As the competition among providers in the continuing education market intensifies, universities starting new seminars will need to alter their marketing and recruitment procedures drastically. Telemarketing and a two-step marketing approach will undoubtedly become more widespread in the future. Individuals responsible for marketing continuing…

Ethical issues make writing assignments more than academic exercises, especially when the ethical issues involve the writing itself. Such issues arise in every aim and mode of discourse and in every stage of the writing process, from choosing a topic to editing the final draft. Informative discourse must be factual and comprehensive, and have…

Designed to serve as a framework in which high school debate students, coaches, and judges can evaluate the issues, arguments, and evidence concerning which agricultural policies best serve the United States, this booklet provides guidelines for research on the 1986-87 debate resolutions selected by the National Federation of State High School…

Existing theories of value debating (resolutions dealing with values rather than policy) may be more effectively applied and developed when viewed as stock issues paradigms for debating values in competitive situations. Issues are vital to an advocate's cause because they are essential to the meaning of a proposition and can also provide an…

This report of a study investigating the advertising strategies of various senatorial candidates and their results presents a trend analysis of GOP Senatorial advertisements aired on television throughout the United States during the 1984 national election campaign. One hundred and one campaign spots from all geographic regions were examined in…

Existing evidence suggests that students do less well in writing argument than they do in writing narrative reports, and the reasons for the poorer performance are complex and interactive. In some ways argument is more cognitively demanding than narrative, but lack of experience in persuasive writing, and the interrelated nature of the writing…

Drawing on Michael Halloran's genre of public proceedings, the Iran-contra hearings can be viewed from a celebratory or epideictic perspective, with several conceptualizations of the genre combined to illuminate the functions of the hearings. The primary function of the hearings, at least from an epideictic viewpoint, was the reassurance of the…

Supporters of a policy of intervention on the part of debate judges argue that nonintervention (1) reduces consensus on objectives of the activity, (2) limits theoretical innovation, (3) creates confusion, (4) inhibits "real world" skills, and (5) promotes irrational behavior. On the other hand, a policy of nonintervention can be…

Both rhetorical theorists and attitude change theorists agree that characteristics of the source of persuasive communication can improve the persuasiveness of that message. Writers from both perspectives have approached this notion from two divergent perspectives. Isocrates was concerned with the speaker's prior reputation, which is quite similar…

An important influence on a presidential candidate's debating style, the "incumbency factor," has been largely ignored by researchers. An analysis of the argumentative style of incumbents, based on the 1976 and 1980 presidential debates, has isolated three distinguishing characteristics: (1) presidential incumbents tend to avoid extended…

An explanation for the general disdain for the practice of public relations may lie in textbooks that attempt to communicate methodology, while insinuating philosophy. In 10 surveyed public relations textbooks, the authors have tried to explain the contempt for public relations, but their common failing has been to blame outside forces, contending…

To bridge the gap between literature and composition, and between tradition and individual talent, teachers of literature and composition should consider how Roman rhetoricians integrated many arts into their instruction on oratory. With the perspectives of Cicero and Quintilian in hand, teachers would be inclined to stress rhetorical…

This paper discusses how "The Ladies' Home Journal" was used by its editor, Edward Bok, in his crusade for food and drug regulation in the United States between the years 1890 and 1906, and whether these efforts were influential in bringing about the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. The first section describes "The Ladies' Home…

Public relations education is frequently criticized as being misdirected and incapable of imparting necessary job skills. This essay argues that contemporary public relations training overemphasizes print journalism at the expense of managerial skills and social science theory. Further, traditional justifications for journalism-based public…

Ethical communication scholars frequently find national popular rhetoric unethical. Some proposed ethical guidelines for the public presentation of ideas call for such elements as habits of search, justice, preference for public versus private motives, respect for dissent, airing of all relevant arguments, and persuasion without coercion or…