Publishing Your Research

IntroductionThinking about publicationPublishing by podcastingGetting some feedbackTaking time to reflectTalk About ItYour Turn

Tech Tool in this presentation• Audacity

Introduction

All the hard work you have done has been leading to this goal: getting your research to your intended audience.

You’re almost there! Publishing is the final step in the research process.

Thinking about publication

Publication can take many forms:

• research paper

• multimedia presentation

• Web page

• speech

• podcast

• feature article for the school newspaper

When you publish, you want your work to be as polished as it possibly can be. If you want your audience to trust your research, it has to look or sound professional.

Make sure that

Thinking about publication

there are no grammar or spelling errors

the publication form is appropriate for your intended audience

your work follows the correct format for the form in which you are publishing

Publishing by podcasting

Podcasts can be created using some simple software and a microphone.

Your finished product can be as simple or as high-tech as you want to make it.

Some students enjoy publishing their work as a podcast. Podcasts are digital sound files that you create and play through a computer or MP3 player.

Audacity is free software that you can download from sourceforge.net. You can use Audacity to record your podcast.

Tech Tool: Audacity

The only other hardware you need besides a computer is a digital microphone, which you can buy inexpensively at any electronics store.

Tech Tool: Audacity

• To download the software, choose your operating system from the list.

• You’ll also need to download the LAME MP3 encoder file, which allows you to convert your finished file to MP3 format.

Tech Tool: Audacity

• Once you have downloaded the Audacity software, use the toolbar buttons to record, pause, stop, and play back your recording.

• Just hit the Record button and start speaking into your microphone when you are ready to begin.

Tech Tool: Audacity

It might be easier to record short sections of audio at a time. After you record each one, you can use the Time Shift tool to rearrange your clips or remove any silence between them.

Audacity makes it easy to edit your sound file. Just select a section you don’t need and click the scissors to cut out that section.

Tech Tool: Audacity

When you have created all of your tracks, you are ready to export your podcast.

Click the File menu and choose Export As MP3. Now you’ve created a podcast!

Publishing with podcasting

Here is a podcast created by students at Warren G. Harding Middle School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

If you want to hear more examples of what students are doing with podcasting, go to your favorite search engine and type “student podcasting.”

You’ll find links to schools using podcasting for all kinds of things.

Click on the audio button to start

Getting some feedback

Once you have published your research project, you’ll want to get some feedback from your audience.

Feedback will tell you what your audience thinks of your work and give you information that you can use in future research projects.

Getting some feedback

How can you get feedback from your audience?

If your audience is: You can:your teacher •read the teacher’s comments

on your work•ask questions about specific parts of your project

your classmates •create a short survey to find out what they thought of your workon the Internet •include a space where people can post comments

Getting some feedback

When you seek feedback, ask specific questions so your audience will know how to respond, such as:

• What is the most important thing you learned from my work?

• What is one thing I could have done differently to help you learn more or understand my research better?

• What questions do you still have about this topic?

• Was this an effective form for presenting this information?

Taking time to reflect

Before you take on another research project, reflect on what you learned from this one.

The technology What Tech Tool that you learned about in these lessons is the most useful? Why?

The research process What part was the most challenging? What part was the most interesting?

The writing How have you grown as a writer from creating this project?

Talk About It

Discuss the following questions with your classmates.

1. Why is it important to publish your research?

2. If you could choose any form for publishing your work, what would you select? Why?

3. Why should you seek feedback from the audience of your work?

Your Turn

1. Who is the audience for your podcast?

2. What are two things you will need to consider when shifting from multimedia presentation to podcast?

3. What is one way you could ask for feedback on your work?

You gave a multimedia presentation to your classmates about how hybrid cars help the environment. Your classmates loved your work, and they think you should create a podcast for your school’s Web page.

Answer the following questions about changing the form of your publication.

Your Turn

1. The audience for my podcast is:

2. I will need to consider:

3. I could ask for feedback by:

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The End