5 Tips for Preparing Audio Scripts and Podcasts

5 Tips for Preparing Audio Scripts and Podcasts

The increasing reach and upward trend of podcasts has more than doubled since 2008! You don’t need to be a professional audio engineer to successfully record compelling narration. If you are looking to update the content of a website, improve an existing blog, or simply learn a new skill this summer, sign up for our Blogging and Podcasting for Beginners course! Below, we’ve provided 5 tips to help you format, organize, and record audio scripts for all kinds of recordings whether at home, work, school, or in a professional studio.

1. Post a podcast summary highlighting main points.

Posting a summary will help your audiences follow your podcasts and provide content for future reference. This is especially helpful for people following recorded interviews, audiences who don’t have time to listen to the full podcast, viewers searching for a specific subject, as well as teachers who want to incorporate new media in the classroom without being reductive to students who prefer to read.

2. Indicate where you need to make pauses.

Leaving room for pauses during your recordings will make it easier to add graphics, animations, and transitions during your editing phase. Indicate where to pause in your script by adding a bracket or an ellipses ( . . . ).

3. Avoid turning pages. 

This goes for both printed and online scripts. Whether flipping through pieces of paper or scrolling through an online script, the time associated with turning pages can ruin sound bites. In addition, the sound of paper will almost always get picked up by your mic. Restrict sentences and paragraphs to a single page to prevent audio errors and getting flustered midway.

4. Provide phonetic spelling for unique words.

This is especially helpful if you are writing a script for a narrator other than yourself and if you are using medical and technical terms. Be sure to also indicate specific words you want the narrator to emphasize. In addition, highlight important phrases that need to evoke emotion. Listeners are less likely to listen to a monotoned voice, so you want to be as specific as possible in the areas that need voice inflection.

5. Label each clip. 

Labeling each clip will save you a lot of time when editing your podcast! Also, when you make mistakes throughout your audio but want to continue recording, you can use the old trick of clapping into the mic so that you can listen for cues as you revise.

If you are interested in learning more about blogging and podcasting in software such as WordPress, sign up for our 6-week online Blogging and Podcasting for Beginners course! If you have already taken the course and would like to share a few pointers, feel free to comment below!