With the deadline of project four fast approaching, today’s class was spent listening to the drafts of peoples audio essays. This kind of peer feedback is always helpful and even if it isn’t your work being presented. It is great to listen to others to get ideas and see what they have done well, and what could be improved.

One thing that is vital for audio essays, is to get clean recordings. This means having no background noise, no hum and no unintentional sound. This clean audio can be achieved by choosing a quiet place to do your recordings, and using a quality microphone. Additionally, it is important for the person speaking to talk at an appropriate level, to speak clearly, and not talk to fast. This makes it much easier for audiences to engage with the essay and understand the information.

From listening to some examples of audio essays, one thing I noticed was that there must be gaps in the information and between the sections to allow the audience to digest the information. That way the audience won’t get lost or overwhelmed by the volume of information.

The second essay we listened to showed me that how the speaker uses their voice is very important. Some comments from the class said that if a speaker is talking very passionately about their topic, they need to build it up as opposed to launching straight in their argument. If someone starts at the beginning talking quite loud and critically, almost ranting, audiences might feel like they need to ‘step back’ and maybe unsure whether to engage with the speaker or not. Therefore it may take listeners a while to realise what the speaker is saying is correct and reasonable, which is why there needs to be ups and downs in intensity.

All these little observations will be good for my group in making our essays which we will be working on over the weekend.