A course in speech writing (preparing speeches for delivery by another person) is critical to the development of public speaking skills for college students. Unlike the traditional public speaking course, speech writing classes emphasize the preparation of the content of a speech over the delivery of the message. Students develop the ability to…

The relationship between mood and information processing, particularly when reviewing the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion, lacks conclusive evidence. This study was designed to investigate the hypothesis that information processing would be greater for mood-topic congruence than non mood-topic congruence. Undergraduate students (N=216)…

Studying the writing strategies used in advertisements helps students discover that rhetorical technique and patterns of development are not a system of arbitrary rules, but a means of achieving specific and real effects. By analyzing its purpose, audience, persona, and argumentative content, students learn how each element contributes to an ad's…

A compilation of statements of the judging philosophies of the judges for the 1987 National Debate Tournament, this booklet presents the views of 132 college level coaches from institutions all across the country. The areas examined in the standard judge philosophy form include (1) personal preferences in regard to a decision making paradigm; (2)…

Aristotle's "Rhetoric" offers a model for applying the concept of the enthymeme to the work of film scholars to understand the role of the audience. Used from an analytic perspective, enthymemes emphasize audience reaction to a film, with the focus on how the film is seen, not on how it was made. Applying viewing skills to a sample of…

An analysis of the role of the word "hence" and its near-synonyms examines the relationship between logic as a science, as a natural language, and as argumentation. The analysis is done in the context of elementary propositional logic. The first section is a limited discussion of the standard logician's treatment relegating "hence" to the realm of…

Prompted by the fact that personal sales is an area of human communication that has received little attention from communication scholars, this paper integrates previous sales research relevant to communication inquiry into a foundation for future research. The first section of the paper discusses the importance of personal sales, while the second…

Writing instructors who teach argument are familiar with the dilemma of conflicting metaphors: those who teach writing with a process approach may structure their teaching through a growth or benevolent nature metaphor, but cannot deny the tenacity of the "argument as war" metaphor. Breaking this war metaphor requires that ethics become…

Recognizing the proliferation of persuasive language in advertising and in politics, this guide explains how to analyze political language for its persuasive techniques and why it is important to do so. The first chapter of the book provides a rationale for analyzing persuasion, and an overview of the book. The remaining chapters explore various…

Just as superiors influence subordinates, subordinates may influence superiors. This study scrutinizes the relationship between the techniques of influence used by subordinates and the way in which the subordinates view their superiors' leadership styles. Questionnaires were sent to 250 randomly selected administrators of hospitality education…

Although the generation of creative appeals is the heart and soul of advertising, there has been little methodology developed for the classification and study of the appeals themselves. The paper recommends the use of an instrument which provides a technique that will enable the advertising researcher to develop descriptive studies of ad appeals.…

To grasp what happened to the institutionalization of presidential debates in 1988 it will be useful to ask what is the future of party sponsorship of presidential debates. Given that sponsorship has been an issue discussed after every debate since 1960, either from a legal perspective (i.e. who can sponsor and remain in compliance with Federal…

Twenty years ago the average number of individual events offered at an intercollegiate forensics tournament was two. That average has increased steadily over the years until today it is close to 10 events per individual events tournament. However, some of the so-called "new" or "experimental" events are duplicative, causing the…

Interest has recently focused on group polarization as a function of attitude processes. Several recent reviewers have challenged polarization researchers to integrate the explanations of polarization to existing theories of attitude change. This review suggests that there exists a clear similarity between the social comparison and persuasive…

Gender stereotypes imply that men and women use different strategies to influence other people in personal and professional contexts. This study examined the strategies used by 68 male and 91 female college students to influence their friends. Subjects completed a questionnaire about a close nonromantic friend of the same sex or of the opposite…