The Minnesota State High School League administers a program of competitive athletic, musical, speech, and dramatics activities at district, region, and state levels. The league is a voluntary association of 433 public and 49 private schools. This monograph reports on a study of the league in regard to two questions: (1) Are policy-making and…

The educational benefits of debate suggest several reasons for funding debate programs on college campuses. First, debate training improves communication skills (analysis, delivery, and organization) and helps students in other communication situations. Second, debate promotes depth of educational experience by exposing students to important…

At Ball State (Indiana) University, the moot court format's replication of real-world advocacy has been found far more conducive to teaching ethics and values than debate because it provides internal monitoring devices and instantaneous feedback. Of course, the main purpose of the moot court is to polish communication skills. Still, even with this…

The Committee on International Discussion and Debate (CIDD) and its contributions toward establishing a tradition of international team appearances in public debates are discussed in this paper. A brief history of the origin and development of the exchange debates is given. Highlights of Scott Noble's report to the Speech Communication Association…

A study was conducted to determine if the Japanese use logic and argument in different ways than do Westerners. The study analyzed sample rebuttal speeches (in English) of 14 Japanese debaters using the Toulmin model of argument. In addition, it made comparisons with a sample of speeches made by 5 American high school debaters. Audiotapes of the…

Data were collected over a three-year period from 10 sections of an advanced public speaking course at a midwestern university in a study to determine (1) the extent to which debaters who are not ego-involved can accurately judge classroom debate speeches, and (2) the specific variables that affect this accuracy. All 10 sections were taught by the…

A number of college students in forensic debate may be deterred from debating broad topics due to a lack of appropriate cognitive development and a perception of unacceptable certainty. These students have failed to develop formal thinking patterns because they lack reinforcing experiences in reasoning at that level. A sequenced pattern of…

This part of a series of reports on forensic programs in this issue gives a summary of the literature on the effects of forensics participation. (CH)

Since voters rarely have access to a candidate's unexpurgated statements, they rely on political advertising, film footage, and media interpretations. Thus, their expectations of candidates generally reflect selective reporting and self-aggrandizement. A framework for researching the degree of understanding reached between politicians and the…

The Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 forced the Canadian House of Commons to consider whether Canadian forces in NORAD and NATO were effective without nuclear warheads on special weapons systems. This paper provides an overview of the debates and their milieu, identifies the issues involved, and analyzes the effects of the argumentation. The…

The two articles in this publication focus on ways of teaching argumentation and debate in the college setting. The first article examines the place of the argumentation and debate course in the speech communication curriculum and suggests cognitive and behavioral objectives and assignments for use in such a course. The second article discusses…

Suggestions are offered to help college-level teachers of sociology develop and implement programs which are consistent with the recent trend toward traditionalism in general higher education--a renewed interest in the traditional disciplines such as history, economics, and language studies. Suggestions center around two teaching methods--critical…

A review of national presidential election campaigns since the passage of Section 315 of the Communications Act of 1934 indicates the inadequacies of that section and the need for its revision. Section 315 stipulates equal access to the mass media for all legally qualified political candidates. Basically, the difficulty with Section 315 is that it…

The 73 papers in this collection were presented at the 1981 Summer Argumentation Conference, the purpose of which was to bring together interested scholars to discuss recent developments and research in argumentation. The four primary areas of study considered at the conference--argument, argumentation and forensics, philosophy and argument, and…

The Congressional Research Service prepared this compilation of articles and bibliography to facilitate student research on the regulation of mass media in the United States, the 1979-80 intercollegiate debate topic. The selection of articles reproduced in Section A and the citations chosen for the bibliography in Section B are representative of…