Describes a communication assignment that require business communication students to interview business executives. (FL)

This textbook aims to help the beginning speaker understand what is necessary for a person to give a competent speech. Although only actual practice can give the necessary confidence, use of the advice given in this textbook, and its application in public speaking situations, will significantly improve an individual's competence in public speaking…

Argues that a speech communication course should be a required course because speaking and listening are important basic skills which require refinement during a student's college/university years under the guidance of communication professionals. Advises departments to consider the resources (people and material) necessary to develop and…

Notes how the guest lecture portion of a team-taught writing course for engineers produced the need to teach the students listening skills. Describes class activities that ensure student development of writing, listening, and speaking skills in conjunction with the lecture series. (RL)

Describes an advanced English-as-a-second-language program that features debate as a means of preparing foreign college students to compete with English-speaking students. (FL)

The effect of speech roles in individual conferences on the quality of thought in student writing. (Author)

Reports three studies examining the relationship between people's public speaking anxiety and their construals of the public speaking experience. Finds that anxiety is related to both beliefs and concerns that play a major role in the preparation of speeches. (SR)

Seventeen dyslexic college students rapidly repeated a series of phonologically complex and simple phrases. Compared to controls, subjects repeated the phrases at a significantly slower rate and, in the complex condition, made significantly more errors. Analysis of errors suggested that dyslexics may have difficulties in the planning stage of…

Finds that communication tasks assigned in veterinary medical courses accord well with the communication tasks expected to be performed by practicing veterinarians. Concludes that the merging of research and practice in the education of veterinary medical students may offer lessons for the education of professional practitioners in technical…

Debaters have several poor word-choice and word-formation habits that detract from their ethos as advocates as well as from the clarity of their arguments. In many instances, debaters, to their competitive and educational detriment, employ habitual phrases, questionable redefinitions, and poorly coined new words. Many currently popular debate…

The key element to the survival of speech communication and its status in academe is the basic course, which tells the academic community what speech communication is and what it can produce in terms of observable student behavior. This basic course, upon which many communication departments depend, must produce students who are obviously trained…

A study was conducted to determine the effects of mildly self-disparaging humor on audiences' perceptions when it is used by speakers perceived to be of differing credibility (ethos) levels. Responses by 27 students who were potential subjects of the experiment were used to construct a credibility scale. The most credible speaker, a university…

This paper describes the use of British union, or parliamentary, debating in a college public-communication course. This debating format, practiced at British universities and used in the British House of Commons, promotes interaction between speaker and audience, emphasizing the effective methods of persuasive discourse that evoke audience…

The guidelines provided in this paper are intended to help teachers develop a separate course on oral business communication skills that would follow a course on written business communication. Following a review of research corroborating the need for a specialized business speech course, suggestions are enumerated concerning course objectives,…

The state of the art in college-level competency testing is described, as is the development of a communication test for the University of Wisconsin-Parkside program. The research described herein exposes the fact that some students have communication problems which could inhibit their learning abilities. Valid and reliable procedures are needed…