The End

So that was...... not quite sure. Frustrating I guess? The recording was easy. Did it in one take, and just kept pausing to get a drink of water or to catch my breath. The editing took awhile since I had to edit out the clicks from hitting pause as well as where I stumbled and paused too long. Then there was the whole music issue. Couldn't find any free music and Creative Commons did nothing for me. So what was I to do to get music into my podcast? Made my own that's what. I played two quick piano pieces, recorded them and one, two, three musics in the podcast. When I was done I literally relaxed in relief that it was over. Other then that I'm happy with how it went. Though repeatedly listening to my voice over and over got annoying. If I could change anything, it'd be not downloading that damn virus. First time I tried to download Audacity, I got a virus with it. Manged to get most of it off but some of it is still there. Though I know how to avoid it and not trigger anything so I should be good. For any students just starting this course I'd say watch what you download, and don't wait to the last minute to do things cause there is a lot to do. Hope everyone can get their podcast's in on time, and I hope you all have a great summer. So long.

The War of the Three Henrys

Hello everyone, Amanda here posting the podcast for the War of the Three Henrys like the title says. This was a conflict between three men all named Henry during the Spanish Armada, that had to do with religion and getting allies on the throne of France. Not sure if it'll upload correctly since I suck at technology. Also my power keeps flickering out so I really hope this works. Anyway here's the audio.

Recording Software

            Hello, back for another blog post. Talking about recording software this week. I guess to start off with, I have chosen to use Audacity for my recording, which seems to be the popular choice among others in the class. I went to download the program but I’m guessing I choose a different one or something because next thing I know I’ve got all these extra programs and add-on’s and I ended up having to uninstall it. Score one for technical failure and incompetence. So I texted my friend, she told me where to go and bam! Finally got it downloaded properly. Now my first reaction to the screen of the program was, this looks ridiculously hard. All the buttons everywhere, and I had no idea what to do. The answer? Youtube! I found many tutorials and learned that the 6 basic buttons (Pause, play, stop, skip to beginning, skip to end, and record) do exactly what they are named as. I learned the difference between the pause and stop button which I’m sure will come in handy when I need to take a drink of water during the podcast. Now I’m not sure how well things will go when I try to input music, might be easier to just get my brother to play a little guitar riff that I can record using the software and mash it all together. We will have to see if I can manage it. I recorded myself and it sounded alright, though my voice sounds way different then what it does when I talk. Thank you science for explaining how sound bounces and returns to your ears. Other then my weird sounding self everything turned out alright. Overall I think it’ll be easier than I thought it was going to be. I’m kinda excited to record this podcast now. Not sure if this is the last blog post or not, guess we will find out next week. Wishing everyone luck on their recordings, I’m signing off.

Structure and Bad Art

            Hello again everyone. Talking about structure this week. For my podcast, it is pretty similar to the show I’m emulating. Below you will see the picture of the structure of my podcast.

            Ya I know, the worst drawing ever. I never claimed to be an artist, and this was done in Paint, because that was the only way I thought to get it on. Not to mention I just spent 20 minutes figuring out how to get this picture into the blog post. Technology, as I’ve said, is not my thing. Anyway, you’ll see that I start out with an intro before going into the trough with a whole bunch of facts. Then we come up for air and a little break, before going back down and get more facts. Again we come up for a break, and then go back down for the last of the facts. We then surface once again with a conclusion and that is it. Pretty simple. As it is a history show I’m emulating, it stands to reason that it’s basically a bunch of facts told in an interesting way.

            So that’s it for this week. Hopefully you won’t be seeing my horrible drawing skills again. Until next week, so long!

Searching Made Easy

            Hello Amanda here with this week’s blog post. We’ve talked about a lot of different research strategies and today I’ll talk about Boolean Logic. Boolean Logic is a way of searching for specific articles or such by using key words in different contexts. It’s supposed to help narrow down and specify your searches. Using the word ‘and’ between two words will give you articles that have both those words in the article. Using the word ‘or’ between words in your search will give articles that have either of those words. And using the word ‘not’ between your keywords will give you articles with one word but will not contain the other. This is a good way of filtering out any articles that may have the keyword you’re looking for but in a different context. I have used a Boolean Search both successfully and unsuccessfully depending on what it is I am searching for. If I`m searching for something specific and with odd or typically unused words I tend to get the results I need. But if I’m looking for something more common, I will still get unrelated articles no matter how many times I filter words out using ‘not.’ I usually use Boolean searches, and will likely keep using them since I understand how they work. Well that’s all for this week’s blog post. Actually had a longer one this time. I will be back next week!

Beginning Research

            Amanda here again with the beginnings of my research. So far I have begun reading and taking notes on the Spanish Armada, and about King Henry the Third of France. I have mainly been combing through the book The Armada by Garrett Mattingly. The book is filled with information, and it is difficult to narrow down which parts are useful or not. Other scholarly and popular sources will be about the Armada, and the War of the Three Henry’s. Background information on the three Henry’s and how the conflict arose will be the main focus. Another short post this week. Until next time I am busy with research and information searching.

After the Pitch

            Hey all, Amanda here with this week’s blog post. The pitch was really nerve wracking, but it didn’t really help to narrow down my topic since I had it narrowed down a lot already. I’m sure if I hadn’t though it would have helped. It might work as pre-writing for other assignments, but the public speaking would make me too nervous to do it. My topic is on the War of the Three Henry’s that occurred during the Spanish Armada, which if any of you had read my blogs before this week you would know and thus making this statement seemed redundant. Short blog post this week, but I shall be back next week.

Tips to Pitch

Amanda here with three sites that give pitching tips. Though honestly I just Googled “how to pitch an idea.” Hopefully they will give good tips that will be handy in pitching my idea this week.

1. From http://scottberkun.com/essays/38-how-to-pitch-an-idea/ we see that you should break your pitch down to follow the three levels of depth. The 5 second, 30 second, and 5 minute pitches. If you can successfully deliver a 5 second pitch, the 30 second and 5 minutes should just flow from there.

2. From http://www.graphics.com/article-old/how-pitch-idea we see that those who pitch are powerless and need something from those they pitch to. The key is to make them say yes. You should be prepared for your pitch and ready when they ask questions about the idea. If you can’t answer them, they are less likely to accept your proposal.

3. From http://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2012/07/17/how-to-pitch-anything-in-15-seconds/ we see that if you can’t grab the persons attention in 15 seconds, they aren’t going to listen anymore. To best pitch an idea you should first have a headline or hook sentence to grab the attention of the audience. Then state a few key points, then back up those points with evidence.

So for the podcast pitches, it is crucial to have a few things. You need to have a clear topic, and at the very least a simple background of the topic. You should be prepared with key points of your planned podcast, and can sum everything up in one sentence. Overall, you need to keep everyone listening and engaged, or your proposal will fall flat. And then what can you expect for your actual podcast? Till next time! And good luck on your pitches!

Works Cited:

Scott Berkun. 2007. #38 – How to pitch an idea. [online] Available at: http://scottberkun.com/essays/38-how-to-pitch-an-idea/ [Accessed: 25 Jan 2014].

Graphics.com. 2014. How to Pitch an Idea. [online] Available at: http://www.graphics.com/article-old/how-pitch-idea [Accessed: 25 Jan 2014].

Gallo, C. 2012. How to Pitch Anything in 15 Seconds [video]. [online] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2012/07/17/how-to-pitch-anything-in-15-seconds/ [Accessed: 25 Jan 2014].

Finalizing a Topic

Hello, Amanda here again. So I have chosen to do a podcast under the category, “Stuff You Missed in History Class.” Why? Well I am interested in history, and am actually taking a minor in it. I like exploring past events to see how they unfolded, and just how things came to be. From what I’ve heard, the podcasts from this topic, while going into historical detail, also bring a personal aspect into the show. Be it a brief comment about the name of the event or what the teller has heard on the subject, they include themselves into the topic. I hope to be able to do the same. For my actually podcast topic I’ve been thinking about doing it on King Henry the Third of France. I had started with the broad topic of the Spanish Armada, narrowed that down to France’s participation, then to the War of the Three Henry’s, which lead me to the King. From what I’ve seen on the web and with my own experience in choosing topics, the topic you pick should be interesting to you. If you pick a bland topic you won’t enjoy it and won’t care about it as much. You may leave it to the last minute just because it’s a boring thing to work on. You should also pick something you know a bit about I think. If you pick a brand new topic that you first have to learn and understand before you can do the podcast, then the podcast may not be correct, or you may not fully understand the topic. As I did, you should try to pick something in general and slowly narrow it down to your specific topic. This way you will have an idea of the whole picture when you eventually find your topic, and will have an easier time understanding it.

Introducing Amanda Black

Hi I’m Amanda and I’m a third year student at York. I guess the main thing I want to learn about research is how to do it more efficiently and to get results quicker and with more accuracy. It’s a pain to search for things on the internet using a search engine and end up with links to useless or incorrect information. There are many different subjects I’m interested in studying, such as history, astronomy, and literature. I have never used any type of management software, nor do I even know what Zotero or Refworks even is. Any technology skills I possess are limited to using the internet and Word. Technology just doesn’t agree with me. I have a ton of research experience, since both high school and university call for such. Lately I have been doing history research as I am taking a minor in it. When I don’t have to research anything for school I like to look up research for things that may help with my writing. As mentioned, technology hates me. For the podcast I have absolutely no idea what to do as of now. I have zero experience and frankly am pretty nervous to do so. Luckily though, I have a friend who knows computers and has taken design and audio courses at college and if I get stuck with all the tech stuff, she said she would lend a hand. This is good because with my luck I’d try to edit it, and end up deleting the whole thing. I can’t say it enough, technology hates me. For the topic of the podcast I don’t have any concrete idea yet, but I’m thinking about doing one under the category of either “stuff you missed in history class,” “99% invisible,” or “spark.” Though that last one is a long shot. If I have to start talking about technology I will go on a rant about how it’s ruining society, taking jobs, and destroying human interaction. So really I’m leaning towards the history one. Now I just have to finalize a topic to talk about for 15 minutes, without it turning into a giant rant. This will be difficult.