Caitlin Hofmeister: Oh, hello. I was making notes. Hello. I'm Caitlin Hofmeister. Thank you so much for coming to Learn-a-thon. Happy Learn-a-thon. And welcome to the Crash Course writing workshop. 

This Crash Course writing workshop is brought to you by executive — acting executive producer and editorial director Meghan Modafferi and Crash Course script editor Annie Fillenworth. 

I'm Caitlin Hofmeister. I'm the former executive producer of SciShow and now freelance producer and writer. I also have the pleasure this coming semester of teaching post-production and science writing at the University of Idaho. 

And behind the scenes today is the amazing mastermind behind all of Learn-a-thon, Laser Webber. Thank you, Laser, for running everything. 

Um, in just a minute, I'm going to hand the reins of this conversation over to Meghan and Annie. But before I do, I want to give you a sense of what to expect. 

So Meghan and Annie built this workshop based on the frequent questions they get around how a crash course is researched, written, and edited. And so, they're going to walk us through each of those different steps involved in that.

And if you have questions throughout, please add them in the chat and I will ask Meghan and Annie on the side, or Laser will throw them up so they can ask — answer those questions in real time as we go through, or potentially we'll save them for the end if that's a better time for some of them. 

Um, and now all three of us on this chat are on this call are very used to making things for the internet. Um, so of course that means we love love YouTube comments. Um, so in presentations like this it can feel kind of weird because we can't see you.

So we would love you to be really active in the chat. If you are excited about something and if we could see you and we could see you leaning in, wanting to know more about something, we would probably like shift how we're presenting the information.

So if you're having a lean-in moment and you want Meghan or Annie to slow down and talk more about something, let us know in the chat. If you're confused, like if we could be able to see your furrowed brow and be like, "Is that making sense?" 

Let's explain it another way, go ahead and put like a question mark or say, "Could you repeat that in the chat?" Um, both Laser and I will be watching the chat closely throughout this. 

Um, and then, if you're just excited about something, share that. We would love it. Um, and so, as I hand this over to Meghan and Annie now, to introduce themselves, please if you could introduce yourself in the chat, hopefully you're doing that already a bit. Um, share where you're watching from. Share if you've watched any other Learn-a-thon content this month. 

Um, and without further ado, let me introduce you to Meghan and Annie from the Crash Course team. 

Meghan Modafferi: Awesome. Thank you so much, Caitlin. Who are these people? I'll start. 

My name is Meghan Modafferi. I've been at Crash Course for about 3.5 years. And up here on this slide are a few photos that represent moments on my journey before I came to Crash Course. 

So, um, going right to left, because that's an ordinary direction to go in, at the right you'll see a picture of me at Georgetown. That's where I got my masters degree. I studied English with a focus on the environmental humanities. 

Basically, what i focused on was how we tell stories that help us make sense of climate change and how climate change sort of complicates the way we used to tell stories and the way we should tell stories about the future. 

Uh, and when I was in grad school, I was able to make a podcast instead of a thesis. And then later, I got to interview with Hank and talk about my podcast as part of getting this job. So that's a story I always love to tell when I give when I talk to folks who are like trying to move into a different part of their career. I say, just like do your best to make the kind of things that you want to be making. And that was a really really big moment for me, where it panned out and I was so pleased. 

Um, so before that, I was at National Geographic, and I was working on educational programs for teachers who were interested in including more environmental and cultural literacy in all different types of subjects they taught.

And the leftmost photo represents a moment right at the beginning, very early in my career when I was working as a public radio producer for a little show in North Carolina. It was a daily live talk show. And a big part of my job was to research the topic of conversation before the show happened live, and to brief the host about what everything was going to be about. 

And in this particular conversation, we were talking about a new exhibit at our local science museum that was focused in spittlebugs. This bug that you see here in the picture, they like surround themselves with this spit-like casing. And I was telling the host all about the different scientific reasons behind this.

And there was like really this moment I always remember where my boss interrupted me, and she goes, "Wow, you love science." And I was like, "What? I don't. No, I don't." I had never thought about myself as a person who loved science. You know, from a young age, I felt like I was sort of an English social studies type person. And it was a moment, but she was like, "No, listen to the enthusiasm in your voice. You love science." And it was just a moment that really opened my eyes and made me think about how much further science can resonate when it's focused on stories and the excitement of discovery.

And that was a huge influential moment that I think about all the time now, doing what we do here at Crash Course. And now I'll let Annie tell some stories about her journey. 

Annie Fillenworth: Yeah. So hi, I'm Annie Fillenworth. I've been at Complexly for 3 years. Three amazing years. Really made so many great things in that time.

Um, and yeah, my background is in creative writing. Um, I studied creative writing in undergrad at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. I'm based in Philly now. 

Yes, that is City Hall the Eagles won the Super Bowl. Go birds. 

Um, and then I earned my masters at the New School in New York City. Those are some of our illustrious alums for the children and young adult program, like Jenny Han and Danielle Clayton. Had a really amazing experience there. 

And, I graduated into the pandemic, which is, you know, no one's ideal scenario. But i spent that time also like making things that i wanted to see. So I started a podcast with my friend Jill where we talked about movies and TV shows for kids from the 2000s. 

I published my own work and I got my first big girl job as an editor at a small puzzle books company in the suburban Philadelphia area. 

And then I started working at Crash Course. So, I got to sort of use a lot of my different skills and niche interests in this job and I've worked on a bunch of shows under the illustrious guidance of Meghan. 

Caitlin: Awesome. Thank you both. 

Um, so, yeah. I'm going to ask as question from the chat first, but then I would love it if you both could tell us how a Crash Course script gets made.

And for all of you watching at home, thank you for telling me where you're from. Massachusetts girly. Go birds. 

Um, how many people do you think the average Crash Course script goes through before production? We tend to talk about steps and there's pre-production, production, when it's filmed, and post-production.

So, but within each of those steps, there's a lot going on. So if you have any guesses about how many people you think the average Crash Course script touches before it goes to be filmed with the host, go ahead and make your guesses in the chat, and Megan and Annie will teach us that along the way. 

Annie: Awesome. So, I'm going to talk about a little bit about what makes a Crash Course script. 

Um, you know, what exactly is the special sauce of a Crash Course script? And, um, the first thing is that it needs to be accurate.

Anytime you're making educational materials or tools, that's the bottom line is that we have to be as accurate as possible.

So, the Crash Course scripts go through lots of people to make sure that our scripts are as accurate as possible. We use primary sources and peer-reviewed research. We have fact checkers, experts in the field. And we also share our sources for each of the videos in the description to make sure we're as transparent as possible. 

So thats like the main thing, but then also you might know that like we have a Crash Course-y tone, and test comes from trying to be clear, engaging, and inclusive.

So we try to make our videos as accessible as possible and not use too much jargon, you know, define terms when we have them, but make sure it's simple language that feels everyday and conversational and that is engaging in the way a conversation with a friend would be.

We like to learn alongside the viewer rather than simply teach. And our videos also answer the "so what?" So, we talk about a lot in editorial spaces, which is we're learning something, but why does it matter? Why should the viewer care that we're learning this information? And that really guides and propels both the series and each individual script. 

And we also build around narrative. Storytelling is really essential to Crash Course and it helps us remember the things we learn and put them into context with our daily lives. 

So, we'll talk much more about narrative in a second, but um, our next quality is that all our scripts are entirely original. We do not use AI in any of our creative work.

And we make sure everything is crystal clear, not plagiarised. Any script you hear recited by the host has been made by humans which we really pride ourselves in.

And our scripts also treat our audience with honesty, nuance, and care. We want to really imagine that our audience are the complex people that they are and try to showcase stories, and also like hypothetical scenarios, that feel like they represent a wide variety of people. 

And so how does this all start? Once we have a series greenlit, the first step is to sort of envision what the series might look like.

And so that starts with a brainstormed episode list. We often enlist the help of a subject matter expert who can help us figure out what do we want all the episodes to be about? How do we want to convey the information? What are some possible hooks and stories that we could use to express that information?

And so this takes a bit of iteration trying to figure out, you know, how many episodes makes the most sense, what do we want to talk about in each one and sort of a lot of brainstorming happens at this stage.