Top Tips for Producing Better eLearning Audio

Most corporate eLearning courses, and even adult continuing-educationeLearning, involve an audio track, mostly as voiceover for video and also foranimated characters. As a result, many eLearning professionals find themselves writingaudio scripts as part of their work.

However, there’s a lack of formal training for instructionaldesigners about how to write an audio script that keeps the audience’sattention and enhances learning. In this article, we will provide 10 tips forwriting better eLearning audio scripts.

Writing for voiceover

Writing for voiceover is different from writing text that alearner will read; it’s writing for the ear, not the eye. But when you learn towrite for the ear, you become a better writer, even when you’re writingmaterial for reading on a screen.

Tip 1: Second person

In English, this means directing the script at the learnerand using the word “you.” You might also sometimes use a directive, where the“you” is implied. This is like a command: “Do this!” Writing in the secondperson means that you have to know who the target audience is and what theywill do differently as a result of the course. Audio scripts are more memorablewhen you tell participants what they need to do and why. Listen to these twoaudio segments that demonstrate the difference between second person and thirdperson.

Tip 2: Directions

eLearning audio is meant to support and enhance the visualsand is rarely the main event (unless you’re doing a podcast). I can’t tell youthe number of times that we’ve reviewed eLearning courses and it’s obvious thatthe scriptwriter didn’t know what would be on the screen when the script isplaying because the script doesn’t support the visuals. In order to write agood audio script, you have to know the elements on the screen, where they arepositioned, their labels, and what the learner is supposed to do with them. Ifyou’re writing a script for a particular authoring tool (for example Captivate,Articulate, or Lectora), go to the tool’s website, view sample interactions,and write the script to explain how your selected interaction works. The scriptneeds to match the screen, otherwise it causes cognitive dissonance for thelearner and they focus more on trying to figure out what to do than what youare trying to teach them.

Tip 3: Conditional logic

A conditional logic statement tells a learner to do somethingwhen or if certain conditions are met. “When” and “if” are the key words. Studiesshow that if you state the condition after the action, a large percentage ofthe participants will do the action withoutlistening to the condition. People live in a busy world and often try totake shortcuts. With conditional logic statements, the “if” and the “when” arethe most important part of the teaching, so this part of the statement shouldcome first, before the action statement. A common instance of this is that yourscreen directions should be, “When you’ve completed the exercise, click theNext button.” If you write, “Click the Next button when you’ve completed theexercise,” at least some participants will click Next before they listen to therest of the sentence. Listen to these audio segments and note your reactions tothe action statements when they come before or after the condition.

Tip 4: Active voice

Active voice specifies what or who is doing the action. Usingactive voice is all about clarity. You need to tell learners whether they aresupposed to do the action or whether someone else is supposed to do the action.The “who” is just as important as the “what.” Read these two examples andnotice that in the passive example, who does the action is unclear.

Active: Productengineers test products during development

Passive: Productsare tested during development

When using the passive voice, a product engineer might takethis course and would not know that this task is her job. Or a manufacturingline worker might listen to this passive sentence and think that testing is hisjob.

Also keep in mind that narrators should be active and notpassive. Passive voice can sound dull and scholarly, but writing the samesentence in active voice will make it more interesting and easier on the ear.

Tip 5: Short sentences

Run-on sentences are difficult to read when they are inprint. They are even more difficult to comprehend while listening to them. Whensentences are too long, participants can easily get confused and stop paying attention.When writing audio scripts, shorter sentences are generally better than longerones. If you have a compound sentence, break it into two sentences instead ofkeeping it as one. A compound sentence has two independent clauses joined by acoordinating word, such as “and” or “but.”

Tip 6: Characters

Make your characters memorable. A memorable character can befundamental to propel interest in a story. What makes a character memorable?Think about it. What characters do you remember from movies or TV? Why do youremember them? Was it their quirky qualities? Was it how they talked? Characterscan make points that can truly be made no other way in eLearning.

Here’s an example of a character who proved memorable tolearners: Santa Fe Community College created a how-to program about the installationof home insulation. Most learners had only a GED or high school diploma andweren’t used to learning online. This was a flipped course with an online component,then a classroom practicum. Getting the learners to do the online component wasdifficult. The writers invented a character named Carlito. Carlito didn’t payattention to his training and consequently he made frequent errors on the job. Thekey message was “don’t be a Carlito,” and it was memorable because of the humorand short duration of the “episodes.” To view an example, click the link below.

Tip 7: Storyline

There’s very little difference between storytelling thousandsof years ago by ancient cultures and an eLearning story told today. Ancientcultures used stories so that their descendants would remember the lessons oftheir culture and history. The same is true today. Telling a relevant story isone of the most memorable learning methods. Stories should have these threeparts:

• A beginning that introduces the characters andthe plot
• A middle that includes some conflict orcontroversy
• An ending that resolves the problem

Tip 8: Voiceover artists

Many (too many) eLearning developers are using voices thatjust don’t have the emotional impact to tell the story. That’s worse thanboring. You can have the greatest script in the universe, but if it doesn’thave emotional impact, it will fall flat on learner’s ears. Many voiceover artistsare more in love with their own voices than they are with “selling” the scriptthey’re reading. Good voiceover is a godsend. Bad voiceover is worse thanhaving no voice at all. If you’re going to use voiceover talent, find someonewho can and will give some emotion to the script. The voice doesn’t need to bedeep and totally professional sounding; it just needs to sound real.

Tip 9: Recording equipment

Recording good audio requires a small investment (about$300); buy a decent digital recorder and a microphone. Recorders like Zoom orTascam come with the added benefit of having built-in condenser microphonesthat sound pretty good. You will still need an external microphone, though.NEVER use your computer “microphone” to record. The sound recorded by thesemicrophones is noticeably inferior. It’s always easy to make a good recordingsound bad with distortion, echo, etc., but it’s impossible to make a poor recordinginto a good recording. Start with the best quality you can.

Tip 10: Sound effects

Since we almost never (almost) hear a single sound inisolation, sound effects (SFX) and ambient sounds are extremely important. Ourenvironment surrounds us with sounds. Many are subtle, like the sound of air flowingthrough HVAC ducts, traffic rumbling outside, or rain on a roof. If you watch Mad Men (or most modern shows), youshould close your eyes and listen to the soundtrack. It’s very complex, withlayers of sound, some louder, some softer, but layers and layers of sound thatimitate the environment the actors are acting in. As training developers anddesigners, we should try to emulate this as much as we can.

Want more? How about a class?

To learn more about how to write and produce anaudio script that is engaging and memorable, sign up for our eLearning GuildAcademy course on Scriptwriting and Audio Production for eLearning starting in September.