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.
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