Callista Fries is The Feather’s multimedia anchor. She hosts her weekly announcement video, FC Underground where she reports on each week’s activities. She also publishes a podcast each Friday on her channel Live from Callyfornia.

After weeks of shadowing alumna Brooke Stobbe, ’12, a four-year podcaster, I thought I was ready to go. Sitting down to start writing out my script was both exciting and scary. After finishing, I was so proud of myself, I thought my podcast was great. Then I had my mentor proof read my podcast, and she changed more then what was written in the first place.

Becoming a little discouraged. I began to think I was never going to figure this out, but I tried writing another podcast this time my mentor said it was great, she said it was almost perfect.

So a year and a half ago, I thought I was ready to record for the first time, boy was I wrong.

Starting to record my palms were sweaty, I was thirsty but felt ready. I came to the end of my podcast and I was feeling confident. My mentor said ?wow you did it all in one take,? I looked at her in shock, not aware I was able to pause while recording.

So I began to edit my podcast, I could hear my voice shake, my lack of confidence and the quiet sound of my spit in the background. I then figured out a lot of new, helpful things not only by watching my mentor but also by experience.

Here are some tips and helpful hints on how to be a better podcaster:

1. When you are podcasting, one of the most important things is to speak clearly, enunciate, end all words strong and make sure to speak with punctuation.

2. In your podcast if you say something funny or make a joke, don?t be afraid to giggle during a sentence; it’s not a bad thing!

3. It is extremely important that you remember to speak very very slow. If you speed up it will not only shorten the length of your podcast but it will also be difficult to understand you.

4. Breathing is a big part of podcasting, if you forget to breathe or cut out your breaths while editing, it will sound unnatural or rushed. So make sure while speaking you breathe as though you are in a normal conversation.

5. Making mistakes is inevitable, so when you mess up do not freak out, just start the sentence over again, not just the word, the entire sentence.

6. When you are recording, make sure you are conversational, fluctuate your voice as you usually do in a normal conversation.

7. If you are in the middle of podcasting, and you get thirsty all of a sudden or you have to go to the bathroom, do not be afraid to stop and start again, you can pause and come back later and continue.

8. Before you begin to speak, make sure you have a plan or a script as to what you wish to say, if you are unprepared you will sounds unsure and you will stumble over words.

9. In your script, try your best to not use cliches, if you do use them, make sure it is only rarely, when you use them it makes you look like you did not care to look for other words to possibly use.

10. If you podcast on student life, like I do, make sure you relate it to more people than just yourself or just your close knit group of friends. Make it relatable to people in all circumstances, it will make people more interested in listening if they can actually get something out of it.

11. When finding someone to interview, pick a person who does not have a monotone voice and speaks with diction, someone who is passionate about the topic you want to talk about.

12. Interviewing someone should come natural, you should speak as though there is no microphone and it is just a normal conversation.

These are guidelines by which I podcast, and it seems to work pretty well for me. I hope these tips help and are very useful to you in your future podcasting.

For more opinions, read the Feb. 8 article, Fifth Quarter creates sanguine atmosphere, relaxation (PODCAST).