Designed for teachers of the Lincoln-Douglas style debate, this curriculum guide outlines an approach to teaching analysis in debate, and suggests practical activities employing contemporary political debates as an instructional device. The guide first presents a framework for values analysis, including such aspects as (1) identifying the nature…

On the premise that union election campaigns on college campuses can provide useful lessons for public relations practitioners, this paper examines literature pertaining to organizing efforts in order to discover public relations problems that can be posed by the reciprocal nature of the influences between the internal and external audiences…

The key elements necessary to establish an ombudsman office on the college campus are outlined. The central responsibility of the ombudsman is to represent the individual, not as an advocate, but as a neutral problem solver. Among the reasons for the creation of the campus ombudsman is a desire to counteract the futility felt by many students in…

College debaters who go to law school are often surprised by the differences between the processes that take place in the court of reason and the process that takes place in the court of law. The court of reason relies mainly on authoritative testimony, while the court of law relies on direct evidence. Evidence in the court of reason is either…

To determine if an interviewer's orientation toward satisfaction and commitment actually produced different interviewee reactions in these two areas, 20 interviewers conducted an informative and persuasive interview with two different sets of five interviewees (physical education majors). The Conversation Self-Report Inventory (CSRI) was used to…

Intended for ninth grade English students, the units of study in this course syllabus cover listening and speaking, written composition, writing mechanics, language study, and literature. The activities in the syllabus are arranged so that upon completion of the course, students will be able to (1) participate in, evaluate, and resolve conflicts…

Forty subjects who had previously been identified for internal/external locus of control characteristics read a case history that was manipulated to reflect either persuasive or coercive influence strategies. The subjects then completed five seven-point scales that measured the extent to which they approved or disapproved of the means of influence…

A serious problem in the area of attitude research is the low relationship between verbal attitude and supposedly related overt behavior. A study tested a model derived from M. Deutsch's proposition on persuasive communication stating that for communication to be effective in a conflict situation, it must convey to the information receiver the…

Written by participants in a summer workshop on media literacy, this guide is intended for use by teachers of students in grades seven through twelve. The main portion of the guide is composed of a unit of study dealing with manipulation in advertising. The unit contains four lessons covering the following areas: (1) advertising as manipulation,…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 14 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) metaphor as argument in editorial cartoons, (2) conversational arguments, (3) message retention under threat of speech performance, (4) dominance and hostility…

Intended for both classicists and nonclassicists, this volume explores the beginnings of literacy in ancient Greece and Rome and examines the effects of written communication on these cultures. The nine articles, written by classical scholars and educators in the field of communication, discuss the following: the superiority of the alphabet over…

This paper specifies the assessment of those writing skills needed by first through sixth grade students to produce specific discourse products, including descriptive writing, narrative writing, expository writing, persuasive writing, poetry, personal letters, and business letters. An introductory section provides background materials, including…

This set of three papers is an account of the Finnish approach to mass media education and to the research orientation which instigated it. "From Mass Media to Mass Consciousness; Current Thinking in Scandinavia" provides a research orientation, presents several examples of research projects, and lists central theoretical assumptions that underlie…

The College Outcome Measures Project/American College Testing Program (COMP/ACT) Writing Assessment is described, and issues of validity and reliability in the assessment of writing samples using qualitative rating scales are explored. COMP/ACT is composed of three role-playing tasks in the social sciences, natural sciences, and arts, which are…

Because the style and language of the black folk tradition have contributed significantly to the development of the English language, an analysis of black persuasive techniques and black communication systems can enhance the teaching of composition, rhetoric, and literature for both black and white students. Some of the persuasive techniques of…