Overview

Pat Frank, at your school’s Admissions Office, is considering setting up a weekly podcast that covers campus life: classes, campus events, social life, sporting events, and other topics that might give prospective students a better idea about what it’s like to be a student at your school. He’s inviting your class to create podcasts and submit them for possible inclusion on the Admissions Office’s website. As Pat points out when he meets with your class, the primary purpose of these podcasts would be marketing the school and sometimes specific departments and programs — in a very broad, soft-sell kind of way. You shouldn’t falsify information or be unrealistic about what it’s like to be a student here. But you should provide highlights of campus life: What’s interesting, challenging, and fun about being a student here?

Pat reminds your class that the audience for the podcast is much larger than just prospective students. Parents of prospective students, for example, may listen in to the podcasts. And it’s possible other people will listen in — ranging from students, faculty, staff, and administrators at your school, to alumni and people in the local community. So you need to avoid portraying any of those people (or any of the things they care about) in too harsh a light.

Pat provides you with some information (below) specifying some of the technical issues involved (length of podcast, file format), tips about equipment to use, and pointers to some web resources on podcasting.

Your primary goal is to produce a five-minute podcast (in MP3 format) that covers one or more aspects of campus life for an audience of potential students. And although rare individuals can speak fluidly in polished, broadcast-ready prose, most novices will benefit from a script and some practice beforehand. So you’ll need to create a script and run through it a few times to iron out any kinks before you start recording. A sample script is shown below.

Finally, when you complete the project, Pat wants a brief (one- to two-page) memo in which you describe your strategies in designing the podcast, including your rationale for specific choices in terms of production and content. As you write the memo, refer back to your PACT chart so that you can connect your text decisions back to aspects of your context, audience, and purpose.

• A partial script for a podcast