Instead, active listening entails proactively interrupting the other party to paraphrase what he has said, asking follow-up questions to better understand confusing assertions, and acknowledging the highly charged emotions that may lurk below the surface.
Opponents of the president said they were confused by his assertion, since it implied that the economy was in particularly bad shape.
Moriarty said the two organisations now split the assessment of factories when both parties used the same facilities and while he conceded Accord members received regular updates, he said he was "confused" by the assertion that "folks sending emails once a month is more reliable than having trained engineers inspect factories and reporting their findings".
Jane Austen's Mansfield Park subtly dissects an education that confuses self-assertion with moral and spiritual insight.
Reaching for one to pour into a cup of coffee or tea can sometimes feel like sweetener roulette, with the swirl of confusing, conflicting assertions about which are safe and which are not.
For an administration that has prided itself on a disciplined approach to public pronouncements, the Bush team has offered confused and scattered assertions about Iraq.
In particular, The Times writes, "Ideally, presidents would give great deference to the pardon attorney's recommendations and take a liberal view of the clemency power, exercising it often and on the basis of clear standards". This assertion is hopelessly confused.
Pankaj Mishra (Why Salman Rushdie should pause before condemning Mo Yan on censorship, Review, 15 December) makes a series of confused, dishonest and wrong-headed assertions.
But Rushdie said that Mishra's piece "makes a series of confused, dishonest and wrong-headed assertions", and also "misrepresents me".
Rushdie fired back in a letter to the Guardian, saying that Mishra's piece "makes a series of confused, dishonest and wrong-headed assertions" and, on the New York Review of Books blog, Perry Link defended Rushdie's right to criticize Yan and weighed in on the also-controversial question of whether Yan deserved to win the Nobel Prize.
