To determine what effect the perceived audience and purpose of a written piece has on its quality, 30 high ability and 30 low ability writers were selected on the basis of a college placement examination and instructed to write two essays. Half of the students were given specific rhetorical contexts (audience and purpose) as well as topics.…

This book examines the ways that writing is taught in this age of technology. The book begins with writing about "tools" (technical writing), considers writing itself as a tool, and concludes with tools that aid writing. The aim is to study the interpenetration of writing and technology in order to determine how technology has affected…

This paper outlines the predominant aesthetics of American public television's contributors and viewers. These aesthetic perspectives are elaborated in relation to specific historic, institutional, and political trends in American society. The paper traces public television usage and support as the product of confusing and sometimes contradictory…

This article discusses editorial "filters" in folktales, specifically the changes ("orientations") which editors deliberately impose on a tale because they want to reach a specific audience. A case in point is the tale called "Allerleirauh," in the Grimm collection, which not only is highly illustrative of editorial…

A study constituted the fifth phase of a programmatic research effort designed to develop and test a model of international communications media exposure and appraisal. The model posits that three variables--editorial tone, communication potential, and utility--have positive determinant effects on these dependent variables. Research was carried…

The 32 sources in this annotated bibliography are compiled for those interested in the available resources concerning theory and practice in public speaking. The bibliography cites only books with comprehensive treatments of the art of public speaking and its background, the majority of the items being textbooks that have gone through at least one…

Summaries are presented of arts research projects and of conference workshops which reviewed the projects. These provide an important stock-taking of currently available data on the arts and review a variety of issues involved in improving the present situation. There are four major sections. The first section presents research on the artistic and…

We describe the evolving learning design of a computer-based exercise called "Director's Cut" that challenges students to create their own video sequence from a set of clips we provide. The context is a film theory course where the community of educators have been interested in introducing practical exercises so students can, for…

Two studies were designed to investigate the age at which students adapt expository writing to meet the needs of different audiences. In the first study, students in grades four, eight, twelve, and at university level wrote descriptions of geometric figures that would enable someone unfamiliar with a figure to draw it. For all grades, realistic…

The strategies for distributing information and informational materials to educators that are described in this booklet include procedures both for organizing, maintaining, expanding and updating a mailing list, and for providing readers with a current awareness service. Various tools used to disseminate information are also briefly discussed,…

In response to public concern over the effects of television commercials on children, the Federal Trade Commission formulated regulatory proposals that would ban certain advertising from children's television and regulate advertising intended for the eight year old to the eleven year old age group. However, in the light of two recent research…

The first in a series of four, this report describes part of a national study commissioned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to investigate audience awareness of public radio, reaction to on-air fund raising and programing on public radio, and audience reactions to on-air fund raising by public television stations. Specifically, this…

The third in a series of four, this report describes part of a national study commissioned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to investigate audience awareness of public radio, reaction to on-air fund raising and programing on public radio, and audience reactions to on-air fund raising by public television stations. This segment of the…

Writers and writing teachers should be wary of depending on readability indexes as indicators of the difficulty of written messages. The Gunning Fog Index and the Damerst Clear Index, two readability formulas, were used to determine the readability of "A Statement of Editorial Policy" and two abstracts appearing in an issue of…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 47 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) television and attitudes about crime, (2) attitude measurement in marketing communications, (3) soap operas and liberal education values, (4) the existence of…