Podcasts come in all shapes, sizes, genres, styles, etc. Some are short, some are long. Some are heavily scripted, some are informal and conversational. Some are heavily research based, some are entertaining. You have to figure out what style works for you, for your intended audience, and is appropriate to the content at hand. And while it's easy to get wrapped up in wanting to recreate what you love best in the podcasts you listen to, there are many things you need to consider before creating a podcast for a classroom project. Below, you'll find a guide to thinking through what it takes to be successful in using this multimodal format. There is also a corresponding slide deck, if you prefer that.

A Thoughtful Approach

Before you take on a podcasting project (or any project where you're creating content for an audience), you want to make sure you have a good handle of the relationship between yourself as the author, the audience, the topic at hand, and the purpose for what you're doing. Some questions to get you started:

  • What experiences, backgrounds, biases, beliefs am I bringing to this project?
  • What is expected of me in my response to this project? What has to be discussed?
  • What is the best way to address this topic with my skills, purpose, and audience?
  • What format might be best for this unique communicative situation?
  • What is my purpose? Am I trying to entertain, inform, shock, persuade, educate, motivate?
  • Who am I trying to reach? What will it take to do so? What age, social class, education, past experience, cultural/subcultural experiences should I take into account as I compose this project? 
  • What is the greater historical context or current context that surrounds this topic, the audience I'm trying to reach, or why I'm doing this? 

Priorities and Managing Expectations

You'll want to think hard about what the project is asking you to do before embarking on this journey. Is it more about how you interact with and communicate the content? Or is it more about creating a highly sophisticated show piece that can be shared with a real-world audience? You'll need to manage your expectations of yourself as well as what your instructor is expecting. There is a time for perfectionism with quality and a time for making sure you're conveying the right message and interacting with course content in the appropriate way.  This will largely be up to your professor and is hopefully clear from the project guidelines, so make sure you're clear on expectations and letting those be your guide.

Exposure

Just like we read and discuss quality literature in preparation for writing assignments, you should be doing the same when it comes to creating podcasts. See what's been done before. Get a lay of the land. Find examples of podcasts in your field. Think critically about what works for you as an audience and what doesn't as you listen to the multitude of examples you can find. If you need help searching for examples, contact us.

Preparing for Success

When you're working with various multimedia elements, you'll want to think through the many logistics that are at play so that you can start your project early enough. Some questions to consider:

  • What kind of equipment or software might I need and how will I get it? Hint: ask us about our microphones or visit the circulation desk to find out what they have.
  • Will I need a quiet place to record audio? Where will I go?
  • What if I want to use audio from the news or from history? Hint: Ask us. 
  • If group work is at play, how will we define roles and share responsibilities (and files)?
  • If interviewing other people, provide plenty of time to coordinate schedules AND test equipment/strategy for recording
  • How much writing/scripting/storyboarding needs done?
  • Pro Tip: Create a Google Doc where you can throw all the links to the audio elements that you've found and want to include in your podcast, that way it's easier when it comes to cite. 

Embrace the Process

You're working with multiple layers of media — it's going to take a lot of time and energy to do it well. Here are the "steps" of the podcasting process and what those really mean: 

  1. Come up with an idea and maybe even write a proposal, abstract or goal statement.
  2. Research, explore and learn as much as you can. This is where you'll see what's out there (and what isn't!), gather artifacts and knowledge. This is where you'll revisit and refine your idea based on what you find. You might consider contacting your subject librarian. You might also consider listening to podcasts about podcasting, like "The Studentss Podcast" from NPR.
  3. Write/script/outline. This is where you learn to write for sound (which is vastly different than writing for the eye). You'll have to plan for pacing, figure out what has to be said and what can be communicated with the other layers of audio. Text written for the ear needs to be simpler since it moves at the speed of sound. Write for the way you speak naturally and lean into silence/pausing. Limit discipline-specific jargon or acronyms if you're aiming for a more informal/conversational tone.
  4. Gather and create. This is the fun part, but you might underestimate the work involved here. You could find elements from an archive that you have to travel to access. You might find artifacts that you have to ask for permission to use (copyright-protected materials). You might find that you have to create what you're envisioning because it doesn't exist yet. You might find something that totally changes the course of your story and send you back to step 1. Plan for these things and start early. Some places you can look for "found" audio: Creative Commons, FreeSound (sound effects), Bensound Royalty Free Music, Free Music Archive, and Accelerated Ideas Royalty Free Podcast Intros. Just make sure you're keeping track of each piece you use for citing later.
  5. Put it all together. This is where you learn how to use the technology necessary to create your podcast, how you stitch the tapestry of your story together, and how to make critical decisions in what to include and how to organize it. We can support you using Audacity, Garageband, or WeVideo to make your podcasts. Take into account the learning curve for each technology when you're creating a plan and a timeline for your project.

Additional Tips: 

  • Citing: For podcasting, you can include citations and sources in the form of episode notes. More about formatting. 
  • Accessibility: Best practice in making podcasts more accessible and inclusive is creating a timestamped transcript of your podcast episode. 
  • Consistent Voice: Try to record as much as you can at one time. This helps you limit the amount of files you're trying to stitch together but it also better insures a cohesive sound. Environment, mood, posture, health, air handling, mic placement all have an impact on the overall sound of your recording. So if you're recording different pieces at different times of day or on different days altogether, you'll likely be able to tell. 
  • Silence!: You might find that your original narration or an interview that you did with someone needs to be broken up, and when you separate them, the gaps in audio are really noticeable. In this case, you might find or create a recording of "silence" to run in the background of your whole piece. You'd be surprised at what a difference this can make!

It Takes a Village

Here are some institutional supports for bringing your digital storytelling hopes into reality: 

Additional, External Resources: