Speedy Spoken Word

The spoken word.  Talk shows, podcasts, audio reports.  Do you bother, or are you happy to stick with reading?  After all, you can read a transcript of a speech more quickly than listening to it.  So what’s the point?

For one thing, we learn through more than our eyes.  Ears aren’t just for TV, music and hearing your own voice.

But we don’t like hanging around.  Listening to the spoken word can seem unbearably slow at times.  I try to get round that by listening at high speed.  When I do, it saves time AND helps me concentrate better.  It’s a win/win situation for my ears and my mind.

Say you want to listen to one of the many useful podcasts out there.  A transcript would likely allow someone to read through in about 10 minutes.  But you take information in differently when reading. By listening, you have a different relationship with the material.  It’s wise to vary your information intake.  You may even find that you’re more inclined to learn through audio, rather than text on a page.

A better way to improve the process is to speed up the audio.  The easiest way to increase the speed without installing extra software on a Windows PC is through Windows Media Player.  The Media Player has a helpful enhancement called “Play Speed Settings“.  A slider allows you to speed up and slow down the audio that’s playing.

Go through the following menu option: View / Enhancements / Play Speed Settings

When you select this, you’ll see a new menu box appear at the bottom of the Media Player window, with the slide bar.

An option to “Snap slider to common speeds” will restrict you to playing audio at particular points (such as 1.4x and 2.0x).  I tend not to have the box ticked, so I can use the slider however I want to.  I generally crank the slider up anywhere around 1.4-1.7 times the speed.

While the playback speeds up, the pitch is remains the same, so faster audio doesn’t result in listening to chipmunks.

A 30 minute podcast, at 1.4-1.7x speed, will last around 17-22 minutes.  Not a bad time saving. Even better if it manages to improve comprehension…

At these speeds, I retain more detail.  I no longer notice long gaps and pauses in talking.  My mind is less likely to wander off into other thoughts.  My focus stays given the more urgent pace.  It doesn’t take a moment for you to forget you’re listening to quicker voices.  In fact, slow the playback down again and the audio sounds uncomfortably slow!

I suggest you start listening at a slightly faster pace and gradually increase it as you go along.  I rarely go beyond 1.7x speed, but some people increase it to more than two times the regular speed.  There will come a point when you compromise intake of information, so be careful how fast you go.

You can change the speed via the keyboard too, if you wish:

  • Speed up sound: Ctrl-Shift-G
  • Return to original speed: Ctrl-Shift-N

At the right speed, audio can be a grand thing.  Happy listening!

Bold and Strong, Not Right or Wrong

Blogging is dead…no it’s not.  Generation Y exists…no it doesn’t.  Students want to use Twitter…no they don’t.

Look around and it’s likely you’ll see opposing views being touted on almost every imaginable topic.  Statistics can prove almost anything you argue to be correct in one way or another.  You can base an opinion around any story if it fits what you believe.

photo by sakocreative

photo by sakocreative

Rather than search for a right answer and a wrong answer, you may do better to make a bold argument that you can back up strongly.  It’s not about proving something right, it’s about reaching a reasonably thought out opinion/conclusion with a clear thought process.

You don’t need to be arrogant and there’s no reason to suggest your way is the only way.  That’s not what being bold is about.  A bold answer is clear, confident, and not afraid to face up to different ways of thinking.

It’s the strength of your overview and your understanding around a debate that will help you stand out in a crowd where everyone has the (different) right answer.

Answers don’t cosily fit into right and wrong categories.  So how do you best contend with this in your work?

photo by FilmNut

photo by FilmNut

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Also, don’t you think BOLD is one of those words that doesn’t look like a word, the more you look at it?

26 Sharp Essay Tips

Essays.  You can’t get away from them.  And even if you’re up for the challenge, that doesn’t make the writing process less stressful.

Whatever happens in a single essay, don’t be distracted or downhearted.  I remember handing in an essay that I was proud of, yet it barely scraped a pass.  I was gutted.  In the same semester, I couldn’t get my head round a particular essay and handed in what I thought was mediocre work…but my tutor didn’t see it that way and gave me an amazing grade.

No wonder the essay experience is a stressful one!

While I can’t take away that stress, I do have 26 tips below to reduce some of the uncertainty.  They’ll point you in the right direction when it comes to making the grade.  It’s not exhaustive, but when it comes to essays, nothing is!  If you have any killer tips that you can’t live without, let us know.  We like advice.  Advice is good!

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EduLinks – 10 More Goodies

10 more resources for you to indulge in.  Let’s go!

1. Economist – A world of hits

We’re spoilt for choice when it comes to films, music, books, and so on.  Entertainment is easy to come by.  But it seems we still pick up on what’s popular and lap it up even more.  Just as it seemed the blockbuster was a thing of the past, runaway successes are becoming even more popular.  At the same time, less popular things are suffering:

“A show that reaches 10m Americans today is worth a lot more than a show that reached 10m at the beginning of this decade. Simon Cowell, the star judge on ‘American Idol’, reportedly renewed his contract earlier this year for more than $100m over three seasons. He is probably worth it.”

2. Independent – Time to wave goodbye to old-fashioned lecture notes

How’s this for a way of getting good, quick, solid feedback to your work?

3. Wired – Do Speedy Math in Your Head

Calculators aren’t hard to come by now. Just whip out your mobile phone and there’s a calculator function for you.  Sorted.  But if you’re stuck for that, or want to impress someone with your mathematical abilities (or need to learn a few techniques for an exam that doesn’t allow a calculator…) you can get some helpful tips here.

4. PickTheBrain – 8 Reasons We Don’t Do Things We Should and How To Break the Mould

Is the easy road really that easy?  A challenging path can take you much further and it could be easier than you imagine.

5. From PsyBlog – The Chameleon Effect

“In some senses, when two people are really getting along, their feet-waggling and face-touching in perfect harmony, it’s like they’ve hypnotised each other.”

6. Scott Young – The 10 Really Obvious Ways to Be More Productive

Advice doesn’t need to be complicated.  The clearer points are just as important.  I try to follow much of the advice given in Scott’s post, but it’s way too late for me to follow the first productivity tip.  I’m fine with that; I wouldn’t have it any other way…

7. TwiTip – 8 Characters to Make Your Tweets Sparkle

Want to know how to type out characters like • and ♥ and ♫?  This article over at TwiTip shows you how.  Then again, there’s always Tweet Smarter if you want an online interface to Tweet special characters.

8. MakeUseOf.com – Some Cool Keyboard Tricks That Few People Know About

More keyboard productivity goodness.  Some Windows tips and some for Firefox.  Well worth learning (or bookmarking!).

9. Martin Hall – Teaching and Learning Revisited

The Vice-Chancellor of Salford publishes various responses he’s had on matters such as:

  • Is a student a customer?
  • How should great teaching be recognised?
  • What makes a good university?
  • What (and who) are universities for?

10. The American Scholar – The Decline of the English Department

A lengthy article on the changing state of undergraduate education in the US.  A massive drop in those studying humanities and a huge increase in those studying business.  Guess what? Among others things, money plays a big part in the changes.  As the cost of education increases, study becomes more about future career prospects than the pursuit of learning.  And while scientists are bringing in money, humanists are consuming money.

An excerpt:

“Meanwhile, undergraduates have become aware of this turmoil surrounding them in classrooms, hallways, and coffee lounges. They see what is happening to students only a few years older than themselves—the graduate students they encounter as teaching assistants, freshman instructors, or ‘acting assistant professors.’ These older students reveal to them a desolate scene of high career hopes soon withered, much study, little money, and heavy indebtedness. In English, the average number of years spent earning a doctoral degree is almost 11. After passing that milestone, only half of new Ph.D.’s find teaching jobs, the number of new positions having declined over the last year by more than 20 percent; many of those jobs are part-time or come with no possibility of tenure. News like that, moving through student networks, can be matched against, at least until recently, the reputed earning power of recent graduates of business schools, law schools, and medical schools. The comparison is akin to what young people growing up in Rust Belt cities are forced to see: the work isn’t here anymore; our technology is obsolete.”