Examines the relationship between two measures of individual differences in social cognition and the quality of eleventh grade students' persuasive writing. Indicates a significant relationship between interpersonal cognitive complexity, abstractness, and quality of writing, persuasiveness, appropriateness of tone, and level of persuasive strategy…

Discusses a case study of the interaction between the New Christian Right, or Moral Majority, and its humanist opponents. Concludes that because the groups argue from incompatible premises, they cannot share a common moral framework within which to agree. Labels the rhetoric of the two groups reciprocated diatribe. (SRT)

Presents two studies that replicated and extended J. K. Burgoon and R. C. Koper's research by examining nonverbal behavior patterns, relational message interpretations, and credibility evaluations associated with communication reticence. Challenges the traditional view that reticence produces pronounced performance decrements and discusses…

Compares how proficient and nonproficient college freshman writers adapt their persuasive essays for a particular audience and occasion, noting that good writers take greater advantage of audience information than poor writers. (HOD)

Outlines the nature of the Toulmin approach, reviews relevant research, and reports on two experiments that tested whether developing a persuasive argument by adding combinations of Toulmin's elements produced significant effects on attitude change. (PD)

Presents a list of possible lecture topics on propaganda in advertising and a list of the kinds of propaganda used, particularly in television advertising. (HTH)

Describes an assignment to focus students' attention on the thinking process in which students write dialogues that reproduce concretely the dialectic movement of a formal argument. Includes a more advanced exercise in which students' address the remarks of literary critics. (HTH)

Suggests that proposal writing can benefit technical writing students by enhancing skills in using persuasion devices with technology. Presents three rhetorical structural steps (beginning, middle, and end) that reinforce a proposal writing exercise suitable for both university and business applications. (HTH)

The increasing popularity of health promotion and lifestyle management techniques call for a careful look at the misuse and costs of suasion, imposition of values as science, social inequities and individual consequences, and biases in communication of health risk information. The application of more systematic cost-benefit analysis is…

Determined if listing thoughts evoked after exposure to arguments presented in a two-sided persuasive communication serves to enhance attitude change and if the number of favorable thoughts listed by preservice elementary teachers following exposure to persuasive communication are related to their changed attitudes toward energy conservation. (JN)

Describes a study of preschool children's utterances and their context, intended to provide evidence of children's argumentative capacities. Shows how children, though perhaps not consciously, use language to intervene upon reality in order to modify a state of things by sensibly arguing their case. (SED)

Explores the relationship between arguing and verbal aggression and the benefits accruing from argumentativeness. Found that students who are highly argumentative are not easily provoked to using verbal aggression in an argument, supporting the view that verbal aggression often stems from a lack of skill in arguing. (PD)

Evaluates James L. Kinneavy's theory of discourse. Suggests that Kinneavy's theory would profit from internal development and shows how his terminology is capable of systematic elaboration. (RBW)

Describes a study in which nine-year-old children wrote persuasive letters to two individuals and then participated in an oral task designed to determine their competence in listener adapted communication. (FL)

Reviews P. Brown and S. Levinson's theory of politeness and related compliance-gaining research. Conducts a study to test the above theory using the variables of gender, relationship intimacy, and power. Concludes that more polite tactics are used by females, persons in close relationships, and less powerful persons. (PD)