The Grey Lit Café
Episodes
74 episodes
Spineless Wonders: the power of print unbound
Spineless Wonders is the splendid title for a splendid exhibition at the University of London's Senate House Library - an exhibition of unbound material in myriad formats, spanning five hundred years of printing.This episode reviews the ...
Effective design features on posters (GM1 comms)
If you're studying on the University of Cambridge's Multidisciplinary Design course, this episode is for you.The episode focuses on the visual aspects of advice. It seeks to provide pragmatic recommendations that will make a ...
Physical aspects of poster presentations (GM1 comms)
If you're studying on the University of Cambridge's Multidisciplinary Design course, this episode is for you.The episode focuses on the (quite radical) implications of the context of poster displayspectators' be...
Tactics: group presentations and Q&A (Comms for GM1)
If you're a student on the University of Cambridge's Multidisciplinary Design course (GM1), this episode is for you.Indeed, it focuses on considerations specific to the course, based on observations from previous cohorts' presentations.<...
Effective communication using slides (Comms for GM1)
If you're a student on the University of Cambridge's Multidisciplinary Design course (GM1), this episode is for you.The episode stems from consideration of the pitfalls presenters fall into concerning use of slides.Simply by avoid...
What makes a good presentation (Comms for GM1)
If you're a student on the University of Cambridge's Multidisciplinary Design course (GM1), this episode has been created for you.The episode stems from consideration of the big pitfalls presenters often fall into and provides ...
How to add value to your poster (Comms for GM1)
If you’re a student on the Multidisciplinary Design course (GM1), this episode has been created for you.Understandably, students tasked with preparing a poster presentation tend to assume that it’s all about the poster itself.&...
Podcasting on grey literature: what have we done? whither will we go?
"Three years have passed; five summers, with the length/ Of five long winters!" (as William Wordsworth wrote). This episode was recorded to mark the third anniversary of The Grey Lit Café's first episode ('
Dissertations as an interface between industry and academia, with Joseph Gibbons
A key role of grey literature is to provide an interface between industry and academic research. In this episode, we continue our focus on innovation in grey literature by interviewing Dr Joseph Gibbons, Principal Technical Advisor at Natural P...
Podcasting as a pedagogical tool, with James Austin
Anthony Haynes writes: A persistent theme on The Grey Lit Café is the role of grey literature genres in higher education. We've published episodes on abstracts, dissertations, essays, online lectures, posters, and slide decks....
Slide decks: their developmental use, with James Austin
Anthony Haynes writes: A persistent theme on The Grey Lit Café is the role of grey literature genres in higher education. We've published episodes on abstracts, dissertations, essays, online lectures, and posters. In this episo...
The comms joke
If you work in comms, you're used to clients (internal or external) announcing, "We need a poster!"You have to laugh.Further listeningWe hope you found this episode rewarding. If so, you might find the following o...
Essays revisited: How effective are essays as a genre of student writing?
Anthony Haynes writes: In our previous episode, How effective are essays as an academic genre?, we examined essays specifically as a tool for assessment in academic contexts. In this episode we return to the genre of essays bu...
How effective are essays as an academic genre? The case of examinations
Anthony Haynes writes: On The Grey Lit Café we frequently focus on specific genres.* In this episode, we focus on the genre of essays. In particular, we discuss the use of essays in examinations. Engy Moussa (University of...
Grey literature aggregation: Toby Green on Policy Commons
Policy Commons is on a mission to make grey literature - especially in the form of reports, more discoverable and accessible. Its content platform, Coherent Digital, hosts over 12 million documents - and the number is growing rapidly.Wh...
Quality infrastructure and productivity: on protocols
Anthony Haynes is the author and publisher of an extensive series of Writing Protocols. In this episode, Engy Moussa interviews Anthony on how to produce protocols in order to get things done - and get them done well.In the process, the...
The art of the newsletter: lessons from the reader's perspective
Anthony Haynes writes: In this, our latest genre-based, episode, Engy Moussa and I explore newsletters - primarily from the perspective of the reader. We range widely, exploring questions concerning quantity, spatial design, ...
Key insights on research communications, with Rob Johnson
Anthony Haynes writes: It was a treat for this episode to be able to interview Rob Johnson, founder and Managing Director of Research Consulting Ltd. RC is a long-established organisation dedicated to improving the effectiveness and im...
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Before Spotify: the remarkable story of chautauquas
One question we explore on this podcast is that of antecedents: what came before podcasts? This episode tells the wonderfully rich history of chautauquas - an enterprising means of bringing entertainment and informal education to small-...
How to define grey literature? The implication of letters
Anthony Haynes writes: This episode is the third of our series on the relationship between letters and grey literature. In the first, we made the case, using the case of the correspondence of communications theorist I.A. ...
Where do podcasts come from? Letters as an antecedent
Anthony Haynes writes: Cultural forms and communicative genres tend not to emerge from a vacuum: they tend to emerge from existing forms. In the case of podcasts, obvious candidates include lectures, essays, sermons, and radio interv...
But what about letters? Their scholarly use as grey literature
Grey literature covers a multitude of genres - for example, reports, white papers, preprints, and newsletters. But what about letters?Letters are not usually listed amongst grey literature forms, but this episode puts the case for why l...
Overwriting: how and why to avoid it
Overwriting - producing a draft that exceeds your word (or page) limit - is an extremely common problem amongst writers in science, research, and professional areas. In this episode, Engy Moussa interviews Anthony Haynes. They examine w...
The case of case studies, with Dr Farrah Arif
Anthony Haynes writes: On The Grey Lit Café we frequently explore grey literature by genre. Here we extend our coverage to the genre of case studies.To guide us, we interview
Why we need to talk about silver literature
Anthony Haynes writes: I've long fought for a greater appreciation of forms of serious communication, other than just books and journal papers - forms such as reports, white papers, presentations, and blogs.But it's difficult b...