MWA 2 SLOs

For the interview I conducted, there was a lot of reviewing and editing to complete the final product. I first had to focus on my email that I sent out to my potential candidates. We practiced in class quite a bit. The memo assignment that we completed helped with what sort of tone I should keep in my email which is to be positive and straight to the point. We also practiced our e-signatures and what sort of information we should include so that our recipients could contact us easily. I also depended on my peers and family to analyze my email to ensure it was professional. After trial and error I was able to settle on a final draft of my email. After securing an interview with Watermelon Mountain Ranch I then had to focus on my interview questions. I already had a general set of questions that I wanted to ask but I went through my list  and revised them to better align with the type of shelter I was interviewing for. After conducting and recording my interview, the last step was to edit the audio to fit into my podcast. My final decision was to focus on the volunteering, fostering, adopting, and donating portion of my interview. After spending a lot of time reviewing and editing for this project, I learned that it is very important to keep in mind who your audience is. Knowing this can help you change your writing or presenting style to better conform to what your audience likes/wants.

I put a lot of my energy towards planning for this project. This was my first time doing anything like this. The annotated bibliography was a lifesaver for me. It allowed me to plan out what my topic is and what I should focus on. In this case, I wanted to focus on animal shelters since that is a topic that everyone is familiar with and has some sort of experience with. To help plan for what questions I would ask during my interview, I did quite a bit of research on animal shelters including euthanization, stress on animals, and overcrowding. After researching these topics, I knew I wanted to ask questions about how the community can help out. This plan also ties into my MWA 3 because I want to focus on how the community (our class) can make a difference and help with animal welfare. The guest speaker we had in our class from Seed2Need also helped me plan out my interview. My questions should not make my interviewee feel like they are in a police station, but rather just some questions that they can answer that would otherwise not be so obvious to the public. Overall, our in-class assignments and our guest speaker help me to prepare and plan out my interview. All of the aspects that I included help increase the quality of my interview and I really enjoyed the process.

Content development was the part I was struggling the most with. I wanted to ask my interviewee, Angel, so many questions but we only had 40 minutes for an interview. I had to restrain the amount of questions I wanted to ask and focus on the topics I wanted my peers to hear. I struggled even more with content development when it came time for my podcast. Out of the 40 minute interview that I had, I had to choose a 12 minute portion that I wanted to include. I asked a lot of questions regarding the animals that Watermelon Mountain Ranch attains, cares for, and eventually adopts/fosters. I figured that since the Animal Shelter crisis is one that many people are familiar with, I decided to focus on how my peers can help with the crisis management. I used the 12 minutes of my podcast to focus on adoption, fostering, volunteering, and adoption. Angel, the manager at Watermelon Mountain Ranch, went into great detail on the process of community involvement. I developed my podcast into a step-by-step guide on how to get involved with the ranch and how to change the lives for so many animals. Knowing that just even the slightest amount of help, whether it's walking a dog or donating food, can improve animal welfare will entice more people to help these distressed animals. The presentation about Seed2Need from our guest speaker also helped me immensely with my content development. Mr. Butler first started out by addressing why there is a need for his organization, and then he focused on ways that the community can help. Our class asked several questions about the volunteering process so I felt that it would be important for my peers to hear about the options they have to help improve Animal Welfare and rights. In conclusion, I learned that it is important to not only discuss what the problems are surrounding your topic, but to also discuss the ways that the average person can help.