From Print to Audio

I took away several lessons from this guide. I thought it used visuals and clips in a really useful and approachable way to actually demonstrate the differences between written and audio media. I think that all of their points are going to be on my mind as I make my script but there are a few that stood out as major factors to keep in mind. Writing the way that I would talk will likely be my biggest struggle as the two of those have a lot of differences for me and I find it hard to write it without saying it first. At the same time, I will have to consider "how listeners listen" and make sure to keep things easy to understand the first time someone listens.

 Several of their points are also about keeping peoples interest and attention over the course of the audio piece. This is something I will be paying a lot of attention to; trying to create a narrative arc that people can and want to follow. I expect that this will have just as much to do with my editing and my choice of quotes as it will the words I am actually saying. I will have to make conscious decisions about what external audio to include and how much I should have the sources say vs. how much I am going to say.    

The article mentioned several things that I’ll keep in mind when composing my script for the audio essay. For starters, my sentences will need to be easily comprehensible. There should not be any run-on sentences with a ton of information being thrown at the listener. The language needs to be kept simple so that it is easy to follow. Another related note that is mentioned in the article is to keep the key points to a minimum. Rather than resolving several questions about the topic, I should focus on one or two and really hone in on them. Lastly, I found it interesting that they said quotes (tapes) should make up about 50% of the essay. It makes sense, though. These outside sources help articulate the core ideas of the story and keep the listener engaged with a new voice. Incorporating different voices into my audio essay at the right moments will be an essential part to making it successful.

This was an interesting article that gave a lot of insight into audio as a source of communication. When I did my short piece on pencils in class, I immediately felt like it didn't sound quite right. I really liked how the article laid out some ideas on making sentences sound more natural. I will be keeping that in mind as I move forward. I will also be careful to keep sentences short, because I tend to ramble on. I also use dependent clauses often, so I'll watch out for that as well. Being concise and straight to the point seems to be the best way to go in audio essays, so I need to focus on a few points instead of trying to tell the entire history of memes, etc. I'm wondering if we should basically frame our script around the quotes we plan to use since they are such a big part of the essay. Overall, I'm looking forward to giving this a try for the first time. It is much more out of my comfort zone, but that's okay!

This article raised many interesting points concerning the pitfalls common in audio essays. Many of the things the article mentioned I realized I was guilty of in my video poem reflection. However, these are a few of my main takeaways. It is important to be concise and to the point in audio essays. Because the listener lacks the ability to reread a sentence, it is important to keep the listener engaged. Short concise sentences help. The author also pointed out that it is helpful to keep the language used in the audio essay somewhat conversational. In most situations, the content of audio essays should be somewhat casual to keep the listener engaged. Including colloquialisms is a good way to keep the essay casual. In the same way, it is important to slowly give the listener important pieces of information. If given all at once, he/she is likely to lose interest or be overwhelmed by the content. According to the article, the proper balance between audio clips and the host's voice should be roughly 50-50, and I intend to do this in my essay. I'm excited to apply this advice and create an engaging, interesting audio essay on human cognition.

This article provided lots of novel information to me about how to produce and record an audio essay or podcast. The biggest takeaway I found was the recommendation to split commentator and interviewee air time 50/50. I figured the split would be more geared towards the author/writer's opinions or analysis on the matter, but the facts and data seem to be much more prevalent in an audio project. Another suggestion that I found interesting was the emphasis on tone and parts of speech being influential in the work. Unlike something written, audio captures the mood, tone, and overall feel of the speaker's words, which pushes an importance on the placement of quotes and pieces of data. I hope to cut down on my typical overuse of dependent clauses and fact-heavy sentences, and think that this article will help me make my audio that much easier to listen to by slowing down my pace and clearly structuring my argument.

The article provided some very useful advice that I plan on using to create my audio essay. First, I am going to narrow the focus on my subtopics to make the information easy to consume for the listener. I don’t want my segments all over the place and cluttered. Another piece of advice I plan on enacting would be writing for my voice and speaking the sentences before I write them in the script. I want the audio to be as natural and smooth as possible so this was a really helpful tip.

This article had a lot of tips that I will incorporate into my audio essay. I was surprised by how different radio and print journalism is. I was taught in my news writing class the inverted pyramid style including the nut graf. But thinking about how we need to engage the listener and encourage them to listen to the whole thing, it makes sense to not follow that structure. One big tip that I will use for writing my script is to first talk and then write. Because I am so used to formal writing I will have to revise a lot to find my own voice while including content that is easily digestible for the viewer. I also made a mental note about how to not include too many numbers because they are hard to remember and that good writing does not equate to good audio essays. 

I found this article very helpful. I liked how it compared writing something for print versus writing something for audio and I will use some of the tips when I am creating my audio script. I am going to be talking about human cognition, specifically focusing on attention spans and how social media has had an influence on people's ability to remain attentive to things. In my audio clip, I will make sure to keep my sentences short and to the point so that my audience can keep up with what I am saying. I learned from the article that the information needs to be presented slowly and with more conversational language to allow my voice to be heard. Finally, I will keep in mind that the best audio stories have a narrative arc. First, I will raise a question in listeners minds at the beginning and promise an answer by the end. This is one of the most effective techniques used when writing an audio clip.

After reading this, it made digesting what made some of the examples in class great and what made some bad. I plan on doing my audio essay on, sounds in video games. The sound track in a video game can make or it. I play on keeping my sentences short and concise. Also, when it says find your radio voice, I have this great idea of mimic my voice to the audio i'm trying to represent. For instance when a game uses loud noise for urgency, I am going to talk fast and agressively. In the contrast when I bring up light notes, I am going to talk in that tone. This way the listener can absorb what I am saying without having to listen to the words completely, "easier to absorb".

After reading this, it made digesting what made some of the examples in class great and what made some bad. I plan on doing my audio essay on, sounds in video games. The sound track in a video game can make or it. I play on keeping my sentences short and concise. Also, when it says find your radio voice, I have this great idea of mimic my voice to the audio i'm trying to represent. For instance when a game uses loud noise for urgency, I am going to talk fast and agressively. In the contrast when I bring up light notes, I am going to talk in that tone. This way the listener can absorb what I am saying without having to listen to the words completely, "easier to absorb".

Transitioning from print to audio takes a lot of care. When thinking about audio essays specifically there is usually a tangible audience that the work is distributed to and played for. It is very important for me in my audio essay to make sure that I am speaking at a level that my audience can connect with. I also need to be aware of the tone that I use in my voice as well as pulling in outside media to make my audio essay more intriguing for my audience. It was also interesting in the reading when it talked about the inverted pyramid and that structuring an audio essay can differ from the structure in a written essay because with an audio essay the audience has nothing to follow along with besides the audio and that audio needs to grab the listeners attention and hold it throughout the piece. 

Transitioning from print to audio takes a lot of care. When thinking about audio essays specifically there is usually a tangible audience that the work is distributed to and played for. It is very important for me in my audio essay to make sure that I am speaking at a level that my audience can connect with. I also need to be aware of the tone that I use in my voice as well as pulling in outside media to make my audio essay more intriguing for my audience. It was also interesting in the reading when it talked about the inverted pyramid and that structuring an audio essay can differ from the structure in a written essay because with an audio essay the audience has nothing to follow along with besides the audio and that audio needs to grab the listeners attention and hold it throughout the piece. 

There were a lot of things that I found interesting in this article. The first one was how to write for your own voice. During the process of creating our storyboards, I found one of the hardest things was to make sure that my infection and tone made sense in describing what I was talking about. I also felt as though some of my script sounded a little too forced. I will definitely incorporate the "if you won't say it rule" into my audio essay, because I felt that in my storyboard I sounded maybe a little to formal, and when discussing a topic such as memes (which are such an informal mode of communication), I think it will be important for me to sound natural.

I thought this article did a great job explaining this process. A lot of the things it mentioned, I noticed when listening to the clips but couldn't put my finger on what was wrong until the author explained why. I have made sure to make a list of things to avoid when crafting my audio essay. Things like paying attention to tone of voice, steering clear of the inverted pyramid, and creating clear transitions. I think the transitions will be helped by adding in extra sound clips as well as signposting with your words where your story is going next. 

I thought this article provided me with some great advice on how to effectively deliver the message I intend to through audio format. I noticed that my monotonous voice did not help to get my message across. I never liked how my voice sounded in recordings, and for my audio essay, I intend to use the advice given to implement it into my audio essay project. I will pay more attention to my tone of voice, and creating a smoother transition between sentences.

I found this article super interesting and applied some of the advice while writing my audio script! I enjoyed the article because it gave such specific steps and advice for making a successful audio essay/reporting/podcast. The most basic piece of advice is the one I used most: keep sentences short and one fact per sentence. Also, it helped to say my words out loud and then write them - to help keep the speech conversational and not formal and academic: "If you wouldn't say it that way, then don't write it that way."  I also liked the advice about using sentence fragments and colloquialism while avoiding lengthy dependent clauses. Really helpful advice!