New Wine in Old Wineskins: Questioning the Value of Research Questions in Rhetorical Criticism

Recent years have seen a trend toward the inclusion and heightened valuing of research questions in competitive Rhetorical Criticism (Communication Analysis). The inclusion of this content element is quite a new phenomenon on the national-level competitive circuit. In fact, the absence of such research questions in competitive speeches was highlighted by Ott as recently as 1998. But by 2007-2008, the inclusion of a research question was established as essentially de rigueur for a vast number of judges. For example, consider the ballots received this past year by a competitively successful rhetorical criticism entry I coached. At one tournament, all five ballots written in response to this speech (2 in Prelims, 3 in Finals) wrote the research question at the very top of the ballot. For four of the five judges, their assessment of the handling of this question was clearly central to the scores they assigned. Three questioned the quality of the question: (1) this is a big question to ask based on this one incident, (2) Islamaphobia: relevant, but a bit out of the public consciousness (for a while now), and (3) your research question needs clearer, specific focus – you could apply it to many artifacts. How can you focus the question on this specific artifact? The fourth judge meanwhile focused on the adequacy of the question‟s answer, stating that the response needed to be extended. Ballot comments about this speech‟s research question continued throughout the year – requiring this aspect of the speech to be the single most frequently rewritten and rethought aspect of the speech across the length of the competitive season. To borrow language from many Persuasive speakers, this is not an isolated incident. As both a coach and a frequent tab-room worker, I have read innumerable ballots written by critics judging this event. Research questions have clearly become a crucial component in many judging paradigms. Given the precipitous rise of this speech component, it is important that we assess the nature and worth of emphasizing research questions in competitive rhetorical criticism. In order to do so, we will: first, establish a philosophical perspective from which to answer the question (we will privilege the vision of forensics as an educational liberal art ); second, speculate about the reasons why this element has so quickly gained favor among judges; third, assess the degree to which this element meshes with other required elements of competitive speeches in this category; and fourth and finally, propose a paradigm shift

Rhetorical Criticism in the Classroom vs. in Competition: A Consideration of the Impact of Context on Student Scholarship

A battle has long waged in forensics between those who would define it as an educational activity and those who see it first and foremost as a competitive game. Others have asserted that this dichotomy is a false one, and responded to the question by conflating the two concepts, arguing that competition automatically produces learning while learning paves the road to success. This paper argues that both of these perspectives are flawed, and asserts instead the image of a continuum of choice which is anchored at one end by pure competition and at the other by pure learning. This view considers both ends of the continuum to be chimerical illusions, pure constructs which are (virtually) never really embraced in their absolute forms by coaches and students whose actual behaviors fall somewhere on the wide range of positions running across the center of the continuum – but yet also recognizes the constructs of competition and education as distinct and meaningfully different influences. Understanding this, it is the responsibility of each forensics programs (and the leaders thereof) to develop, in this age of educational accountability, student learning objectives which consciously make choices among educational/competitive goals as they fashion for themselves a learning profile which serves the best interests of each individual program, the school it represents, the forensics community, and broader civic cultures. This paper applies these general ideas specifically to the competitive event variously titled Rhetorical Criticism or Communication Analysis. Noting the differences between rhetorical criticism as it is practiced by academic scholars and Rhetorical Criticism as it is enacted by student competitors, this paper argues that they diverge from each other in terms of such elements as: (1) the artifacts they study, (2) the chronological order in which the steps of scholarship are pursued (and thus also the basis upon which the rhetorical constructs included in the analysis are selected), and (3) the weighting accorded to each of the basic elements of the critical essay/speech. As a result of these points of divergence, it is suggested that the forensics community closely examine and consider modifying the ways in which competitive Rhetorical Criticism is practiced

Alien Registration- Paine, Charles E. (Jay, Franklin County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/19176/thumbnail.jp

Etic vs. Emic Values in the Culture of Forensics

The present essay is a very preliminary attempt at investigating the extremely broad topic of values in forensics. Its goal is twofold: first, to identify values as they are avowed and practiced on the emic level by the forensics community; and second, to begin considering how forensic values do or do not mesh with the values espoused by some of the other emic and etic communities forensics participates in. It is my hope that this brief introduction to the question can open the door to more detailed and incisive qualitative and quantitative research into some of the particular issues whose general outlines are raised here

1940 - 1949: Understanding the Interstate Oratorical Contest During and After World War II

The 1940s began shortly after the first salvos of World War II were fired. That war dominated the decade-for millions of lives touched or ended by the war, for those faced with the task of rebuilding when it ended, and even for the Interstate Oratorical Association. This paper examines the impact of the decade on the speeches presented at IOC and looks at patterns which appeared in the topics chosen, structures used, styles employed, and choice of supporting materials on which speakers relied. Attention is also paid to such logistical aspects of the contest as the tournament\u27s continuing use of gender- separate competition, the awards given, the locations and dates selected, publication practices, and schools attending. An extensive appendix to this paper provides quotations from the most successful speech rations speak for themselves in their own words

Alien Registration- Paine, Maria E. (Jay, Franklin County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/19178/thumbnail.jp

Letter, 1949 March 18, from Mechanical - Copyright Protection Society, Limited to Carson Robison

1 page, Paine is the secretary for the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society, Limited

A low noise, high thermal stability, 0.1 K test facility for the Planck HFI bolometers

We are developing a facility which will be used to characterize the bolometric detectors for Planck, an ESA mission to investigate the Cosmic Microwave Background. The bolometers operate at 0.1 K, employing neutron-transmutation doped (NTD) Ge thermistors with resistances of several megohms to achieve NEPs~1×10^(–17) W Hz^(–1/2). Characterization of the intrinsic noise of the bolometers at frequencies as low as 0.010 Hz dictates a test apparatus thermal stability of 40 nK Hz^(–1/2) to that frequency. This temperature stability is achieved via a multi-stage isolation and control geometry with high resolution thermometry implemented with NTD Ge thermistors, JFET source followers, and dedicated lock-in amplifiers. The test facility accommodates 24 channels of differential signal readout, for measurement of bolometer V(I) characteristics and intrinsic noise. The test facility also provides for modulated radiation in the submillimeter band incident on the bolometers, for measurement of the optical speed-of-response; this illumination can be reduced below detectable limits without interrupting cryogenic operation. A commercial Oxford Instruments dilution refrigerator provides the cryogenic environment for the test facility

Ecological factors affecting the diversity of tropical tree seedlings

Seed dispersal and seedling establishment – the two stages in seedling recruitment – set the spatiotemporal distribution of new individuals in plant communities. Diversity often increases at the seed to seedling transition, making it critical for species coexistence. Debate continues regarding the effects of each stage on the community structure of diverse forests. Neutral theories postulate a strong role of dispersal, whereas niche-differentiation theories suggest that environmental conditions may be more important. This dissertation tested the effects of dispersal, competition and predation on the structure of the seedling layer in a pristine Amazonian rainforest. Seed-addition experiments broadly tested the relative importance of dispersal and environmental conditions on seedling community structure. Dispersal treatments explained more variance in community structure than did environmental conditions. This was the first variance- partitioning study to show that dispersal affects not only seedling density, but also diversity and species composition. Two more narrowly focused studies tested the intensity of competition among seedlings, and examined the effects of various mammalian predators on seedling recruitment. Evidence for inter-seedling competition was weak: individual growth and survival rates were generally unrelated to stem density, and seedlings’ zones of influence rarely overlapped substantially. As predators, small and medium-sized mammals reduced seedling density, whereas large mammals had no detectable effects. Furthermore, small mammals generated a rare-species advantage, the fundamental element of frequency dependence. Integrating the three studies, we suggest that dispersal is more important for seedling community structure than are environmental conditions. Given the low density of seedlings in xii Neotropical forests, we infer that competition among tree seedlings is largely irrelevant to their recruitment. Seed predators operated in a distinctly non-neutral manner, preferentially removing seeds of common and large-seeded species. Despite the powerful effects of predation, dispersal explained more variance in seedling recruitment than did all aspects of environmental variation (including predation). Taken together, the results of these three experiments support a view that, at least for young plants, and at small scales, dispersal may more strongly influence the species composition of tropical trees than environmental conditions, consistent with predictions from neutral models