Research literature shows that people with access to attitude-relevant information in memory are able to draw on relevant beliefs and prior experiences when analyzing a persuasive message. This suggests that people who can retrieve little attitude-relevant information should be less able to engage in systematic processing. Two experiments were…

A study was conducted to investigate the success of women contestants in Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) debate. The study sought to determine whether (1) CEDA is a more attractive debate activity for women, (2) men are more successful in CEDA debate than women, (3) the gender mix of debate teams favors all-male teams over all-female…

Although many metaphors were developed throughout the Free Speech Movement at the Berkeley campus of the University of California, the central metaphor of the movement was the university as a factory. The analogy was used to argue that trends in higher education were moving toward the dehumanization of students and was related to the national…

The rhetorical appropriateness of two of Shirley Chisholm's persuasive speeches on women's liberation were assessed using Afrocentric criteria for speech criticism developed by Molefi K. Asante (1979). The speeches addressed the controversy of whether the women's liberation movement was appropriate for women of minority cultures in the United…

A competency based learning approach as applied to public address instructional development can help to achieve the following goals: (1) to enable students to grasp the history of the period under study, (2) to enable students to develop and apply rhetorical criticism skills, (3) to provide students with a course format of high interest value, (4)…

Rhetorical criticism focusing on Norman Rockwell's paintings of the "Four Freedoms" provides reasons for the paintings' effectiveness within the context of Franklin Roosevelt's campaign to educate Americans about participation in World War II. The epideictic icons in Rockwell's paintings promoted identifications that constitute the…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The nine titles deal with the following topics: (1) the theory and application of presumption in public debate; (2) the rhetoric of transcendentalism; (3) speechwriting in rhetorical criticism; (4) the conspiracy argument as…

Skilled and unskilled writers were given detailed information about an urban planning project and then read a letter from an influential, interested, and potentially hostile writer requesting information about the project. Each writer was next asked to generate all the ideas needed to answer the letter, organize a framework for the letter from a…

Developed as part of a series of teacher resource curriculum units in communication arts, this resource unit on public speaking includes several components organized for direct teacher use. The seven units that are offered include introduction to public communication, delivery, language, organization, speaking to share information, speaking to…

Seven successful and seven unsuccessful employment interviews were videotaped and analyzed to discover how communicative behaviors grounded in rhetorical theory contributed to applicant success. The employers completed pre and postinterview questionnaires that helped to assess the effects of the interviews and to control the effects of the…

This paper examines the overall effect of the 1976 presidential debates on the public's learning about issues and candidates, identifying several factors that are linked to campaign learning and that explain individual differences in the amount of learning that occurred from watching the debates. Findings presented in this paper are based on an…

The purpose of this study was to determine how well today's students are being trained to deal with the persuasive messages which they receive through the mass media. The study involved two questionnaire surveys: the first a survey of 235 chairpersons of departments of speech and English in institutions of higher education in the state of…

This book argues that developing insight into the ordinary is a major part of education. Each of the five chapters contains ideas and activities designed to help students and teachers sharpen their perception of their day-to-day physical and social environment. "Survival Skills in a Consumer Society" examines the way people are persuaded to…

This paper examines the free speech fights, one of the more revolutionary tactics of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.), founded in 1905 by a small group of socialists, anarchists, industrial unionists, and dissident trade unionists. Two considerations guide this examination. The first is the rhetorical nature of the free speech fight…

Too often, language arts programs neglect nonverbal expression and interpretation, forgetting that they play a vital role in face-to-face communication and interaction. However, it is important that children learn to understand nonverbal messages, especially nonverbal devices manipulated by ad people and political personages. A variety of…