Teaching the basic course in speech communication can be challenging in many ways. A class debate revitalizes the course, while offering an excellent means for evaluating learning at the end of a semester course. Proficient use of interpersonal skills is necessary to organize group members and control group discussion; sufficient knowledge of…

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.…

By exploring the relationship between competition theory and forensic speech contests, three benefits can be clearly identified: (1) students learn communication theory, (2) students who most accurately follow what is taught are awarded, and (3) students modify speeches by studying judges' comments, imitating winners, and utilizing selective…

The psychological effects of perceived lack of control have been extensively investigated. This study was conducted to examine a compensatory control strategy called boundary expansion. Boundary expansion is exhibited in social interactions where control needs are directed toward influencing others' views on a particular subject. Boundary…

A great deal of research has been done in the area of "compliance-message" tactics and strategies, but this research has not produced a coherent framework for studying this interpersonal communication process. Based on six axioms concerning the nature of communication behavior in general and on one postulate and five theorems defining…

Few studies have approached the subject of lying from a rhetorical perspective. Even philosophical studies have concentrated more on truth than on deceit. A central concern of a definition of lying is to recognize that lies must be examined both from the speaker's position and from the perceptions of the listener. Such an examination can be done…

A study compared people's reactions to different types of assertions concerning social issues. For purposes of the study, assertion was defined as having three components: a reference to the issue itself, an attribute having evaluative implications and a verb phrase linking the issue with the attribute. Eight types of messages were composed…

A study was conducted to enhance understanding of the role of sex in influencing beliefs about argumentative communication. Using a belief structure framework, the study investigated how males and females discriminate on beliefs about arguing. The study also explored whether trait argumentativeness influences biological sex in discriminating…

The author critically reviews recent suggestions from Buchmann, Fenstermacher, and Zumwalt that teachers draw their own conclusions from research findings, rather than accepting the conclusions researchers draw. Drawing on Gusfield's analysis of the language of social science, the author considers the suggestions as proposals for the rhetoric that…

Reviews reasons for teaching the writing of proposals for grants. (CH)

In "The Uses of Argument" Stephen Toulmin developed a method for analyzing arguments that calls attention to the reasoning processes that undergird a speaker's claims. By changing three terms used in Toulmin's methods it can be applied to interpersonal communication to analyze the speaker's perspective on an issue. The term…

This paper examines the conspiracy drama which characterizes the rhetoric generated by the John Birch Society. According to the Society, "innocent" America is under direct threat from some organized external and internal force that is seeking its destruction. Members are called to react in a carefully outlined manner: (1) piece together…

Intended for use by instructors of upper division speech courses, this paper describes a questioning and answering technique for teaching argumentation. The first section of the paper discusses the concept of argumentative exchange, which is defined as an episode between two or more individuals wherein one or more feel that differences of belief…

Fantasy Theme Analysis was used to examine the rhetorical clash of incongruent world views during the 1978 controversy over a gay rights ordinance in St. Paul, Minnesota. Fantasy Theme Analysis considers the individual and collective dramatizations of a group's goals, scope, and activities--the group's conceptualized reality, or fantasy theme--in…

A technique sometimes known as patterned prose or case book exposition is an effective way to improve student writing while also holding their interest. It may also help solve a problem pointed to by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP): students' inability to think about what they read. The technique is simple. The teacher…