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• Know your audience! Your audience may be determined by the level of your course; some class enrollments include a broad variety of student years, majors, and motivations. Awareness of your audience will help you as you draft your content outline or script. It may determine concepts that need more attention, or help you determine the need for a separate video to clarify or examine a concept more closely. Discipline-specific vocabulary or concepts may need to be reviewed in some settings. In other cases, you may know the students and their level of awareness of the topic very well (such as a small cohort in a doctoral program) and you can tailor your script by removing repetitive or understood concepts to focus on new ones.

• Record clear audio! If your laptop does not have a good microphone, you may consider investing in a webcam, which may record clearer audio. Clear audio is one of the most import features to effectively communicate to your audience and it allows for clarity when processing closed captions. Make sure you are in a quiet area for the amount of time you need for your recording so that there are not competing sounds distracting the audience from what you're saying. Speak clearly to increase the likelihood of what you want to communicate being understood by your audience.

• Check your pace! When recording informative videos, you not only want to speak clearly but you may need to slow down your natural speaking pace to ensure your audience can listen and process information as you speak. You don't have to speak "slowly" but be aware that if you are a naturally fast talker, this may make the information you prove more difficult to follow, particularly if you are only recording your voice and there are no facial expressions or body language to offer additional context clues.

• Check your lighting! If you are only recording your voice, then lighting may not matter to you, but if you will be recording yourself, make sure you are not back-lit or low-lit where you are not clearly visible to your audience so that your actions, facial expressions, and presence are clearly communicated. Dark and grainy video may be distracting, and if the video is not needed, you may want to consider using just audio over a presentation or website. Or you may just want to record an audio file (podcast-style) lecture.

• Simplify your space! If you are recording yourself, consider recording in a space that has a simple, clean background and surrounding area. This removes potential distractions so that your audience can focus on the content of the video.

• Keep it concise! This is where your outline or script can help you stay on track while recording your video. While anecdotes or examples may be useful to help illustrate a point, avoid using too many to illustrate the same point. Ideally, each anecdote and example should offer a new insight to the information, such as comparing differences or expanding on a concept, so that the audience recognizes the value of it. Again, shorter video lengths are more easily digest by audiences, particularly when taking in and working to understand concepts.

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