Persuasion
(SPCH 3390)
East Tennessee State University

~The following are resources and tips for those enrolled in Persuasion with Wesley Buerkle~

Succeeding in Persuasion | Goals | Finding Research
 

Succeeding in Persuasion
Persuasion is a fairly fast paced course, but it needn't be overwhelming. Here are a few tips to success (probably good for any class):

• Keep up with the calendar: If you can put in a couple hours every week on the approaching projects rather than waiting until that week, you will be less stressed, perform better, and develop better, long-term professional skills. This is something I have learned through my own, hard experiences. The class is a marathon not a series of sprints.

• Come by the office: When you come to my office it gives me a chance to speak directly to your concerns and challenges. I am here, but I need you to come and see me when you need help or reassurance. If possible, set a time in advance, but I can usually see you if I'm here when you drop by. Asking questions right after class is kind of awkward for me and never as beneficial as letting me sit and focus on what you have to say. Come, sit, talk!

• Write down announcements about assignments: I know at the moment it seems unnecessary, but I find that students often forget the details about assignments as I discuss them in class. This leads to missing expectations because you forgot what I had said they were. Even when there is an instruction sheet, adding notes and clarifications makes a big difference—another lesson I have learned the hard way.

• Come to class prepared: Read all of the chapter and make note of what didn't make sense or work for you.

• Ask questions: One of my more enjoyable teaching experiences was a course where I spent half of every session answering questions students had about the reading. I felt like those exchanges were the most useful for everyone. It's your education, so don't be shy about what it is you want to know.

Goals
I know this class is mostly taken by Communication Studies, Public Relations, and Advertising majors. Here are the skills I want you to get from the course to help you in the rest of your courses and beyond.

• Writing: This class is designated as writing intensive by the university. My goal is for you to develop/polish deductive writing skills, especially articulating several points as a cohesive idea. In your profession this will prepare you to take  several findings, ideas, or requests and synthesize them into a singular organizing statement.

• Research: By the time the class is through you will know how to locate academic research and the general process for testing a hypothesis/ answering a research question. While you may not find yourself performing a persuasive experiment in the future, knowing the basic process for testing a persuasive strategy or message will likely prove useful.

• Critical Awareness: Through the semester you should come to develop not only an awareness of the persuasive strategies used in the world around you but also a critical sensitivity to them, being able to discuss the ethics of, possible responses to, and alternatives to the message presented.

Finding Research

Search Tips

• Add "persuasion" as a keyword to refine your choices.

• If using a library database, add "persuasion" as "persua*" (include the asterisk but not the quote marks) to include all forms of the word.

• Do your searches at least a week earlier than you think you should in case you have to wait on inter-library loan.

• Make sure that the article is Communication and persuasion specific (e.g., lots of research on eye contact having nothing to do with persuasion).

• Consider alternate search terms, especially "compliance" for "persuasion." Other times keywords may have an alternate term used in the literature (e.g., "gaze" for "eye contact"). Ask me for suggestions.

Library databases to use for social-behavioral research

• Communication Abstracts – Covers most Communication journals

• PsycINFO – Primarily non-Communication journals but very useful

• InfoTrac OneFile – Sometimes very good finds but sometimes just the abstracts

• JSTOR – This one is kind of hit-and-miss but a good resources nonetheless

Also try Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com). If you do a search on Google Scholar from on campus it will automatically create a link to see if the source is available at ETSU—very handy.

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