The studies counterplan, frequently used as a debate strategy by the negative, is unlikely to produce the desired effect in the United States Congress, its frequently mentioned target. First, Congress tends to move slowly, which implies that an optimal solution determined by a studies counterplan may not be adopted soon after the completion of the…

The recent innovation of adapting the debate to the judge's preferred philosophy appears to have been supplanted by a converse trend: advocates now attempt to force the judge to adopt the paradigm dictated by the strategies of the debate round. The existence of such a widespread dispute over the appropriate decision making system in debate…

Emphasizing the need for sound logic in the decision making and policy making process, this paper equates the concept of rationality with the universal audience as a means of analyzing argument, evaluating rhetoric, and persuading audiences. The paper argues that the policy systems paradigm most approximates this objective within the context of…

The growth in the popularity and importance of disadvantage arguments in debate has been, in some measure, due to the growing belief that debate should be viewed from a policy-making perspective. And, with the focus of contemporary debate shifting to the consequences of policy actions, there has been a concurrent increase in the sophistication of…

Faculty members, as their organization's parliamentarians, must exercise appropriately their own rights as members of the organization as well as maintain loyalty to their role as parliamentarian. Add to this dilemma parliamentary indifference, and a "politics as usual" attitude and the outcome of any parliamentary session is in doubt. Such…

To widen the concept of justificatory rhetoric (which has previously been considered as a presidential rhetorical form delivered in a context of foreign policy emergency) and to show some of its inherent hazards, this paper analyzes a 1978 address by Governor James Hunt of North Carolina, in which he justified his decision not to pardon the…

Explores the ways in which nonscientists inform themselves and make decisions about complex and technological controversies. Explores the prejudice against emotion in a 1976-77 case before the Cambridge Experimentation Review Board. Suggests that, in spite of some cultural bias against pathos, emotional appeals play a vital role in the shaping of…

A study examined the ways that people talk to policy and decision makers about the future and constructed a model of future talk. Specifically, speeches given to government policy makers about science and technology were analyzed in order to discover how people communicate information about the future. Each incident was reviewed and assigned a…