Indicates that undergraduate students' argumentativeness interacted to affect the number of arguments generated and the type of resolution reached: specifically, "high argumentatives" with "low argumentative" partners generated a significantly greater number of arguments, and were significantly more successful in gaining…

The study of persuasion is a significant means of dealing with others in the business environment. Speaker credibility and methods of establishing credibility are essential elements in the process of educating students for and about business. (JOW)

Proposes an alternative invention strategy for research-based argumentative writing. Investigates the coincidental usage of the term "whatever" in hip-hop, theory, and composition studies. Presents a "whatever-pedagogy" identified as "hip-hop pedagogy," a writing practice that models itself after digital sampling's…

Considers the United States Constitution a "characterological" document that motivates the image-based politics characteristic of contemporary confirmation controversies. Suggests that this motive results in the embodiment of ideology in the characters who dominate American public life. Cites the confirmation debate regarding Thurgood…

States that recent theorizing about the role of analogy in persuasion suggests that "rebuttal" analogy addresses two communicative functions by serving as argument and a method of social attack. Examines message receivers' perceptions of rebuttal analogy and rebuttal analogy users. Finds that participants perceived the communicator using…

Establishes grounds in classical tradition for the concept of generative rhetoric, an approach to argument that finds the means of social change in the generative capacity of language itself. Examines generative structures in the Greek system of invention. Suggests that capacity for invention is embedded in a process of variations on existing…

Considers how a dispute arose among philosophers and rhetoricians at a university regarding what counts as critical thinking and who is "really" teaching it. Shows the dispute was verbal, since each side assigned different meanings to the key terms "argument" and "truth." Argues cases in which verbal disputes…

Chapters of this special issue identify three characteristics of persuasive text that can be useful in inviting conceptual change. These are: (1) the comprehensibility, clarity, and credibility of the text; (2) the importance of explicitly addressing the readers' prior beliefs; and (3) affective and motivational factors. (SLD)

Represents a departure from the current trend against abstraction. Proposes a new formalism for the composition classroom. Argues that, when it comes to representing written arguments composed in response to multiple sources, existing schemes of argument are missing important abstractions about how authors use the arguments of others in the…

Analyzes full-page advertisements in four national magazines for the years 1980 to 1986. Finds (1) endorsements occurred in about half of the advertisements; (2) endorsers most used were celebrities; (3) advertisements with endorsers contain less information; and (4) celebrities most often endorsed personal care or apparel products. (RS)

Examines advertisements in TV Guide for the years 1980 to 1985 to determine whether the presence of sex and violence in program advertisements affects audiences' viewing habits. Finds that sex and violence are prevalent in the advertisements but that the effect on the ratings is mixed. (RS)

Investigates the relationship between argumentation advanced by attorneys in four Supreme Court cases and the reasoning proffered by the Court in its decisions in those cases. Finds attorney argumentation sometimes irrelevant to the Court's reasoning and sometimes adopted by the Court. Offers a perspective on argumentation and decision making to…

Outlines two flaws in G. Thomas Goodnight's theory of the public sphere. Argues that Goodnight's distinction between the technical and public spheres is untenable and that modification of his position to recognize the technical nature of public argument strengthens the formulation. Suggests other more applicable terms to describe Goodnight's…

Offers a rationale for including counterplan arguments in non-policy debates. Discusses the nature and burdens of counterplan arguments in non-policy debate. Addresses whether non-policy debate should include counterplans and suggests ways in which the non-policy debate community might deal with this issue. (MS)

Analyzes a fable current in the discourse of the nuclear freeze movement in the 1980s, that of the "Hundredth Monkey." Shows that Aristotle's classification of the fable as a type of exemplary proof is inadequate to an understanding of its persuasive force. (MS)