Designed to facilitate research, preparation, and presentation of arguments for the national debate topic, this manual summarizes trends in poverty over the past 24 years, examines reasons for changes in the rate of poverty, discusses demographic characteristics of the poverty population, and analyzes methods used to calculate the number of poor…

A content analysis was conducted of 203 editorials from the "Daily Oklahoman" from the first six months of the 1980 presidential campaign. The analysis was based on two assumptions: (1) the tone of the 1980 presidential campaign essentially was set after only six months of official campaigning, and (2) the "Daily Oklahoman"…

Debate paradigms, which at one time established standards to help judges evaluate arguments and rules to guide debaters' argument choice and strategy selection, no longer offer consistent guidance for either judges or debaters. An increased emphasis on creativity and flexibility has led to a general unwillingness to use a rigid debate format. The…

To determine the extent to which current theories of persuasion are used or advocated by homileticians (i.e., preachers), this study examines 21 frequently used homiletics textbooks for their treatment of persuasion. After describing the characteristics of classical, premodern, humanistic, and rhetorical models, the study suggests that these…

Based on 48 years of coaching experience, a midwestern university forensic coach offers the following suggestions for others involved in forensic activities: (1) the teacher must be well prepared; (2) the school system must be supportive of the program; (3) parents and the community should be informed of school activities; (4) the media should…

A teacher presents a writing exercise designed to facilitate audience-directed, critical thinking during the process of composing, that starts students thinking in terms of sorites and enthymemes. Students first read a CIA manual, "Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare," that instructs the Contra guerrillas in illegal acts and…

To analyze the usefulness of forensics judges' written comments and to understand how to improve ballots, a content analysis of 175 ballots from schools in a competition district was conducted. Categories for analysis included the following: (1) quantity of comments; (2) format of the ballot; (3) types of comments (including selection,…

In order to facilitate the decentralization of the Illinois writing assessment program, this handbook describes and provides materials for writing assessment training workshops. The first of the nine sections in the handbook gives a general overview of the Illinois Writing Assessment. The second section, on training for assessment, describes…

A study examined differences in the language of direct mail advertising used by political campaigns at different levels--national state, and local. Seventeen direct mail fund-raising political campaign letters were content analyzed with Wiseman and Schenck-Hamlin's typology of compliance-gaining techniques, language style and readability. The…

A study identified discourse patterns in potential disputes, deflected disputes, incomplete, and completed disputes from a one-hour conversation involving two 3-year-old female children and one female adult. These varied dispute episodes were identified, coded, and analyzed using a pragmatic model of adult argumentation focusing on the structures,…

In response to a need for writers in corporations who are able to construct well-written speeches, a format for a speech-writing seminar for corporate writers has been developed. First, there are two kinds of seminars: open, for which anyone could register; and in-house, which is conducted for a specific company or organization. Second, in…

The development of the communication component of a program promoting breast feeding to a variety of audiences through a variety of media is the focus of this paper. The introduction discusses groups, in addition to pregnant and lactating mothers, who should be involved and receive information. The paper then (1) identifies audiences--including…

This study was designed to determine forensics students' ability to predict accurately how judges they knew from previous tournaments would rank them in rounds of competitive individual events. The study examined the following hypotheses: (1) contestants can predict how they will do in rounds of competition; and (2) contestants in prepared oral…

A study examined the role diagnosis plays in the process of revision. Seven student writers and seven expert writers were asked to revise a letter, written from one athletic coach to another discussing why women are reluctant to participate in college sports, for a handout recruiting freshman women. In addition to 26 explicitly "planted…

A study continued a series of empirical investigations into the psychological criteria people use to determine whether or not to make particular arguments. Two hundred volunteers enrolled in a required public-speaking course (1) responded to several demographic questions, (2) described the persuasive choices they would make in the scenario…