Courses: Public Speaking, Rhetorical Criticism, Persuasion, Political Communication, and Media Communication. Objectives: By the end of this activity, students should be able to: explain the key components of Lloyd Bitzer's rhetorical situation; assess and navigate various conditions affecting various speaking situations; conduct audience analysis…

Courses: This activity is designed specifically for public-speaking courses, but it could be used in the general introductory communication course. It also holds potential for use in persuasion, argumentation, or strategic communication courses. Objectives: This activity helps students understand audience as a more complicated concept--one that…

Courses: Public Speaking, Business and Professional Communication, Persuasion, or any other skill-based oral communication course. Objectives: Students will practice the development and demonstration of persuasive arguments in this single-class social judgment theory activity to improve their ability to change resistant audience attitudes.

Offers a sample scenario to illustrate ways business communicators' purposes can conflict. Describes various types of purposes in detail, suggesting how teachers might integrate discussion of these types into their coverage of standard assignments. Provides a heuristic that teachers can employ in business communication classes to encourage…

The addition of an interpersonal element to the rhetorical devices offered students as they learn how to construct persuasive messages can enhance their writing by helping students discover why they produce the writing they do. To do so, teachers must help students to become more sensitive to the audience and involve them more in the…

Describes the rationale for teaching the cognitive context of argument and argumentation, presents an example of an approach to value argument, and discusses the role of the unconscious in argument. (PD)

The letter of application should make use of message strategies that show the writer's awareness of the explicit needs of specific readers. However, very few students are able to write them, partially as a result of the audience analysis procedures that are suggested for student use. Students need a reader analysis procedure to help them learn…

The two chief approaches to teaching argumentation and invention over the centuries have been first presenting a formal, abstract system, such as logic or topic, then emphasizing audience analysis. Sometimes these have been seen as alternatives, and sometimes as complements. Cursory attention is often paid to the ideal of investigating audience…

Technical communications courses, which frequently present the research proposal as part of the report writing segment, rarely teach the grant proposal, even though it can provide the instructor with a vehicle for presenting such rhetorical strategies as audience analysis and persuasive writing. In addition to its problem solving structure, the…