Science Podcast Step 3

Today we will give one another feedback on our podcast scripts. You will read and respond to the scripts of three of your classmates.

After you have completed your peer reviews, you should work in Audacity (or your audio editor of choice) and begin drafting your audio essay. Follow the basic process that you took with your improv exercise. Begin importing and trimming clips. Record some initial early draft narration. Move elements around and work on the flow of the piece.

For the peer review task, follow these steps:

1.) Begin by finding the classmate's script.

2.) Once you open the script, respond to these prompts:

• Opening: Does the script provide a hook or some other engaging way of catching the listener's attention? If so, how well is it working? If not, how might the opening be reworked to pull listeners in?
• Tone: How well does the tone work for the audio essay genre that has conversational expectations? Are there places where the tone is working particularly well or places where it is not working? Identify one passage where the tone might be revised, and then provide some suggestions.
• Transitions into and out of audio clips: How well does the piece introduce any clips that will be played? Does the narration give enough context so that listeners can understand how an audio clip related to the topic? After a clip, does the script extend points and smoothly transition back to narration? Are there places where the transitions into or out of a clip feels stilted or repetitious? Offer some observations and suggestions about narration in terms of weaving in the clips.
• Concision: In your judgment, how well has the script done at providing concise language without any fluff. Use the dictum that "shorter is better" when it comes to audio essays, and then offer some concrete suggestions for tightening the language.
• What final comments and big picture suggestions do you have to strengthen the script?

3.) In your comment respond to each of these prompts.

4.) Once you have completed one review, move on the the others that you have been assigned. (If a script you have been assigned has yet to be posted, just skip it and move on the the next.)

If you finish all of the reviews, you can look over the feedback on your own script.