As the National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) debate spreads across the country, as more schools and more students become involved in this type of debate, those involved in the activity need to take a step back and evaluate their progress, as well as plot their future. Coaches have a critical role as educators. NPDA needs clear…

This essay analyzes Kenneth Burke's speech ("Revolutionary Symbolism") to the 1935 Writers Congress, a congress intended to explore the relationship between politics and art, and controlled closely by the American Communist Party. The essay maintains that Burke was prepared to offer to the Communist Party and to all…

This paper considers the British thinker C.S. Lewis as a "forensic figure," defining "forensic" in the sense of public discussion and debate. The paper relates that, long before Lewis emerged as a public persuader, he learned to hold his own in private exchanges with William T. Kirkpatrick, his tutor from 1914-1917, and in…

Cites the news story "lead," which tells immediately what the story is about, as necessary for "hooking" the reader. States that leads do not come that easily, but that they must deliver the news. Adds that a good lead should eliminate unnecessary words and select key words. Offers examples of good and bad leads. (PA)

Suggests newspaper editors and television producers do not have much use for scholars or scholarship. Discusses ways major United States newspapers responded to the publication of the National Reading Panel's report. Suggest the relatively few stories published on the report was due to the fact that the message of the report was not new to…

Notes that the notion of authors consulting their audiences is an old one. Discusses how Homer, Ernest Hemingway, and James Joyce reworked their writing to suit the taste of their audiences. (RS)

Addresses the following censorship issues: (1) whether a group has the right to impose its world view on another group; (2) whether artistic visions which attack any group's values should be permitted; and (3) the limits of artistic freedom and who defines those limits. Cites examples from various plays through the years. (PA)

Presents an author's frustrations with poor editing in the form of advice from an editor who has been edited. Discusses deciding what to change, grammar and style, and knowing the audience and the author. (RS)

Points out that understanding the buyer's perspective is critical to developing effective marketing materials. Discusses how to determine the buying concerns that are relevant to customers and products and how to organize good marketing writing. (SR)

Suggests pushing students to explore their own knowledge of and instincts about their experiences as they write to any audience. Discusses the "when,""where," and "how" of revision. Discusses limiting scope and focus, adding dialogue and interviews, switching point of view and voice, and transforming research papers and narrative. (PRA)

Discusses the link between writing and the metaphor of voice. Examines aspects of reading and writing that are promoted through such discursive connections and what alternative approaches to writing and reading might be emphasized in their stead. Discusses how practices in the classroom change when the voice metaphor is not emphasized. (PRA)

Explores how the eminent scientist George Washington Carver applied his "voice" to technical documents that needed to be persuasive and readable. (SR)

Asks what it is that the audience wants. Suggests a reconceptualization of the rhetorical situation by re-engendering or transgendering the speaker/audience couple as "a hermaphrodite, as a con/fusion of Hermes, the god of messages, and Aphrodite, the goddess of love," as a way to invigorate rhetorical theory and current composition…

Discusses the necessity of clear speech in the theater, especially in this age of media "watching, not listening to." Finds that theater professionals cannot expect an audience to listen if the language is not spoken as if it mattered. (PA)

Discusses the new "public debate" movement, taking shape because of dissatisfaction with the current dominant philosophy of intercollegiate debate. Assesses the "public" style of the advocate, the mandated broadness of the argument, the role of evidence in the argument, and emphasis on oral communication. Posits that the…