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To establish academic
credibility for these simplified, jargon-free teaching aids (complete
with catch-phrases and cartoon balloons), here are some
sample reviews of the earlier print
editions of The Pitch; and a list of some of the textbooks
and other publications which have reprinted or incorporated
Hugh Rank's teaching aids.
Sample Reviews William Lutz, Professor of English at Rutgers University, Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Doublespeak (NCTE) for 12 years, writes in Curriculum Review (March, 1996): "If you're looking for materials you can use to teach about doublespeak, I would like to recommend two books. Both are written by Hugh Rank.... The first is The Pitch which deals with techniques for analyzing ads to determine their underlying patterns of persuasion. Although Rank's approach is basically simple and easily learned by students, it can be used in a variety of contexts to produce as simple or as sophisticated an analysis as you want, and as your students can handle.... Rank doesn't attack advertising or make it a scapegoat for all our social ills. Instead, he treats advertising as a fact of life, something that we simply have to deal with, and we have to teach our students to deal with. So he concentrates on showing students how to identify the underlying structure of ads, the predictable patterns of persuasion that occur in ads, and the sophisticated strategies used by advertisers.... The second book I recommend is Persuasion Analysis: A Companion to Composition. This book is designed to help students improve their writing by learning the principles of effective writing that are used in advertising. The focus of the book is on the form of ads, not on their content. By focusing on form, Rank helps students become better composers themselves, as well as better analyzers of ads.... The book is deceptively simple. Rank transfers rhetorical principles about audience, purpose, structure, implicit suggestions, and other devices from ads to the student's own writing...."
Richard Ohmann, Professor of English at Wesleyan University, review in the Quarterly Journal of Doublespeak (NCTE) writes: "Most readers of this review must be familiar with his 'Intensify/Downplay schema,' a rock bottom simple grid for application to any persuasive message.... And more recently his all-purpose grammar of ads has had wide circulation. He proposes that the deep structure of an ad includes 'attention-getting,' 'confidence-building,' 'desire-stimulating,' 'urgency-stressing,' and 'response-seeking,' and that this pattern helps capture the transactional character of ads. These models have the advantage of quick and almost applicability. Furthermore, their use does not (or should not) lead to facile pigeonholing and an end to thought,, but to the extended, critical interrogation of any appeal.... Rank has aimed this book at students: it is plain, clear, completely unpretentious.... a useful addition to the relatively meager resources available or critical study of ads in the school or college classroom." James Kinneavy, University of Texas, author, A Theory of Discourse "... solidly based in rhetorical theory and cleverly adapted to a wide public audience." Walker Gibson, University of Massachusetts, author, The Macmillian Handbook of English "... a practical and systematic technique for alerting students to the adman's enormously powerful 'pitch' " Ross Winterowd, University of Southern California, author, The Contemporary Writer "Professor Rank sets out to give students protection against the Big Sell and the Big Lie. His materials are elegant and useful." Review, in The Book Report ".... A teacher would be advised to use this book
as a text in a media class or in a unit on expository writing.... An
individual student could read the book for practical consumer information."
Review, in Best Sellers ".... Although intended principally as a text for
school use, The Pitch can be studied to good advantage by any educated
person desirous of improving his/her ability to detect and deflect persuasive
propaganda pitches of all sorts." Review, in American Council of Consumer Interests Newsletter ".... A 'consumerist' book, but not a hatchet-job
on advertising. Shows how to cope with a 'propaganda blitz' by understanding
our own benefit-seeking behaviors and how they relate to the common
patterns of benefit-promising by the persuaders." From The New Propaganda (1993) by James Combs and Dan Nimmo: " Today that legacy [of propaganda analysis] continues
in one of the most comprehensive and systematic of schemes for the analysis
of message claims, one developed by communication scholar Hugh Rank.
In two books, The Pitch, dealing with how to analyze advertising,
and The Pep Talk, concerning the analysis of political language,
he provides guidelines for analyzing propaganda." From Persuasion (1992) by Charles Larson: "Rank outlined a model of persuasion that could help teach people to be critical receivers. He called it the "Intensify/Downplay schema" and tried to keep it as simple as possible. It can serve as a good overall model for you." [Larson's introduction to 10 pages of developing the concepts of the "Intensify/Downplay schema."] Reprints of Hugh Rank's Teaching Aids in Textbooks include: Ambacher, Richard. Semantics: Arrival at Meaning (1993) American Journalism Review (Fall, 1994) Annenberg/CPB Project. "War Propaganda" in Dilemmas of War and Peace (1991) Bailey, Stephen. Bridges 4 (1996) Brown, Sandra & Wm McGreevy, Experiencing Reading (1994) "Kenneth Burke, Hugh Rank, and the Art of Duck Hunting," in Analyzing Visual Persuasion. (1990) Combs, James & Dan Nimmo. The New Propaganda. (1993) Dieterich, Dan. Teaching About Doublespeak. (1976) Early, Margaret & Diane Sawyer. Reading to Learn in Secondary Schools. (1984) Epstein, Ira. The Proficient Reader. (1992) Eschholz, Paul. Language Awareness. (1978) Fimbel, Nancie. Communicating in the Office. (1990) Fox, Roy. Harvesting Minds (1996) Fox, Roy. Images in Language, Media, and Mind. (1994) Gardner, Peter. New Horizons. (1995) Gordon, Wm. We Mean Business: Building Communication. (1993) Goshgarian, Gary. Exploring Language, 10th ed. (2004) Green, Hayden. Consumers in the Economy. (1988) Hirshberg, Stuart. Strategies for Argument. (1989) Informed Health Consumer. (1990) Johnston, Deirdre. The Art & Science of Persuasion. (1994) Kingsbury, Robert (ed.) BerlitzEnglish General Business Module (2003) Larson, Charles. Persuasion (1992) Lawson, Kay. The Human Polity. (1993) Lutz, William. (ed.) Beyond 1984 (1989) Mass Media & Popular Culture Resource Binder (HBJ) (1997) Mills, Harry. Artful Persuasion. (2000) Montgomery, Ron (ed.). At Issue in History: Watergate (2005) ("Watergate and the Language") Olgren, Thomas. The New Languages. (1977) Rank, Hugh. Language and Public Policy. (1974) - - - - - - - The Pep Talk (1984) - - - - - - - Persuasion Analysis: A Companion to Composition (1988) - - - - - - - The Pitch (1982, 1991) Roth, Audrey. The Elements of Basic Writing. (1992) Schindley, Wanda. The Informed Citizen (1997) Scholastic Voice. Vol. 74, #12 Shachtman, Thomas. The Inarticulate Society: Eloquence and Culture in America (1995) Simons, Herbert. The Persuasion Society. (1997) - - - - - - - - - - - Persuasion: Understanding,
Practice and Analysis Hugh Rank's teaching aids are also available in most college libraries on microfiche from ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) as ERIC REPORTS: ED 273 971 Not-So-Great-Expectations ED 273 972 Images & Issues: How to Analyze Election Rhetoric ED 273 973 Questions You Can Ask About Advertising ED 273 974 The 30-Second Spot Quiz |