How to Write a Research Paper Podcast
Podcasts have become incredibly popular and have almost replaced radio. According to statistics, the audience of podcasts in the USA alone is over 104 million people. You’d be surprised, but podcast topics can range from the banal (“How Getcodinghelp.com do my coding homework in one hour”) to complex scientific discussions. If you’ve written a research paper and think it deserves to be heard by everyone, you can dare to record a podcast. Let’s figure out how to do it.
What are podcasts?
Podcasts can be entertaining, news, narrative, educational, and investigative.
People listen to podcasts in public transportation or while driving, walking the dog, or doing the dishes.
The important thing is that you can listen to these materials at any time. That’s the difference from radio: you can choose an interesting show and play it whenever you want.
Podcasts can be used both for business and personal purposes. If you record a podcast for yourself, it will help you:
- Help you improve your speech and communication skills.
- Help you expand your network and connect with people you like.
- It will help you build a community of people with whom you share the same views and interests.
- It can be the beginning of creating your own content regularly.
What to start with?
First, define what you’re doing the podcast for. A goal will help keep you motivated and understand if you’re achieving what you set out to do if you’re accomplishing the desired effect. Also, figure out how to promote the podcast.
For example, you decide to do a podcast about your research paper. You are interested in your research topic, consider yourself an expert, and want to share your experience with others. What might be the purpose of the podcast?
- Develop a personal brand. Let’s say you want to be recognized in the research and scientific community and be invited to conferences as a speaker. A podcast will help convey your expertise to others and show that you have public speaking skills.
- Find like-minded people. Your research topic can attract other industry experts and lead to discussions and even collaborative work.
- Pump up your communication skills. You know you’re good as a scholar. However, you lack the communication and public speaking skills to be a successful public speaker. Podcasts can help you do just that.
Even if you want to do a podcast because it’s something new and interesting to you, that’s a good goal too.
Choose or make up a format
Often aspiring podcasters are limited to the idea of doing interviews. Interviewing is great, but it’s hardly the right thing to start your research project.
Some podcasts solve a specialized problem. It all depends on the topic of your research here. If your work solves a particular issue, you can create a podcast about that.
There are narrative podcast series that tell a story and have a plot.
There are podcasts in the form of long monologues or dialogues.
To start, we’d suggest you try a regular informative format where you talk about your research work in narrative form.
Choose one or more formats and try to run them. Don’t be afraid to try running multiple podcasts, and it will help you figure out what works best for you and the audience. If something doesn’t work, just drop it.
How to launch a podcast quickly?
- In a week, you can come up with the concept and describe the format. In another week, you record a couple of test episodes, edit them and release.
- Collect the feedback from the audience. Understand what you need to improve in the script and what can attract the audience.
- Finalize the format, release a few more episodes, get positive feedback and the first regular listeners.
Equipment for recording a podcast
You can start a podcast with a minimal set of equipment. A microphone, voice recorder, or smartphone is enough to record your voice. But depending on the number of podcast heroes, specifics of recording, and sound quality requirements, you may need additional equipment.
If you record a few people, you’d better have a device that can connect several microphones at once: a sound card or a recorder.
Where and how to record a podcast
A room makes 80% of the recording quality. Usually, you record at home or in special studios, as it is possible to create favorable conditions. Of course, you can also record outdoors, giving your podcast an additional informational layer and atmosphere. But if you realize that extra sounds will distract from the content, you’d better choose a closed and quiet space.
A checklist to make a good recording
- Turn off all sound notifications on your phone and laptop;
- Ask your family to keep it quiet;
- Ask the dogs and cats to sit in the next room;
- Close the windows, turn off the refrigerator if you are recording in the kitchen;
- Take off bracelets, long earrings, gather your hair in a ponytail — remove everything that can rustle and squeak on the recording;
- Try to refrain from chewing during the recording.