Traditional conceptions of the scope of rhetoric urge that critics attend to certain mechanisms which describe the case study: the perspective of the speaker; orality; the specific situation; civil, ingratiating, and rational strategies; and the speaker's ability to satisfy his or her own ends. Contemporary rhetoricians offer a broader base for…

This paper describes the use of British union, or parliamentary, debating in a college public-communication course. This debating format, practiced at British universities and used in the British House of Commons, promotes interaction between speaker and audience, emphasizing the effective methods of persuasive discourse that evoke audience…

Explores methods of developing resistance to persuasion by extending the principles and techniques of attitude change. Implications for future research are noted. (MH)

The author discusses the history of agonistic structures (primarily the disposition to organize subject matter as a field of combat) and orality in education. (HMD)

This book examines the rhetorical strategies of influential southern United States politicians, termed "southern demagogues," and their particular appeal to the poor working class whites of the South during the early twentieth century. Following an introductory chapter that discusses the origins of the southern demagogue, the remaining…

Many educational administrators feel seriously lacking in advocacy training. They want to be able to deal with disruptive conflicts and adversary situations with legislative bodies, parent groups, and executive agencies. When 19 school administrators were polled informally, they asked for advocacy training to help them acquire the skills of…

The role of invention in contemporary rhetorical theory poses two problems: how to deal systematically with both the general topics and the more specific topics that respect the different modes of knowledge, and how to incorporate these topics into a conceptual framework that includes other elements of discourse for which theories or partial…

Intended as a resource for students in their study of the issues and arguments pertinent to the 1979-80 National High School Debate Resolution, "What should be the future direction of the foreign policy of the United States?," this publication is organized into five units. The units are: definitions, including the problem area and the…

This research explored the development of reasoning about persuasion. First-grade, seventh-grade, and undergraduate subjects were individually presented with a hypothetical persuasive situation in which a young child attempts to obtain a toy from various "targets." Pairs of tape-recorded persuasive appeals were randomly presented to each…

The use of religious tracts in teaching a course in persuasive communication is described in this paper. Excerpts from a number of tracts are presented to show how religious tracts can be used in teaching about (1) persuasive messages that appeal to fear, (2) the question of ethics in persuasion, (3) appeals to concerns about physiological…

A theoretical model was tested for its ability to explain persistence and delayed credibility (or "sleeper") effects in attitude change via persuasive variables. The model predicted opinion effects from two major components: a multiplicative effect of message repetition and credibility, and a simple effect of time since receipt of message. The…

This study compares the concept of nonviolence with traditional rhetoric because both endeavor to establish civil discourse as a standard for social and political interaction. The five chapters in the study uncover suggestions by contemporary rhetorical theorists for establishing civil discourse, trace the development of classical rhetoric and the…

The scientist who uses the experimental form does so in order to explain that which is verified through prediction. The prerequisites for prediction include a universe that is ordered, stable, independent, and knowable. Some assumptions of the predictive argument with respect to communication research are: the operating elements of the message are…

The resignation speeches of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt and United States President Richard Nixon are compared and the rhetorical efficacy of each figure is assessed in this paper. Analog criticism is employed to support the argument that in the particular subgenre of "scandignation" addresses, Brandt came much closer than Nixon…