December 8th, 2005
What's the best style for rendering written articles for spoken word?
Joi Ito’s Web: Podcast style issue: Thomas Crampton, writing at Joi’s blog, asks….
Been testing out how to most interestingly Podcast a written article.
Problem: How do you best express quotes in spoken form?
The translation of text to spoken word was a big problem at ON24, where we converted dozens of stories written by partners each day. The problem is in the variety of styles people use to express quotation and attribution in writing, so there is no standard way of doing it without rewriting "for air" to some extent. For example, you cannot break quotes comfortably when injecting "quote…unquote" in a sentence, because you end up with two or more renditions of the punctuation in a single sentence.
Saying "quote…unquote" or some variation works well in some circumstances, but it interrupts the listener’s flow of thought and, I think, is best used to highlight important points, but not all quotes. Varying the way you introduce a quote, using "[subject] said…." or "[subject] told me" makes it more comfortable to the ear, more like hearing a story told than hearing an article read.
The suggestion of putting the original up is certainly practical and convenient. It’s what I do with my podcast, but I always divert from my script as I speak so the text and the audio differ.
So, you have to mix up your suggestions and add a conversational-storytelling tone to the exposition of the text, as well.
Technorati Tags: journalism, podcasting
Mitch Ratcliffe is a veteran journalist, media executive and entrepreneur. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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