New posts and planning your audio projects

Storyboard panel by Jay Hosler
for Office Hours.

I hope that today's discussion with Jay Hosler and Tim McCarty provided some background for thinking about story structure in your writing.  As I mentioned in class, we will not be meeting next week since a number of us will be in Columbus presenting research posters at the Statehouse.  But I have some assignments for you nonetheless:

• Add a new post to your blog that uses the three act structure we talked about today, and that Randy Olson describes in chapter 3 of his book.  As you think about this classic story-telling structure, see if your first post used it, and whether the science blogs you read utilize this structure.  Your new post should be between 300 and 500 words and once again convey something in science.
• Identify the person you will collaborate with on your audio project.  Ideally you will be working in pairs, but if needed you can work in groups of three.  Four is too many.  Email me if you need help identifying a partner/partners.
• Once you have an audio project collaborator, think about potential topics for a one-minute audio segment.  What ideas/information do you want to convey?  How will you do it?  What will be the structure of your segment?  What is the story?  Perhaps you could use our list of what biologists should know to find a general area of interest, but then you will need to focus in on specific content? Is there an interview you could line up?  A faculty member on campus, or a scientist somewhere else?  Phone interview?  Your goal for this week is to develop ideas for potential projects.  Next week we will focus on fine-tuning those ideas into something more concrete.  Your audio segment will be due March 2nd.
• As always keep on eye on your Google Reader account and this blog.  You may find some good project ideas by keeping tuned into the science blogosphere.  And keep commenting on each other's posts (and posts from blogs in the real world if you dare).