This classroom exercise presents a scaled-down version of traditional debate for students enrolled in introductory public speaking or small group communication courses at the university level. The exercise project involves two weeks, the first week for preparation and the second week for conducting in-class debates, and is presented in a…

Theodore H. White's "The Making of the President 1960" is widely acknowledged to be a classic of contemporary political history. Using the concepts of Northrop Frye, a study examined the narrative structure of White's work and contends that the book's power derives from its form as a quest story in a high mimetic mode. As such, the book…

A research review examined the ethical responsibilities of a communicator in contemporary American society, particularly in governmental communication. Various scholars have suggested standards of ethical governmental communication and have questioned the ethics of governmental officials in several cases. Ethical analysis of President Ronald…

Raymond Yeager, director of forensics and professor of speech at Bowling Green State University, has reflected the best qualties which forensics as a discipline has contributed to education. As teacher and debate coach, Raymond Yeager believed that only through the rigors of competition would his students be able to acquire and develop the skills…

A pilot study examined trends in the appearance of personal advertisements (individuals seeking dates/mates) in the classified columns of daily newspapers located in state capital cities, as well as newspaper guidelines for the acceptance of personal ads. Daily newspapers in the capital city of each state and some of the larger nationally…

There is evidence that the technical sphere of argument has been elevated generally at the expense of the public sphere, and specifically to the detriment of the public's ability to understand and participate in the formation and administration of public policy. Oversight of regulatory agencies by all three branches of the government holds the…

A large undergraduate course in persuasion which is taught to multiple sections of 70 students (and has in the past been taught to sections with as many as 200 students) at Northern Illinois University required several innovations to handle the large numbers of students and to enliven such large classes. Innovations include: (1) the creative use…

The contention of this paper is that logicality and emotionality are not two poles of a continuum but orthogonal dimensions which may exist to varying degrees in an argument. It was hypothesized that: (1) logicality and emotionality would be perceived as independent components by subject; and (2) messages high in logic would have more influence on…

The necessity for maintaining and extending the public space within which argumentation may appear, whether or not represented in the classroom, stems largely from pressures which have increasingly restricted that space. To function as public spaces, classrooms must enable students as citizens to confer in an unrestricted fashion about matters of…

The success of a president's "honeymoon" (the traditional period of good relations between a new president and both Congress and the public) is determined by his rhetoric, not his actions. Central to the rhetoric task facing a new president are differentiating himself and his policies from his predecessor and creating a…

Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury and eighteenth century essayist, offered an important piece of advice to writers--talk to yourself. Some composition texts still recommend various forms of internal dialogue as a means of constructing prophetic argument or internalizing a critical voice, but current instructional emphasis has…

Anwar el-Sadat's speaking style became a key factor in his ability to maintain a balance between the goals essential to Egypt's future and the position taken by Israelis in the settlement of the Mideast conflict. Three speeches (two addressing the Egyptian National Assembly, one the Israeli Knesset) were examined to explore the rhetorical choices…

Self-efficacy, a person's perceived capacity to execute a behavior required to produce a desired oucome, can affect motivation and behavior. It appears that individuals gain self-efficacy information from performance accomplishments, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and emotional arousal. Effective clinical interventions must promote…

The speed with which the Whigs and Tories recognized the mythical value of events of March 5, 1770, provides students of rhetoric with an example of how violent confrontation can be used for political purposes. Analysis of eye witness accounts of what history has named the Boston Massacre--including an original account of the event by the town of…

One new approach to argumentative writing in an advanced composition course uses the creative juxtaposition of rhetorical and psychological theories and behavioristic research. All of the assignments for the course simulate the kinds of writing actually performed in the professional fields of advertising, politics, business, law, and religion.…