This best-selling brief introduction to public speaking offers practical coverage of every topic typically covered in a full-sized text, from invention, research and organization, practice and delivery, to the different speech types. Its concise, inexpensive format makes it perfect not only for the public speaking course, but also for any setting across the curriculum, on the job, or in the community. This newly redesigned full-color edition offers even stronger coverage of the fundamentals of speechmaking, while also addressing the changing realities of public speaking in a digital world. It features fully updated chapters on online presentations and using presentation software, and a streamlined chapter on research in print and online.

A broadly interdisciplinary study of the pervasive secrecy in America cultural, political, and religious discourse. The occult has traditionally been understood as the study of secrets of the practice of mysticism or magic. This book broadens our understanding of the occult by treating it as a rhetorical phenomenon tied to language and symbols and more central to American culture than is commonly assumed. Joshua Gunn approaches the occult as an idiom, examining the ways in which acts of textual criticism and interpretation are occultic in nature, as evident in practices as diverse as academic scholarship, Freemasonry, and television production. Gunn probes, for instance, the ways in which jargon employed by various social and professional groups creates barriers and fosters secrecy. From the theory wars of cultural studies to the Satanic Panic that swept the national mass media in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Gunn shows how the paradox of a hidden, buried, or secret meaning that cannot be expressed in language appears time and time again in Western culture. These recurrent patterns, Gunn argues, arise from a generalized, popular anxiety about language and its limitations. Ultimately, Modern Occult Rhetoric demonstrates the indissoluble relationship between language, secrecy, and publicity, and the centrality of suspicion in our daily lives.

No matter what the medium, from print to broadcast to digital, Working with Words presents the best writing advice for journalists. It is designed to help students gain the grammatical and stylistic skills they need and then serve as a reference throughout their careers. Written by working journalists, with parts devoted to grammar and mechanics as well as journalistic style and writing for different media, it offers coverage the Associated Press Stylebook does not — and it’s affordably priced at 30-50% less than competing texts. The new edition contains tools that make it even easier to navigate, tackles the unique issues inherent to writing for online media, and offers improved grammar and writing instruction.