A recent case at a state university sought to challenge the notion that Directors of Forensics are empowered to make decisions that will govern tournament entries. A student who had been doing extremely well in forensics, but was causing some difficulties in the program was admonished for her behavior. The student's debate tournament participation…

Designed to serve as a framework from which high school debate students, coaches, and judges can evaluate the issues, arguments, and evidence present in sustaining and reforming the United States welfare system, this booklet provides guidelines for research on the 1984-85 debate resolutions selected by the National Federation of State High School…

A study examined the differences between how men and women respond to expert political analysis of political debates and the extremeness of traits attributed to the candidates. Subjects, 30 males and 45 females enrolled in courses at the College of Journalism and Communication of the University of Florida in the fall of 1988, viewed the live…

Differing viewpoints, expressed in these two papers, address the question of whether college summer institutes should coach high school debaters on the current national debate topic. The first paper presents a three-part argument against coaching on the current topic: (1) the educational potential of summer workshops is not fully realized because…

College summer institutes should be allowed to coach high school debaters on the current high school debate topic. Every individual forensic practice must be viewed as part of a dynamic process, the totality of which ought to be assessed for its competitive and educational balances. The activity of debate becomes endangered not when students allow…

One of three related documents exploring the problems inherent to current high school forensic coaching, this paper explores the issue of risk in debate and how this risk can be reduced. The paper first examines how the 'risk of losing' affects coaches and debaters alike, noting that in providing adequate direction by helping to test the evidence…

Using data from the National Opinion Research Center's 1980 national survey, "High School and Beyond," relationships between an overall measure of ability and participation in performing arts activities were examined for 21,479 high school seniors from 1,015 public and private schools. A low positive relationship was found between…

Argumentation courses, which emphasize the theories of argumentation, and debate courses, which teach competitive debate, can effectively teach critical thinking, training students to see situations from a variety of perspectives and then to evaluate those perspectives for their relative merit. William G. Perry maps out nine stages by which…

Directors of forensics at research universities are subject to a conflict between attaining pedagogically justified goals for forensic activities and the realities incumbent upon the mission of a research university. The ideal, pedagogical view of forensics maintains that a forensics program should offer a broad range of activities, should be…

Intended for young debators, this booklet lists the main events of a debate contest for Japanese college students. The booklet contains transcripts and articles from the debate in which the proposition that the Japanese government should significantly strengthen its policies to protect the Japanese people from foreign nations was debated. The…

The 18 essays in this journal issue provide insight into the theory, issues and practice of forensics. They consider the following topics: an agenda for forensics education; problems of forensics in the United States today; improvement of debate practice and teaching; rhetorical dimensions of argumentation; use of speeches as an instructional…

This document discusses the need for agree-disagree, consensus science activities for teaching students skills in resolving differences and arriving at positions acceptable to all members of a group. Three activity sets are included, each containing ten exercises. The sets deal with human problems, life style problems, and problems of scientific…

Providing both a rationale and a syllabus for a basic course in communication skills for college students training to be teachers, this paper explains why such elements as training in audiovisual aids and writing instruction were left out of the basic course and placed in elective courses. It then presents a detailed discussion of the topics…

This index to journals in communication studies published through 1979 is divided into three sections. The first section lists the major articles appearing in 14 journals: (1) "The Quarterly Journal of Speech," (2) "Communication Monographs," (3) "Communication Education," (4) "Southern Speech Communication…

In an era in which the credibility of public schools is falling with the general public, community forensics performances by students have the potential for cultivating public awareness of the effectiveness of the schools. Forensics is intrinsically related to basic speaking and listening skills, and since there is great potential for…