Play an introductory music clip.

Greet the audience, introduce yourself, and state the number or date of the podcast.

Briefly explain the theme or topic of the podcast.

Mention any guests or special announcements.

Play new songs.

Provide any necessary additional explanation of the theme or topic.

Play more new songs.

Sum up the theme or topic.

Say goodbye, and "tease" the topic of the next podcast.

Launch a sound-recording program, such as Audacity, as shown here. You find a list of some of the more popular software choices in the sidebar at the end of this step list. I chose Audacity for this chapter because it has enough features to empower beginners to produce decent-sounding podcasts, it works on both Macintosh and Windows computers, and it's free. (You can download it at http://audacity.sourceforge.net and use it to follow along with this task. If your copy of Audacity is a different version, you might see minor screen differences.)

Don't be overwhelmed by the mass of buttons, bars, menus, icons, and level meters that make up this program. In the upper-left area of the workspace, under the menu bar, are some familiar buttons: left to right, you've got Skip to Start, Play, Record, Pause, Stop, and Fast Skip to End. If your microphone is ready to record, just click the red Record button (the one with the big red circle) and say something into the microphone. (Sing a song, recite a poem, or act like you're creating your first radio show!)

As you record, you see the sound represented as a spectrum across an audio track. Notice the two volume meters in the top-right corner of the workspace: The one on the left (the little speaker icon) shows the playback volume; the one on the right (the microphone icon) shows the volume of the microphone you're using to record. Under the volume controls, the drop-down menu enables you to pick from a list of sources, including microphone, line-in, aux(iliary), CD player, or stereo mix. Click the Stop button to stop recording, or click the Pause button to pause. (Be aware that Audacity will automatically rearrange the position of the various buttons and control panels, depending on how you size the window. So if your screen shows the buttons in one row, two rows or whatever, click and drag on the handle in the lower right corner of the screen to make your window match the screenshots here.)

When you're done recording, click the Stop button. Then click the Play button to play back what you recorded. Use the volume controls to adjust the playback sound. Remember: Make sure you click the Stop button and not just the Pause button. With the recording set to Pause, you won't be able to play it back or to save it.

To save the recording, choose File

When you're ready to publish your recording to the Web, use Audacity's export features. To export an Audacity file, choose File and then choose from any of the export options: WAV, MP3, or Ogg Vorbis. If you plan to publish your recording on the Web, your best option is MP3. Choose File

If your sound-recording program (such as Audacity, shown here) isn't open already, launch it and then create a recording or open an existing one.

To listen to the entire recording, click the Play button at the top of the workspace. You should hear your voice (or whatever you just recorded) playing back. Notice that every time you hear noise in the recording, you see a corresponding spike on the graph in the Audio track.

To listen to a portion of the recording, click anywhere on the recording in the audio track area, and you will see a vertical dotted line appear across that portion of the recording. Click the Play button; the recording will start from the location of your marker on the track.

You can rearrange or delete sections of sound to make a better or shorter recording. Each of the following steps begins with selecting part of the sound file. Look in the small toolbox at the top of the workspace. (The toolbox has six tools, including Zoom and Time Shift.) Click the Selection Tool (which looks like an I-beam) to make it active before the next step.

To delete a noise (such as a sneeze), click and drag to select that section, and then press the Delete key. Or you can choose Edit

To cut or copy a section of sound, click and drag to select the section in the audio track, and then choose Edit

To move the cut or copied sound to another part of the recording, click to place the cursor where you want to add the sound in the audio track, and then choose Edit

To hear the results of your editing, click to place the cursor where you want to begin playback, and then click the Play button.

Audacity includes many effects to improve or alter your sound recordings. To apply an effect, you must first select the part of the recording you want to apply it to. Click and drag to select a portion of the recording, or choose Edit

One of the more commonly used options on the Effect menu is Normalize. When you normalize a recording, you balance out the highs and lows, to make the overall volume more consistent. To apply the Normalize effect, select the part of the recording you want to apply it to and then choose Effect

In the Normalize dialog box, mark both check boxes for default normalization. Click Preview to test how the effect will alter the sound of your recording. If you're happy with the result, click OK to apply the effect.

Experiment with the effects, and remember that you can apply them to any selected part or all of the recording. Click Play to test your work, and if you don't like the results of an effect, just choose Edit

When you're done, choose File