This paper examines the role of communication in library leadership. The discussion is organized into 14 sections: (1) multidimensional approaches to effective leadership communication and varying communication style to the situation; (2) the importance of conciseness; (3) streamlining library communication; (4) the vision being communicated by…

A theory explaining the essential nature of comedy is explored in this paper. The first part of the paper posits the theory that comedy is a relatively harmless divergence from an expected norm or outcome, and discusses the following elements of the theory: (1) the divergence from reality, (2) the notion of expectation that includes the entire…

Although humor is an important phenomenon in human interactions, it has rarely been studied in the elderly. An understanding of responses to humor in aggressive cartoons as a function of advancing age would provide information regarding both the development of humor and the negative (aggressive) emotional experiences of the elderly. This study was…

Developed as a result of the growing interest in public speaking in business and other professional sectors, this annotated bibliography contains recent citations of public speaking and related subjects in the popular press. The citations are drawn from trade journals, magazines, and books in print, rather than from scholarly or academic works.…

Intended as a supplementary resource for teachers, this paper focuses on using humor to develop students' critical thinking and reading abilities. The paper suggests many newspaper humor activities for predicting word meanings through context clues, including the meanings of words in isolation and in context, in headlines, and in the comics. Next,…

This paper discusses playfulness and creativity and draws educational implications. The suggestions in the paper are intended to provide a rationale for incorporating foolish interludes, humor, flexibility, and the playful side of human nature into classrooms to stimulate creative thinking in young people today. Play is described as a mode of…

College students in nine intact beginning speech classes served as subjects for a study testing the effects of humor on student recall of lecture information. The 156 subjects were exposed to one of three versions of an audiotaped lecture. One version amplified eight points in the subject matter with humorous material; and a third version (the…

More than forty articles originally published in "The Horn Book Magazine" between 1968 and 1977 are grouped into eleven topical sections in this volume. The sections deal with the status, classification, and evaluation of children's literature; conflicting standards on which children's books are judged; fantasy, humor, and current trends in…

This selective bibliography of over 175 children's books, most of which are annotated, lists fantasy, humor, and folk tales; collections, verse, songs, and Mother Goose stories; and inexpensive books; together with books dealing with children and families; animals; the city; "real things" and machines; and the ABC's and counting. An introduction…

According to the cognitive-congruency principle, humor appreciation peaks when the cognitive demands of the stimulus are congruent with the cognitive level of the child. This study tested the principle with jokes based on concepts associated with concrete operational thinking, conservation of mass and weight. This method provides a satisfactory…

The promise of joking riddles as a developmental index of children's humor was investigated through studying the enjoyment and comprehension of riddles and nonriddles by first-, third-, and fifth-grade normal children. Based on previous studies, it was predicted that enjoyment and comprehension of riddles would increase with age and that the…

The author reports a recent study on humorous and non-humorous speeches on two topics: the meaning of totalitarianism and an explanation of the Whorf hypothesis. Student subjects listened to two recorded speeches--the humorous version of one speech and the non-humorous version of the other speech--and later responded to a multiple-choice test of…

This study investigated two questions: (1) Can a humorous persuasive message increase the amount of persuasion compared with a serious control message? (2) Can humor external to and contiguous with a persuasive message increase its persuasiveness? The research on the first question attempted to determine intervening variables responsible for prior…

From a sample of eighth-grade pupils, 96 class clowns were identified and compared to a sample of 237 nonclown classmates. Clowns were predominantly males, and were seen by their teachers to be higher than nonclowns in Asserting, Unruliness, Attention Seeking, Leadership, and Cheerfulness, and to be lower in Accomplishing. (Author/CP)

An annotated bibliography of 150 short, light, humorous reading materials suitable for reluctant readers at three levels of elementary school. (DD)