This paper reports on a qualitative study of children's discourse-reasoning about knowledge objects emerging when the classroom becomes a community of discourse. Its purpose was to analyze metacognitive reflections with respect to the steps of the argument. Within science education classes, a part of a wider ecological curriculum was implemented…

A study tested those theories upon which instruction and curriculum in speech and public communication are based. The study investigated the relationship of mode of delivery on ratings of individual speech characteristics as well as the relationship of these perceptions of effectiveness in a public communication setting. Twenty-four videotapes of…

Drawn from a conference intended as a step toward reuniting the disciplines of behavioral sciences and law, the items in this compilation were prepared by practitioners and educators in the areas of law, communication, social psychology, and sociology. The items are arranged in five sections according to these topics: interviewing and counseling,…

Many speech communication educators and researchers look upon Dale Carnegie's public speaking course with derision for its methods as well as its motives. A comparison of Carnegie's course with university courses in speech communication reveals a number of differences between the two, which in part explains this attitude. Carnegie began his course…

The case under study was a staff development program devoted to methods for instructional grouping called "cooperative learning." In this case study, the rhetoric of cooperative learning for mainstreaming was tested by examining the words and actions of teachers and administrators for congruence with rhetorical devices. Three kinds of information…

Kenneth Burke's concepts of identification, the five terms of dramatism, and strategic uses of ambiguity can be successfully taught to undergraduates if appropriate and familiar examples are used. Print and electronic advertising offer the instructor an up-to-date, familiar, and abundant source of classroom examples. Market segmentation models…

In January 1983, the American public read or saw hard-hitting allegations of leftist bias by the National Council of Churches (NCC) in the largest circulation magazine, "Reader's Digest," and on the top-rated television program, "60 Minutes." A study examined the extent to which the media set the agenda for debate on this…

A comparison of German and American advertising reveals differences in technique and structures. Persuasion is central in both, but the grammatical structures and illocutionary devices available in each language vary. The culture is also reflected in the type and degree to which each language uses techniques of persuasive language. The findings…

Recent research on argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness has examined the influence of these two predispositions on marital/interspousal violence and cross-cultural communication. The line of inquiry regarding intrafamily violence and aggression is beginning to emerge. R. J. Gelles and M. A. Straus have identified two intraindividual…

Focusing on the impact of advertisers' persuasive selling messages on consumers, this paper discusses topics relating to the theory of psychological type congruence. Based on an examination of persuasion theory and relevant psychological concepts, including recent cognitive stability and personality and needs theory and the older concept of…

Content area writers need a method of operating that integrates the ways of science but without using the proofs used by specialists. Two concepts from the New Rhetoric--S. Toulmin's "warrants" and C. Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca's "universal audience"--might enable English professors to serve a regulative or balancing…

A number of higher order cognitive skills are used in the task of evaluating arguments. Such skills should be assessed because the ability to evaluate arguments is an important one in all subject areas. In addition, it seems reasonable to assume that these evaluative skills will be representative of those required by other cognitively demanding…

One of three related documents exploring the problems inherent to current high school forensic coaching, this paper explores the ethics of "overcoaching" debaters to the detriment of their critical thinking skills. The paper first discusses the harm that over-controlling students can cause, noting that when coaches develop arguments and…

Developed as part of a research program directed at obtaining reliable persuasive effects, the two sets of persuasive messages provided in this report--consumer messages and sociopolitical messages--discuss fictitious brands of consumer products and various sociopolitical issues. The consumer messages were developed for the following 12 products:…

A study was conducted to determine the efficacy of two prewriting strategies--outlines and rough, rather than polished, first drafts--in lessening the writer's workload. Eighteen college students were assigned a persuasive business letter writing task in control, outline, rough first draft, and polished first draft conditions. The letters were…