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…

In the exchange round, either instructors change classrooms for a round of speeches in order to offer students a new critic or else the student goes to a new classroom on the day he or she is scheduled to speak, thus facing a new audience and instructor-critic. The present study attempts to validate the exchange round as a transfer of training…

Comparative rhetoric studies the mode of public address among a specified group of people and the theories and values governing their public address in specific cultural contexts. Two ways to consider the subject of values in comparative rhetoric involve values as norms and values as appeals. Values assumed to be held by the audience are the bases…

The use of behavioral objectives is challenged on three bases: feasibility, utility, and advisability. Behavioral objectives, however, are useful in teaching speech communication. They allow the teacher to start to pinpoint the items the student needs to practice in order to improve. If students are trained to decide which behaviors they wish to…

Indicates that inexperienced speakers do observe and interpret audience responses even when not instructed to do so. (SW)

Suggests ways of gradually developing delivery skills in public speaking by students in business speech courses. (RL)

Discusses the reluctance of gifted students to present their work orally and describes a school program that taught the principles of presentation to 10 of the least confident students in a public-speaking class. The program improved the confidence and speaking ability of most of the students. (CR)

Addresses concerns when a college-level course utilizes a number of instructors and sections. Notes the importance of the various sections receiving essentially the same educational experience. Describes section variation trends. Discusses use of the computer assisted speech evaluation software at Texas Christian University. Recommends the use of…

Developed as a result of the growing interest in public speaking in business and other professional sectors, this annotated bibliography contains recent citations of public speaking and related subjects in the popular press. The citations are drawn from trade journals, magazines, and books in print, rather than from scholarly or academic works.…

No teaching method is more widely used and yet more strongly criticized than the lecture. Yet, an examination of more than 40 basic public speaking textbooks reveals that lecturing is seldom mentioned. There are, perhaps, several reasons for this omission. For example, authors of textbooks might feel that (1) material on lecturing duplicates their…

Teaching a unit on effective briefing techniques early in a basic speech class can develop in the student a sense of time consciousness, verbal conciseness, objectivity, appreciation for documentation, and logical organization. Briefing in this sense is a type of informative speech in which selected and compressed information is presented to one's…

Intended for professionals who wish to improve their confidence as well as their ability to speak and write clearly, this book contains practical information about effective communication. The first section of the book discusses the techniques of persuasive public speaking, including ways to break the ice, formal speeches, presentations, other…

Student interest prompted the formation of a Speaker's Bureau in Seminole Senior High School, Seminole, Florida. First, students compiled a list of community contacts, including civic clubs, churches, retirement villages, newspaper offices, and the County School Administration media center. A letter of introduction was composed and speaking…

This topical bibliography and commentary consists of research summaries which address the challenges of creating an effective public presentation. The research articles discussed in the bibliography/commentary are geared toward teaching students to better present information with an emphasis on the primary importance of content above empty…