Description
Book SynopsisThe Perfect Response offers a framework for assessing the nature of fluency, and explaining the personal attributes that account for why some communicators excel more than most in connecting with others.
Trade ReviewIn this wide-ranging inquiry, Woodward (communication, The College of New Jersey) identifies what he considers significant markers of public persuasion. In seven chapters, the author considers a willingness to engage in public communication with others, self-monitoring, empathy, motivation, adherence to goals, responsiveness, and comfort level as indicators of influence; defines a rhetorical personality as someone who possesses significant numbers of these indicators; discusses autism and the Williams Syndrome (a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with unusual language skills) as arguable evidence that communicative interactions are fragile and unpredictable; and examines the rhetoric of public figures (President Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, George W. Bush) and of the films of James L. Brooks and comedian Steve Martin....A good resource for comprehensive collections in public rhetoric. Summing Up: Recommended. * CHOICE *
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Chapter One. Introduction: A Conceptual Map of the Rhetorical Personality Chapter 2 Chapter Two. Empathy: Finding Ourselves in Others Chapter 3 Chapter Three. Saving the World One Person at a Time: the Inclination to Engage Chapter 4 Chapter Four. Confirming Our Acceptability: the Impulse for Self-Monitoring Chapter 5 Chapter Five. Autism, the Williams Syndrome and the Rhetoric of Sociality Chapter 6 Chapter Six. Finding a Way Through: The Films of James L. Brooks Chapter 7 Chapter Seven. Lessons from the Political Stage: the Role of the Other in the Rhetorical and Hortatory Styles
