Week Three, where the grad student almost gets overwhelmed by research and reading

     Hello from Overwhelmlandia! Grab a book and start reading. Your visa into our wonderful country clearly states that you must read one book from our list, discern what the author's argument and questions are, make notes of the items that you think would be useful, and write it all down on two to three pieces of paper. Upon completion of this, then and only then, may you leave and return from whence you came. No exceptions.

     Alright then, now that the silliness has left my system, we can get down to brass tacks. What have I been up to in the last week? Well I will illuminate you dear follower. First I have successfully finished and have performed the obligatory secondary source analysis for all but three of the books on the reading list. I make the secondary source sound like a monumental task when really it is not. It is the most important document/writing assignment a grad student will ever do next to successfully defending their thesis. Let me say this again in case you were not paying attention. It is one of THE most important documents that a grad student will write in their career. The reason why I am lightly joshing about them is that they are pretty much all I have been doing in the last week. I have written about seven of them as well as the one I need to do for my Colonial History class. So I see them in my sleep or whenever I close my eyes. It has gotten to the point where I am doing them after reading the recipes in this month's Southern Living. "Okay so the author's main argument is that this coleslaw is better than others because it does not use mayonnaise and the questions they are asking is how this dish compliments barbecue and what type of plate to serve it on." I know I am getting ridiculous but I really am starting to think in these terms. 

     What I have done secondly is to put all of the segment ideas that I want to do on an Excel spreadsheet with the corresponding names for interviews, contact information, and literature I need for the research. What I am going to do next is go through the spreadsheet and start marking which ones are quote "do-able" or not. The criteria is how hard is it going to be to get the interview, time, gas, and availability of literature for the actual research. That I plan on doing sometime this weekend. Then I am going to start contacting the interviewees.

     Finally what I also have been doing is highlighting some things in the secondary resource analysis papers that I think I could apply to the research and segments. The reason for this is that at the end of the semester I must turn in a paper stating just that. So getting my "ducks in a row" early will not hurt. I am also planning on going back to the library and finding some more literature and then doing the same exact thing that I have been doing this week with the secondary resources. It is a vicious, never-ending cycle. 

     One more thing that I would like to add is some of the concepts that I have gleaned from the reading this week. I definitely have a better idea on scripting and how to keep the segment "engaging" for the audience. My problem has been that I tend to overstate the obvious and I elucidate too much on key points when scripting for the podcasts, so that technique is going out the door on these segments. I want to give an instructive narrative but I also do not want to lose the audience's attention. I also want to give the FHS a segment that they can use on the show. That brings me to another point and that is to know the audience. Who listens to the Florida Frontiers program? Is it commuters in their car (like me) or people sitting at home? Would they know historical terms or would explaining them lose their ability to pay attention and start turning the dial? So I have to keep that in mind as I go along as well as keeping the core elements of what makes the topics I have chosen interesting. 

     Well dear follower I must go. I have many more books to read, some for the internship and one for class, and secondary sources to develop. Until next week.

Week Two, in which the grad student goes to the library and reads up on the subject of radio documentary

     So like the title says I went to the UCF library to check out the books which I included in my annotated bibliography that I sent to Dr. Beiler. Among the titles I am now looking at are Writing for Television, Radio, and New Media by Robert L. Hilliard, The Radio Documentary Handbook by Jurgen Hesse, Radio Utopia by Matthew C. Ehrlich, and Radio Production by Robert McLeish. Now am I going to sit down and read all of these straight through? I do read exceedingly fast (my retention rate  does not seem to keep up though) and I believe I can get through this first set quickly. However there is this thing called a life outside academia which I have heard about in hushed tones around Colburn Hall. This may or may not get in the way of quickly going through the first round of literature. I also have a class this summer which seems to want some of my attention as well. So between the internship, class, and life vying for my attention all I can say is that I am glad I can juggle three things at the same time. I did not say that I could juggle well.

This is exactly how it feels this summer

     The other process that I am currently engaged with for the internship is plotting down the several ideas I have for broadcast pieces. What I mean by plotting down is physically putting down the ideas on paper, then giving it a working title, then going through what research I need to be doing for the piece. I also add a list of people I want to interview, who I know I can get an interview with, and a back up person for an interview. This process I learned from the podcast preparation with Dr. Cassanello and it seems to work very well in the pre-planning stages for this sort of thing. For example I want to do a segment on the Citrus Tower. So I write "Citrus Tower" on a piece of paper. Then underneath that I write "Citrus Tower as Artifact" for my working title. Then underneath that I write "Greg Holman" (the current owner) for my desired interview. Then I start putting together a bibliography of works that would pertain to the subject like Tim Hollis' book Dixie before Disney: 100 Years of Roadside Fun. Then I repeat the process for the other three pieces. Now what this does is help organize my thoughts and focuses my mind on the task at hand. It also gives me a framework of what I need to do and allows me to see what exactly needs to be done and then I can place it in a time-frame to work in. In other words I can come up with a loose schedule to work in and with. So what this all means is that for these first few weeks I will be engaged with preparations for the actual pieces.

     As of this writing I have finished one of the aforementioned books whilst finishing the first part of a transcription project for my summer class, vacuumed the house, fed the cats, and began reading next week's assignment for the summer class. Now earlier I did mention that I said I could juggle, but not juggle well. I am juggling pretty good now but I know juggling foam balls is much different than juggling concrete bricks, which I have a feeling will be coming soon. So while today I am pretty confident that I am able to handle the workload this summer it might change in a few weeks (or days). I have been told that organization should be one of the tools in a historians toolbox and I would like to add that I could not agree more.

Week One, in which our intrepid grad student receives his instructions...

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step."- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching.

     I really like Lao Tzu's quote and I have always recited it to myself before I enter into a new endeavor. I think placing it at the beginning of this blog seems appropriate considering that I am about to enter into yet another new chapter of my educational journey. This summer I have the distinct honor and pleasure of working for the Florida Frontiers radio program produced by the Florida Historical Society under the direction of Dr. Ben Brotemarkle. My role is to produce four, five minute segments that will be aired on the program. What this means is that I will be doing all the research, interviews, and editing. I cannot wait to start.
     One of the requirements of the internship is that I keep a blog, explaining what it is that I am doing and learning, week to week. So here I go, taking that first step, and letting the general public know what it is that I am up to. This first week I met with Dr. Rosalind Beiler and Ben Dibiase on Tuesday to get us all on the same page as to what the instructional, educational, and internship-inal requirements were. What I took away from the meeting was that I have to first budget my time, and let's face it as a graduate student if I have not learned this quintessential skill yet I might as well go back to being an electrician. The second thing I took away was that there is going to be an inordinate amount of reading which will translate into taking many, many, many steps during my journey. It is from this reading that I will then be able to write the fifteen, or depending upon my ambition, twenty page paper on the application of what I have learned and what was applied from the reading. The last thing I took away from the Tuesday meeting was that this internship is going to be exciting. I, a lowly graduate student, get to produce four segments for a history program that gets aired on several radio stations around Florida. Oh, I also set up a meeting with Dr. Brotemarkle on Friday.
     In that meeting I got to throw some ideas around for my segments with the Bens, Mr. Dibiase and Dr. Brotemarkle. So far I came up with segments on the eighty-eight year football rivalry between St. Cloud High and Osceola High, the Citrus Tower, Ronnie's Restaurant, and the Orange Line Railroad. I also pitched some secondary ideas in case the others did not work out. Dr. Ben and Mr. Ben liked all of them so I at least know that I am headed in the right direction on all this. I also obtained my "roving reporter/historian" equipment; microphone, recorder, etc. 
     So now I know what is required of me in this assignment. I shall strive to do my best in performing these duties and also to keep you, the dear reader, abreast of what exactly is going on during these weeks culminating in the final day which will occur on August 2nd. I hope you all share in my sense of excitement and awe in the coming weeks as I create these radio segments and also as I read, read, read. There is never enough time in the day to read everything necessary but that is what late nights and coffee are for.