Opening Statement Research Articles

Getting Heard: Practical Strategies for Capturing Attention and Influencing Outcomes at Work

Getting your ideas heard and influencing outcomes at work can be challenging given modern distractions and information overload. This practitioner-focused brief explores evidence-based communication strategies for capturing attention and gaining buy-in. Drawing from research in cognitive psychology, persuasion, and leadership storytelling, it provides guidance on crafting compelling messages through narrative structure, formatting for visual engagement, and crafting an persuasive opening statement, evidence, and resolution. The brief also offers tips for delivering ideas interactively to different learning styles while empowering participation over passivity. Real-world case studies from Patagonia, Anthropic, and Discovery Education demonstrate effective application across industries. By understanding human cognition and facilitating collaborative discovery, communicators can inspire others towards shared goals through respect, understanding and inspiration over directives.

English Opening Statement

English Opening Statement

Chinese Opening Statement

Chinese Opening Statement

Conceptions of Everyday Life in Information Science

ABSTRACTThis panel examines conceptions of everyday life in Information Science. Several theories about everyday life and its information phenomena will be reviewed and analyzed for their origins, distinctions, and divergent claims. Four expert panelists who have published on these matters will encapsulate their ideas, and there will be a video interlude, as well. By design, the panel Agenda features short opening statements, leaving 40 minutes to discuss: How do existing notions of everyday life within Information Science bring information into focus in different ways? Are informational conceptions of everyday life adequate or wanting of critical re‐examination? In keeping with ASIS&T's multiperspective community, inputs will be sought from students, practitioners, first‐time conference attendees, and other groups, in turn. If, as Marcia J. Bates claims, we are “…always looking for the red thread of information in the social texture of people's lives” (1999, p. 1048) then we need to individually and collectively reflect on the nature of everyday life.

English Opening Statement

English Opening Statement

Chinese Opening Statement

Chinese Opening Statement

An invited commentary on mentoring in infant mental health: A symposium commemorating Robert N. Emde.

This paper is based on a symposium on mentoring in infant mental health that took place at the 18th World Association for Infant Mental Health (WAIMH) conference. The symposium commemorated Robert N. Emde who was one of the founders of the field of Infant Mental Health, and devoted much of his career to mentorship. From an IMH perspective, mentoring experiences are best thought of as relationships, significant for both mentor and mentee, with positive mentoring experiences crucial for the development of IMH clinicians and researchers. The symposium participants, two pairs of mentor-mentee dyads, first gave an opening statement about what mentoring meant for them generally and personally, and then addressed three issues: the goodness of fit between mentor and mentee, "light and shadow" in mentoring relationships, and balancing old wisdom with new trends in mentoring. The paper brings the participants' views and personal experiences regarding these issues in their own words, highlighting key personal and professional issues related to mentorship from the perspectives of both mentor and mentee.

Opening statement

Interested Australian universities with Interior Design/Interior Architecture degrees held an inaugural meeting in Sydney in 1996 to elicit interest in an association to advocate Interior Design/Interior Architecture education and research. In 1997 IDEA was formalised to encourage and support excellence in the discipline. This is the Inaugural publication of the annual ‘IDEA Referred Design Scheme’, one of the activities the IDEA committee promotes. Participating universities include: Curtin University of Technology, Queensland College of Art, Queensland University of Technology, Northern Territory University, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, University of New South Wales, University of South Australia and the University of Technology Sydney.

The laser-electron source of X-ray radiation (from the opening statement at workshop dedicated to the 85th anniversary of B.S. Ishkhanov in SINP MSU on October 26, 2023)

The work, as well as the seminar at which it was reported, is devoted to the memory of the outstanding physicist-nuclear scientist, professor of Moscow State University B.S. Ishkhanov, namely his contribution to the research and development of LEXG — laser-electronic X-ray generators. Relevance and prospects of this direction are connected with «gap» between two existing types of X-ray sources: on the one hand — X-ray tubes, and on the other - electronic accelerators, storage rings and free electrons lasers. It’s about a huge difference in their bundle characteristics, cost, scale, energy consumption, etc. The history of modern projects abroad, as well as the LEXG project of MSU–Jilin University, led by Prof. B.S. Ishkhanov, are briefly presented. From the point of view of their applications, the LEXG designs can be divided into two types with different scale of the devices. The first is the replacement of serial X-ray tubes and the second is radiation medicine, nuclear technology and nuclear physics research. International conferences on LEXG have been held since 2008. The list of these is given in the Annex to the article.

English Opening Statement

English Opening Statement

Chinese Opening Statement

Chinese Opening Statement

Recurrent gestures and embodied stance-taking in courtroom opening statements

Abstract Despite the inherently multimodal nature of the courtroom, studies of multimodality in forensic linguistics have been scarce. This study uses the stance triangle and ideological square concepts and the assumption that recurrent gestures serve as stance-taking resources to analyze conflicting embodied stances taken by the prosecutor and defense attorney in their opening remarks during the State of Minnesota v. Derek Michael Chauvin 2021 trial. Statistical results reveal that the prosecutor predominantly uses modal gestures to display a strongly aggravated oppositional stance and attempts to be more persuasive, while the defense attorney favors performative gestures. The analysis of the interplay between the verbal and gestural resources suggests that recurrent gestures such as open hand prone or supine, open hand held with vertical palms, index finger extended, and precision grip have a threefold indexical realization: prototypical, argumentative, and stance-taking. The findings contribute to a more complete understanding of persuasion in the courtroom.

AI‑based decision support systems and society: An opening statement

Although artificial intelligence (AI) and automated decision-making systems have been around for some time, they have only recently gained in importance as they are now actually being used and are no longer just the subject of research. AI to support decision-making is thus affecting ever larger parts of society, creating technical, but above all ethical, legal, and societal challenges, as decisions can now be made by machines that were previously the responsibility of humans. This introduction provides an overview of attempts to regulate AI and addresses key challenges that arise when integrating AI systems into human decision-making. The Special topic brings together research articles that present societal challenges, ethical issues, stakeholders, and possible futures of AI use for decision support in healthcare, the legal system, and border control.

Elaboration and Code Glossing in Prosecution and Defense Attorneys’ Opening Statements and Closing Arguments

This paper provides a metadiscourse analysis of how American prosecution and defense attorneys utilize code glosses to facilitate the courtroom audience’s comprehension of what they have said. Drawing upon a corpus of 24 opening statements and closing arguments in six high-profile American trials, we examine the methods employed by the attorneys to effectively manage their speeches in order to convey information or illustrate points while constructing their arguments for the courtroom audience. Regardless of the somehow low frequency of code glosses, as revealed by the findings, they still have been found to play a vital role in the legal discourse of the opening statements and the closing arguments, serving as a complex and crucial rhetorical function.

‚Learning from our mistakes and doing better‘

Which of the German corona measures were good, which were bad? What can we learn from the years 2020 to 2022 for future pandemics and other potential crisis situations? These were the key questions posed by MVF editor Prof Dr Reinhold Roski at the start of the MVF Congress ‚Pandemic impact on healthcare‘, the first part of which took place online in December 2023. After the opening statement by Sabine Dittmar MdB, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Health, who spoke about the ‚Corona impact on healthcare policy‘, Prof Dr Bertram Häussler, IGES Director and key idea generator of the congress, presented a somewhat different view of the political reality in his lecture ‚Effects of the corona pandemic - an overview‘. A view shared by Prof Dr Matthias Schrappe, University of Cologne, who was not stingy with constructive criticism in his presentation ‚Politics: fear instead of information?‘. The aim of the ‚Monitor Versorgungsforschung‘ congress was precisely not to apportion blame, but to analyse what can not only be learned from the Covid-19 event of the century for the German healthcare system, but what must be learned for future crises of the same or a completely different kind.

Judicial investigation in a jury trial as a way of communication between participants: procedural features and modern possibilities

The Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation establishes several forms of consideration and resolution of criminal cases in the court of first instance. One of the forms of criminal proceedings is the consideration of cases with the participation of jurors. This form has its own procedural features, due to the delimitation of competence between a professional judge and a jury. Features are typical for the judicial investigation, which, as the main form of communication between the participants in the process, begins with the opening statements of the parties and has a limitation on the evidence examined in the presence of the jury. The article analyzes these features from the point of view of theory and established judicial practice, provides recommendations for successful interaction with jurors. It is stated that the procedural features entail the use of a special tactic for presenting evidence to the jury, the need to simplify, visualize evidentiary information. It is concluded that in order to simplify and visualize the available information, it is currently necessary to use modern technical developments and achievements.

INTERACTIVE PATTERNS OF THE OPENING STATEMENT IN THE DEFAMATION CASE TRIAL OF DEPP VS HEARD 2022

In light of the interactive aspects of a monologue speech, this study intends to examine the opening statement by the plaintiff’s lawyer, Ben Chew, in the trial of the Depp versus Heard Defamation case in 2022. Utilising Searle’s Illocutionary Acts and Hyland’s Stance and Engagement Models which was modified by Chaemsaithong, and the qualitative descriptive method, the writer can elaborate on how the interactive patterns can be discerned through the utterances presented by the lawyer. The finding shows 68 utterances dominated by 46% representative acts and 40% commissive acts, while the least occurrences are 7% of expressive acts and 7% of directive acts. Thereafter, it is also found 91 stance markers in the form of 50% attitude markers and 13% first-person pronouns, and 54 engagement markers in the form of 26% second-person pronouns, 10% reported discourse, and 1% questions. Through those interactive devices, the lawyer negotiated his representations within the opening statement at three levels: narrative, interpersonal, and personal self. Those negotiations are operated simultaneously as interactive means for presenting his proposition and identity as a lawyer while engaging rapport with jurors. Therefore, persuading them to be on the same page with the lawyer’s point of view, in which he stood on the plaintiff’s side in the trial.

Conscience and the continuum of constitutionalism: John Calvin on civil government

Abstract This article examines John Calvin’s theology on its own terms with the aim of appreciating the normative basis and implications of his political theory. Although the claim that Calvin’s account of civil government falls within the category of political ‘theology’ is less controversial, the normative implications of his theological ontology for political actors are more commonly contested. Calvin seminally wrote ‘on Civil Government’ in Book IV, Chapter xx of the Institutes of the Christian Religion. In contrast, his accounts of conscience and natural law are far less systemized.1 This article contends that this reticence is not due to lack of importance but rather, due to its foundational nature. Indeed, the opening statement of the Institutes is indicative of the coherence of the Reformer’s thoughts wherein any emerging polity is composed of what this article refers to as the ‘spheres-of-influence’ scheme—a normative system originating inward from the vertical relationship every human agent has with the divine, and then extending horizontally outwards to bind the collective in a common system of values. Such an ontology is predicated on the concepts of conscience and the divine image, which renders all persons, who possess this natural repository of moral knowledge, accountable to transcendent standards of virtue. It follows that when we overlay this ‘continuum’2 onto a constitutional framework, we place the priority, not on the individual rights of the citizen, but on the responsibilities of all political actors whereby others precede the self and the common good prevails over self-interest.

We agree completely with the reviewer, but … ”: Stance in author rebuttal letters for journal manuscript reviews

Authors’ rebuttal letters (ARLs) in response to journal reviewers critically affect whether a paper is accepted or rejected. However, the genre is traditionally “occluded” from the public view, and its linguistic or rhetorical features are seldom examined in the literature. Using Hyland’s (2005) model, this study analyzes stance markers, i.e., expressions of the speaker’s attitudes towards or commitment concerning a proposition, in 50 ARLs from five high-impact Nature Portfolio journals, which started publishing ARLs as supplements to manuscripts in 2020. The analysis shows that authors’ stance deployment differs markedly between different sections of the ARL, i.e., Opening Statement, Point-by-Point Response, Additional Changes, and Closing Remarks. Attitude markers, boosters, and self-mentions are more frequent in ARLs than in research articles, serving to advocate the paper, highlight improvements, and show gratitude towards reviewers. Only 6 % ARLs fully accommodate all reviewer suggestions. When rejecting a criticism, authors rarely express total disagreement with reviewers, choosing instead to hedge the No Revision claims, use expressions of agreement and gratitude as buffers, and boost positive aspects of the paper. Findings of this study may be of interest to those who seek a better understanding of the language of ARLs, including ESP teachers and novice researchers.

High Commissioner’s Opening Statement to the 73rd Session of the UNHCR Executive Committee

High Commissioner’s Opening Statement to the 73rd Session of the UNHCR Executive Committee