[en] Data are reported on the elastic scattering of alphas by ¹⁶O and on the inelastic scattering to the first five excited states of ¹⁶O in 10 keV steps for 14.6 < E/sub α/ < 20.4 MeV. Surface barrier detectors at sixteen to eighteen angles in a differentially pumped gas chamber measured simultaneously the differential cross section. Several computer programs were developed for online data acquisition and monitoring, for rapidly reducing data to cross sections, for updating and editing data tapes, and for plotting the cross sections as either angular distributions or as excitation functions. For each particle spectrum in the bombarding energy range 18.0 < E/sub α/ < 20.4 MeV by peak fitting techniques the α₁ and α₂ peaks (which correspond to ¹⁶O final states at excitation energies 6.0494 and 6.1304 MeV were separated. The 246 angular distributions for each of the five inelastic scattering reactions in this energy range were expanded in Legendre polynomials. The simple spin system for the α₁ reaction (0⁺ + 0⁺ → 0⁺ + 0⁺) permitted the assignment of spin-parities to eleven resonances in the compound nucleus ²⁰Ne at excitation energies from 19.1 to 21.0 MeV. To extract resonant energies and widths from both the α₁ and the α₀ data the scattering amplitude is written as a linearly energy dependent nonresonant term plus a sum over only resonant partial waves. The analysis of the elastic scattering data confirmed spin-parity assignments for three levels in ²⁰Ne at (J/sup pi/ in parentheses) E/sub x/ = 16.844 (5^-), 18.119 (7^-) and 20.685 MeV (9^-) and permitted unambiguous J/sup pi/ assignments for five levels at E/sub x/ = 16.501 (6⁺), 16.666 (4⁺), 17.150 (5^-), 17.273 (4⁺) and 18.023 MeV (5^-). Also identified were three previously unreported ²⁰Ne levels at E/sub x/ = 16.576 MeV (7^-), GAMMA/sub c.m./ = 86 keV; 16.633 MeV (3^-), 51 keV; and 27.204 (4⁺), 142 keV