Ethical Obligations: The Assessment Answer

MAS649

Report Writing Assignment:

Task:

Interviews are narratives ‘constructed in situ’ (Gubrium & Holstein 2003, p67) and are thus viewed as being collaborative and dynamic (many contemporary theorists share this view) Choose a comfortable, quiet location.
Types of questions include: open, closed, probing, clarifying or extending, and follow-up questions. Techniques such as appropriate eye contact, silence, reiteration. Use of voice, tone, inflection, emphasis. Angle, point of view, content, audience. Interviews allow access into typically inaccessible areas of people’s subjective experiences and attitudes (Peräkylä in Denzin & Lincoln 2005, p869; Martin in Green 2002, p115) Local knowledge is as genuine a form or knowledge as ‘expert knowledge’ (Payne 2000, 26)

Best to conduct interviews in a place where the interviewee is comfortable (Anderson & Jack in Perks & Thomson 2006, p135; McLeod in Lieblich 2000, p11)

Semi-structured interviews allow interviewees to depict story in their own words (Arksey & Knight 1999, p82; Anderson & Jack in Perks & Thomson 2006, p129)

Questioning strategy of ‘not-knowing’ enables dialogue and understanding through natural curiosity (Anderson & Goolishian cited by Liamputtong & Ezzy 2005, pp61-61)

Eye contact is an important part of effective communication, particularly in developing trust and showing an engaged interest (Liamputtong & Ezzy 2005, p67)

Need to reflect on the way information in ‘interpreted, selected, shaped, presented and “consumed”.’ (Perks & Thomson 2006, p337)

‘Ethical obligations don’t end once you have your data’ (Baxter 2005, p90)

Task:

Reports need even more structure than essays. Follow the structure as set out in Reading 4.1 and you should be right. Make a list of headings with notes on what goes into the sections, and this should help you meet the required structure.

As per the assessment question (3a & 3b), you need to cover the five required communication issues: intercultural communication; presentations & persuasion, negotiations & interviews; groups, meetings and discussions (formal and informal); and trust and/or conflict resolution issues.

You must use the required number of referenced sources, and you must reference properly, both in-text and in your reference list – See Reading 4.2 Referencing Guide

For this unit ONLY, Mieke has allowed students to go 10% above or below the required word count. This gives you a little more flexibility, but you will need to practice writing succinctly in order to stay within this word limit range.
As is standard, all references used in-text (ie in the body of the essay or your work) are counted in the word count. Reference lists are NOT counted in the word count. For some reason, there is always a little confusion about the differences between a reference list and an in-text reference. I hope none of you make this mistake 🙂

For report-writing, you must count everything except your letter of transmittal, title, abstract, table of contents, reference list and appendices.

You can use first-person, although try not to write yourself in too much as your tutor will be well aware that you wrote it and that this is what you think etc. Also avoid redundant repetitions and word usage – if a sentence works well without it, leave it out. Also, write numbers less than ten in word form, and do not use abbreviations such as & or etc.