening.

Having recognized that there are so many aspects of communication, I believe it will take time and effort to master the skills in order to improve my interpersonal relationships and to prepare for the workplace next time.

6 comments:

  1. It's true that communication is the key to everything as how we express ourselves conveys to the other what we are and vice versa. With regards to job seeking, our personality or even abilities (see Seligman's research) may not be ideal for a particular job, however active listening at a job interview followed by careful answers which show reflection would impress even the most hardened skeptic.

    Mrs Richardson

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  2. Most of the time find it hard to take care of so many detailed stuffs like gestures while you need to focus on how to answer the interviewer's tough questions. But i do agree that active listening and careful answers are the basic and crucial needs in the conversation. Thanks to Mrs Richardson's reminder. :)

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  3. As a fellow science student, I fully agree with "Without the skills to write a good report, the data collected in the lab will be of little use."
    It is frustrating to read a research paper which is so interesting, but yet has sentences so complex that makes reading a really unpleasant experience. What takes the cake is that despite painstakingly going through the paper, the concepts are still incomprehensible to the reader. No doubt that certain ideas can be very difficult to understand. This is where ES2007S comes in.
    A key indicator of the importance of a research paper (from what I know), besides the journal where it is published in, is how many times a paper is cited by others. If a paper cannot be understood by others, why would anyone use it and cite it?

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  4. Joyce, I think that you have done wonderful a job in presenting a brief explanation on the benefits of effective communication. However I would like to specifically focus on the non-verbal communication aspect. While it is true that non-verbal cues have the ability to avoid conflicts, I feel that these cues might be misleading too. Many of us perceive these cues differently under various settings and situations. Westeners treat hugs and kisses as a common form of greetings to one another whereas conservative Asians label such actions as being intimate. Just a penny of my thought~

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  6. Hi Joyce, I definitely agree with you . I believe that verbal and non verbal play a part in effective communication.And I also agree to Rauf that sometimes non verbal communication caused by social differences may be misleading. However one must give credits to it as sometimes non verbal communication helps to enhance the verbal communications. I will say that one requires communication skills and EQ to really practise effective communications. Cheers!

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