Week 5: Foley & Podcast Technical Inductions

This week we focus on writing a script for an audio paper. Here are my four field recording samples.

Procedure of audio paper for the submission:

1.The title of the production should be the subject, statement or question

2.Most applications to conferences etc should contain a 200 word written abstract. The abstract usually has to carry the title, name of author(s), affiliation(s) and email address. It should contain the premise of your audio paper and set out your intentions, ie what line of research you are pursuing and what you aim to uncover or understand.

3. Bibliography:A written bibliography has to be attached. Harvard Style.

The production of the audio paper, is, like the regular conference paper, carried by a strong and clear scientific question or argument introduced by voice over. The question or argument can be unfolded through a narrator’s voice, through various voices through e.g. interviews. Besides this, the overall argument in the audio paper also has to be unfolded, discussed or framed through “pure” sounds such as sound effects, music, found sounds, sound souvenirs, soundscape recordings or compositions, all composed into a sort of sound scenography. It is important, that the sounds do not only illustrate and frame the speak in the audio paper, but also carries information that supports or questions the narrated content in itself. Minor and major editorial work will have to be done before submitting the final production.

Engage your listeners

As you tell each story, use vivid details that help listeners imagine the scenario in their minds, as though they were watching a video recording of the events you’re describing. For example, 

Use details that appeal to the senses, such as sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch

Describe not only what happens but where it happens and who’s involved

Use dialogue to capture important bits of conversations

Hint at something important early on but holding off on revealing it until later

Create a plot for your stories, with a narrative arc that builds tension and leads towards conflict and then resolution

Support Your Claims

Take care to only make claims that you can support. For example, you can claim that college students use social media to share their thoughts and experiences, but you will need to provide an example that illustrates this and you might want to find an article or study that shows how college students use social media to cite on this matter.

Katherine Heenan, Fall 2015 

Why write an abstract?

Abstracts are important for both selection and indexing purposes.

Selection: Abstracts allow readers who may be interested in the paper to quickly decide whether it is relevant to their purposes and whether they need to read the whole paper.

Indexing: Most academic journal databases accessed through the library enable you to search abstracts. This allows for quick retrieval by users. Abstracts must incorporate the key terms that a potential researcher would use to search.

What to include in an abstract

The format of your abstract will depend on the discipline in which you are working. However, all abstracts generally cover the following five sections:

1. Reason for writing:

What is the importance of the research? Why would a reader be interested in the larger work?

2. Problem:

What problem does this work attempt to solve? What is the scope of the project? What is the main argument, thesis or claim?

3. Methodology:

An abstract of a scientific work may include specific models or approaches used in the larger study. Other abstracts may describe the types of evidence used in the research.

4. Results:

An abstract of a scientific work may include specific data that indicates the results of the project. Other abstracts may discuss the findings in a more general way.

5. Implications:

How does this work add to the body of knowledge on the topic? Are there any practical or theoretical applications from your findings or implications for future research?’

Types of abstracts

Abstracts can be informative and descriptive.

I am listening to Seismograh’s Listening and not listening to voices, talking about “We live in sound, it is all around us. We are implicated in the social relationships and ideologies that we hear reflected back to us. Sound art offers the chance to critique the world that we hear, and to produce new and different possibilities. Are sound artists taking up the challenge of offering new ways of knowing or changing the world, and does this need new ways of listening and understanding? Can sound art act as a tool for radical change by ‘de-conditioning’ our listening and helping us cross linguistic, cultural, geographic, ethnic, gendered, specied and sexual prejudicial borders? This audio paper will consider how new listenings might lead to a richer, more inclusive sound art, that can embrace and celebrate difference.” I really enjoyed the way how she panned and mixed her voice with the natural environment. She talked about her mother’s hearing problem and inserted a track of her mother talking on the telephone. I loved her experiment of sound archives, it was academical but still performative.