The use of exercises and games in teaching the process of public speaking provides a novel and effective approach for teacher and student. This paper justifies a process orientation to public-speaking instruction and offers practical exercises, games, and activities for teaching the major rhetorical aspects involved in the process of public…

Rhetoric is capable of producing preceptions which observed reality does not reveal to us. Because of rhetoric's reifying powers (that is, its ability to make abstractions concrete), it has been depended upon to make certain societal values come to life. In opposition to Jacques Ellul, an articulate exponent of the view that finds no existential…

Student interest prompted the formation of a Speaker's Bureau in Seminole Senior High School, Seminole, Florida. First, students compiled a list of community contacts, including civic clubs, churches, retirement villages, newspaper offices, and the County School Administration media center. A letter of introduction was composed and speaking…

Genre studies are offered as a needed alternative to the historical approach to the study of public speaking. Five ways to classify rhetorical genres are suggested: (1) by the changes which messages produce in audiences, (2) by the dominant methods or characterizing strategies of a message, (3) by style, (4) by culture or world view, and (5) by…

This paper reports on a combination questionnaire-attitude test designed to be used by speech instructors for the purpose of audience analysis. The test is divided into two parts and is scored by a computer. Part one requires the student to check items pertaining to class level, occupational goal, marital status, military service, high school…

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…

The primary concern of this paper is intra-audience feedback. It reports the results of an experimental study designed to assess the effect of audience response on observers' judgements of a communicator's speaking ability and credibility. Differences in observers' attitudes as a function of audience response was also assessed. The experimenters…

Variations in scoring and feedback provided by professional and nonprofessional debate judges were studied using 197 ballots from the six preliminary rounds of the Big Sky Intercollegiate Forensic Tournament in 1971. Results indicated no significant difference in the sides (affirmative or negative) awarded the decision by the two groups of judges.…

This study surveys speech-making practices and attitudes of practitioners in firms not primarily engaged in providing public relations services. Questionnaires designed to assess the uses of speech making as a public relations technique were sent to the 50 largest United States advertising agencies and to the 34 largest United States business and…

Indicates that self-report measures for public speaking anxiety are not affected by variations in descriptive detail. Tends to support the contention that large, live audiences are not needed in analogue research on speech anxiety. (RL)

Presents a rationale for designing and teaching communication courses for women and provides examples of how the rationale has been applied. (MH)

A technique for writing instruction that integrates reading, writing, and oral presentations in the classroom has been effective in teaching students the close relationship between the organization of speech and the organization of written material. (MSE)

Outlines a model (SUCCESS) for an approach to teaching presentational speaking that deals with the basics of speech communication, the speaker's development of the main ideas presented, providing feedback on the speaker's ability to prepare and use visual aids, and an opportunity to comment on the more general aspects of the speaker's…

When students do not enjoy communicating, and when teachers fail to communicate or to understand why their students are not communicating, opportunities for learning are lost. Research and theory about communication apprehension offer ways of understanding and dealing with this important barrier to learning. (MSE)