Designed to facilitate the research related to the preparation and presentation of arguments for the intercollegiate debate topic, this manual summarizes issues surrounding educational reform and quality control in American elementary and secondary schools. The excerpts from books, periodicals, and other sources not always readily available to…

Intended for college-level basic writers, this booklet integrates training in selected oral communication activities with writing instruction in order to improve students' academic writing. The first section discusses oral communication theory, emphasizing the underlying rhetorical abilities of invention, audience adaptation, and argumentation, to…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 10 titles deal with the following topics: (1) how speech acts in advertisements relate to the purpose of selling merchandise; (2) the use and evaluation of accounts in problematic episodes; (3) rhetoric as a way of knowing; (4)…

Drawn from speeches, interviews, and hearings, these statements by Secretary of Education, T. H. Bell, address a broad range of issues involving the federal role in education. Quotations are grouped for 1983 and 1982 and include such topics as accreditation, black colleges, civil rights, consumer and vocational education, excellence in education,…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 15 titles deal with the following topics: (1) verbal interpersonal communication between community volunteers and prisoners; (2) pharmacist-patient communication skills; (3) communication attachment; (4) the definition,…

This research product contains the scripts and associated workbooks from two audiovisual training modules designed to remediate deficiencies on the Leadership Assessment Program leadership dimensions of sensitivity and influence. Intended to help cadets/officer candidates develop skills in these dimensions, the modules are designed around…

Topics covered in papers presented at a Finnish workshop on discourse analysis include, in English: the situational code in conversation; persuasive strategies and face-work in impromptu speech; historical aspects of complex behavioral strategies in politeness; the implications of predictability and unpredictability for negotiation discourse; and…

Designed for students and practitioners of public relations (PR), this annotated bibliography focuses on recent journal articles and ERIC documents. The 34 citations include the following: (1) surveys of public relations professionals on career-related education; (2) literature reviews of research on measurement and evaluation of PR and…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The nine titles deal with the following topics: (1) the role and relationship of discourse and context; (2) political autonomy and accommodation to political alternatives as two major dimensions of political socialization; (3)…

The effectiveness of two alternative attitude change strategies--a traditional persuasive strategy and a combined attributional/persuasive strategy--in altering attitudes toward nuclear disarmament were compared. Seventeen male and 39 female undergraduate students at a small university participated. A nuclear disarmament attitude pretest was…

A study was conducted to compare the writing performance of tenth grade students across three modes of discourse. Subjects were 80 students who had been classified as "masters" or "nonmasters" of writing based on their scores on the writing section of the Texas Assessment of Basic Skills. The students were assigned three…

Prepared as part of a project designed to provide an objectively measured indication of the quality of student writing in one school district, this paper examines argumentative and narrative essays written by students at the fifth, eighth, and twelfth grade levels. The first section of the paper discusses the primary analysis of student writing…

This book explores the workings of language, explains the operation of language as a coherent system, and examines instances of effective as well as ineffective communication. Chapters deal with (1) a "meaning" approach to language and the relation of semantics to the communicator, (2) how language works and what makes it work, (3) how language…

The purpose of this study was to determine methods that secondary school teachers could use to become more effective in the area of student motivation. A brief summary of previous research and writing of educators is presented, followed by a listing of characteristics exhibited by teachers who are superior in encouraging motivation and learning in…

Presents an experimental primary trait rubric designed to assess a writer's support for an argument, and structured as an eleven-cell grid on which a rater can plot a student's score. Describes the grid, and its use in a study of 1,892 eleventh-grade essays. Also describes ways to use the grid to teach invention and arrangement. (JG)