COMMS200 Assessment 1: Reflections on communication and ethics 2026 | University of Waikato

COMMS200 Assignment 1: Reflections on communication and ethics

(This assignment will help students achieve Learning Outcomes 1, 2, and 5.) 

Main task:

Write 1200-1500 words reflecting on the ethics of your personal communications. For this assignment, you should follow these steps.

Step 1: (Start now.) Keep up with the lectures and readings for the first four weeks of the course. Note down any important theories, concepts, views and values that could be relevant to your personal communications. 

Step 2: (Start at the beginning of Week 2.) Keep a personal communication ethics log. At the end of every day, or at least a few times a week, note down the most ethically significant communication you were part of.

Make a brief note of the following details:

• The people involved in the communication
• The purpose of the communication
• Any contextual detail that is relevant to the ethics of the communication
• What was said
• What the main ethical aspects of the conversation were
• Any overall ethical view of the communication you had 

Step 3: (Start beginning of Week 3 or 4). Think back on the ways you tend to communicate with different people (for example, friends, family, colleagues at work, fellow students, strangers, clients, customers, sales people, etc.).

Read through your personal communication ethics log and look for patterns. Think about how your personal ethical standards are related to your experiences of communicating over the last few weeks. Analyse your communication tendencies and the specific communications from your personal communication ethics log from an ethical perspective (drawing on the resources from the course).

Some of the questions you might want to engage with while you do this self-reflective exercise are: 

• Did thinking back on your communication interactions give you some insights into communication ethics?
• Did you identify or think about your ethical values and those of others?
• Did you notice any tensions or dilemmas during your interactions? If so, how did you address them? 
• Do you use different kinds of verbal and non-verbal messages in different contexts? If so, in what ways? 
• Do you communicate in different ways with different groups of people? If so, how? 
• How does your own understanding ofethicsinfluence the way you interact with others?
• In what ways do perceptions shape your communication interactions? 
• Does your communication change in any way as you reflect on it?

Step 4: (Start end of Week 4). Write 1200-1500 words reflecting on the ethics of your personal communications. Explain your understanding of the intersections of ethics and communication in your everyday communications. Be sure to anchor your analysis in the relevant theories, concepts, views and values from the lectures, readings, and tutorials from the course. Illustrate your paper with specific references to your reflective notes and end your paper with an insight into how being cognizant of ethics can make you a better communicator.

Please remember

• We prefer deep reflection on a couple of points over shallow reflection on a lot of points.
• This is an exercise in SELF-reflection. Please do not use names or identifying characteristics of individuals that you interact with but you may use pseudonyms instead.
• The use of AI-text generators is not allowed.
• Use proper references for your sources. 

Step 5: (Start Week 5). Proofread your assignment and submit it via Moodle along with a standard cover sheet.