 In this video, I want to talk very briefly about writing and reading a script. So I've already discussed some of the pros and cons of having a script, but if you do decide to create one, there's a few things you should keep in mind as really important to think about what language you're going to use and how you're going to formulate your script. There are some tools that can help you with that, and then, of course, then think about how to best read out a script. So remember, there are some really important differences between spoken versus written language. And people, when they start writing a script, the most natural mode is simply use the way that they're used to writing. But in fact, scripts don't sound very well, and it's hard to read if you write them in the way that you write the written sentence. And some of the important differences between spoken and written language are short sentences. None of these have long convoluted sentences with lots of embeddings and conjunctions. Using verbs rather than nouns, and then also often put things together with odd and and but rather than things like while and whereas and things like that. So let's have a look at some examples. So for example, it's much better to say, when you come, we'll show you the building as opposed to something like upon arrival, you will attend a building walk around. So you can see instead of arrival, we have when you come and then build them walk around. So we'll show you the building. So that's kind of the way we usually talk. But when you start writing, this feels much more natural to sort of make things a bit more formal. But so when you're writing a script, try to force yourself to go from this to that. Another element that I mentioned is that using and. And and often seems like it's kind of not quite right in written language. So you say, always watch the bird and it flew away. And it just kind of feels like just very simple, simplistic language, whereas saying something like, always watch the bird, which flew away seems like it's more sophisticated, more appropriate to the page. But actually, this is the way people tend to speak. And they will more often use these and conjunctions and then use separate sentences rather than try to put it altogether into one long sentence. So again, it's something you have to get used to and think about when you're writing a script. And often when you're reading it for the first time, realize, oh, I should have made it, I should have made it more like this. So you will often need to do some rewriting to get that right. Now, there's some language to avoid in particular. And some of the things to avoid are embedded clauses, long down clusters, long conditionals. And I'm not going to go into detail on these things. But just to remember, some of these things are quite difficult. So don't try to embed clauses into long sentence. Don't try to string too many nouns together. And then if you can avoid very, very long, convoluted conditionals, that will also be helpful. Now, there are some tools that don't help you with. So first, you can simply use PowerPoint notes to write notes for each slide and then import that into wrapping to use as your script. Another way to do that is to use Google Voice typing or office dictate. And instead of writing your script by hand, dictate it so that it's more natural. So you're less thinking in terms of speaking and more thinking in terms of, you're not thinking as much in terms of speaking, but more in terms of a natural delivery as opposed to writing. And the other tip is to use YouTube for transcriptions. So for example, I can create a video, a draft video. For example, I can record in PowerPoint, I can record a hero's wrapping book, and then upload it to YouTube as a private video so nobody else sees it. And then go to the subtitle section when I edit the video and download the subtitle file. And then I can simply open that in an old pad, and I have the transcription of what I was saying. And then I actually get a more natural language out of that. So I speak first, then I get a transcription, and I edit that, and then I record that with a script. As I already mentioned several times, you can certainly record yourself just with PowerPoint. You don't need to necessarily come here and record a rapid-moving video, but that's also an option. Now, the other thing to think about is how do you format your script? So when you're preparing a script, make sure you put things like pauses in there, intonation marks, some stage directions in there as well. So because when you're reading the script, often you forget to pause, or you don't realize which bits go together, because you cannot look as far ahead. And people often tend not to pause enough. So all these things, I think, are important to add to the formatting of your script. And then finally, some tips on reading a script. So first, you need to practice. Very few people can actually just get a bit of text and read it naturally. So you need to do it a few times, get used to which bits go together, and so on. When you're talking, instead of talking to the script and reading out the script as you would when you're reading a book, talk through the camera. So take some, make the effort of projecting your voice, go a bit faster than you would normally do at reading, and also make pauses that are a bit longer than seems comfortable. So often pause a little bit more than you normally would. And those are things that some people do quite naturally. It's often amazing. Newsreaders can make it sound like they're speaking to directly when they're reading a text. But most people, in my experience, and I think who's myself, find it a little more difficult and challenging to read a script and make it sound like you're actually speaking to people and telling them something interesting. So those are just some of the general tips. It's the script part of the preparing a video is definitely a long, interval process. And we're going to practice a little bit in the workshop, but it's not something that I think we can expect to do fully and to do full justice. Because there's really a lot to know about how to get that, how to best prepare a script, and then read it out for a video. Then finally, in the next video and last video, we're going to have a look at what are the things that we can use RapidMook for, which is, of course, a big important part of what we'll be learning in the workshop.