Through three semesters of teaching the nonfiction essay, an instructor has come to terms with the fact that she has yet to attempt the type of personal essay that she asks her students to write, essays in which personal experiences with death are shared. However, a reminiscence on death through a recounting of her reactions to and understanding…

This book argues that it is time for Americans to rebuild their television system and that translating the public interest into a commitment to the nation's children will take time, education, and public debate. The book affirms that American adults need to consider what public interest means with respect to those who are too young to vote, who…

In a Purdue University English 101 class, students were told to identify an audience outside the classroom for each paper they wrote. The central challenge to composition teachers is preserving elements valued in teaching academic writing in the context of ill-defined problems to be addressed outside the classroom. Most useful for instructors…

A study investigated how a television talk show host manipulates the social and psychological distances in the television show context to entertain guests and audience. An ethnographic approach was taken to the research, and analysis focused on the use of politeness strategies and face-saving and face-threatening interactions. The television talk…

In the broadest sense, rhetoric and rhetorical studies are primarily concerned with using language in context and, thus, must focus on the collaborative, negotiated dynamics of discourse and discourse production. These broad principles provided the basis for the "Lyceum Project" (named for the public forum first developed by the Greek…

Intended to help individuals become better educators, this book can serve as a reference for teaching fundamentals and challenge experienced teachers to expand their repertoire of skills in working with their various audiences. The presentation techniques delineated in the book have proved successful in the classroom, at conferences, and in…

Based on the idea that to be successful, a student organization must have a sound public relations and publicity program, this handbook considers techniques of internal communication that establish good public relations with various special groups: the student body, the administration, the faculty, and the staff. The handbook states that…

Spotlighting a variety of venerable poets, as well as some rising stars, this book is the second series of conversations about the lives and works of poets who write mainly for children and young people. The book presents informal interviews with the writers about their childhoods, the influences upon their work, their writing processes, how they…

A study used protocol analysis to trace a group of specialized journalists' cognitive processing of information. Science writers were selected because they were hypothesized to be particularly sensitive to the needs of their audience and to rely more on audience knowledge when making decisions. Five science journalists (of about 25 contacted at…

While recent arguments often propose that students should be engaged as writers in service to the larger community, the question remains how to engage students as intellectuals, writers, and creators of knowledge in an intellectual setting that mostly asks them to be passive learners. In Project Renaissance, leaving behind the familiar boundaries…

Building on an earlier study, this paper presents the findings of a series of studies that asked senior newspaper editors throughout the United States how they view newspaper coverage of issues of concern to gays and lesbians. The paper presents detailed findings reported in four earlier papers analyzing data from the survey: "Daily Newspaper…

From the very first, textbook editions of Shakespeare have been, "badly edited, ineptly glossed, and inexcusably bowdlerized" (Levin, 1976). What is studied in schools is a version, or rather a "perversion" of Shakespeare controlled by narrow religious, sexual, racial, and social interests. A fear of laughter and cultural…

Planbox escalation is a linguistic method of analyzing narrative arguments. This persuasive procedure consists of 12 strategies: (1) begin with information that all sides can agree on; (2) prepare to respond by rejecting outright, questioning, ignoring or replacing the audience's opinions; (3) make the subject as attractive as possible; (4)…

Although previous generations have by no means been disloyal to the popular music of their youth, the tenacious attachment of the Baby Boomers to the music of the 1960s seems unprecedented. Three main reasons account for this constantly widening musical reclamation project. First, the Baby Boomers have a clearer sense of generational identity that…

To bridge the gap between broad philosophical claims about the value of forensics and actual current practices and experiences, the concept of the "total" forensic program offers critical components that are educationally valid with numerous advantages for participants and sponsoring departments. The total approach is defined as the most…