The necessity for maintaining and extending the public space within which argumentation may appear, whether or not represented in the classroom, stems largely from pressures which have increasingly restricted that space. To function as public spaces, classrooms must enable students as citizens to confer in an unrestricted fashion about matters of…

This document contains 31 position papers that reflect a wide range of views on nuclear arms policy held by political leaders, religious authorities, scholars, policy experts, journalists, and political activists. Since no judgments are made, the reader is left to decide which arguments are most compelling. Each position paper is arranged into one…

To determine if there is a distinction between the forensics community's idea of quality and that of the general population, tournament rankings of forensics judges and those of a lay audience were compared. Undergraduate students enrolled in a variety of speech related courses were asked to attend rounds of competition at a midwest collegiate…

There are three systems of ethics applicable to forensics programs. The classical conception borrows from Quintilian's reference to a "good man speaking well." A second approach starts from the context of a democratic society and builds on the principles that should govern a speaker in that setting, among which are the obligation to…

Since South Africa declared the first "State of Emergency" in July 1985, the issue of South African apartheid has sparked direct and sustained debates between Jerry Falwell and Jesse Jackson at Lynchburg, Virginia, as well as on ABC's "Nightline." On "Nightline," while Falwell's position on disinvestment (after a…

The focus of this issue is to explore the lives of pioneers who lived during the territorial period (1838-1846). Articles and activities highlight various aspects of pioneer life. "Celebrate 150!" reviews the settlement of the territory and the establishment of a territorial government. Excerpts from actual newspapers and books,…

To examine political debate formats with regard to past usage and future possibilities, an analysis was made of the format features of the 1960, 1976, and 1980 general election presidential debates. Also analyzed were the formats used in the primary debates for Democratic presidential candidates in 1976 and for the Republican presidential…

Intended to enhance adult leadership skills, the 4-H Debate Project, developed by the 4-H Communication Committee of Delaware County (Pennsylvania), was designed to (1) increase the members' knowledge of library skills through research, (2) make them aware of current issues, (3) help them to become better public speakers and communicators, (4)…

Two hundred Iowa secondary schools were surveyed in the spring of 1975 to determine the extent and nature of curricular and cocurricular speech programs; a 63.5% response rate was obtained. Results in five major areas--curriculum, cocurricular activities, teacher characteristics, student teachers, and facilities and equipment--are summarized in…

When Democratic Senator William Proxmire attacked the Bicentennial Youth Debates, jointly sponsored by the Speech Communication Association (SCA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), for fiscal wastefulness, SCA president Lloyd Bitzer offered a public rebuttal to the charge. The three major standards of ethicality and…

The tradition of forensics is being threatened by philosophical differences within departments of speech communication. If the area of forensics is to regain its former academic and cocurricular prominence, directors of forensics need to adjust to changing philosophies and needs. They must clarify the aims and goals of forensics programs,…

This paper argues for the inclusion of content analysis in communication research designs and for the utility of this methodology in the examination of communication events. The first half of the paper describes four types of communication content that can be analyzed: unintentional messages, such as the verbal imagery used; unconscious speech,…

Forensics plays a major role in the speech education of thousands of American and Japanese students. This paper describes American college-level forensics and compares both America's high school and college forensics programs and the speech activities of Japan's English Speaking Society with American college forensics. During the fall of 1975, a…

At the fourth annual Cal-State Hayward Conference in Rhetorical Criticism, 25 upper division and graduate students from 17 western colleges and universities presented papers on rhetorical theory, history, and criticism. Panels of faculty members from the same colleges and universities, acting as editor-critics, rated five of these papers as…

There is valid criticism that contest debate practices constitute both a reality gap between contest debate and actual public communication, and a closed feedback loop among coaches, judges, and debaters. However, remedial and preventive action is possible if forensics directors are highly motivated to work within a broad program of communication…