Gary’s Q&A

Listener question & Gary’s response · Transcript passage

Nafeesah Scott asks, “I’m still making my way through the podcasts, and I don’t know if these have been answered, but two questions I had were: 1. What’s your process when getting information for the podcast? Where are some go-to sources you started from? Do you add citations in your notes? 2. Why did you choose the major you did in college? Do you think your studies have benefited you in what you did/do now?”

There is no process per se. How I get information will differ from episode to episode. Ideas for episodes can come from anywhere. It might come from a book I read long ago, a movie I watched, an article I read, or something I visited on my travels.

Once I get an idea for an episode I usually have a rough idea of what the story is and what I’m going to say.

Much of the research I do at that point is filling in facts and details. Given that I have to produce a show almost every day, and because the episodes are relatively short, most of the research has to be done online.

I do not publish citations or footnotes, because I’m not trying to produce an academic paper. I’m just trying to tell a story in an audio format. Doing full citations would significantly add to the time required to produce each episode.

In college, I received a triple major in mathematics, economics, and political science. However, most of my time was actually spent on academic debate, which required me to research and understand a wide variety of topics.

After selling a business, I went back to school in my 30s and pursued majors in geology and geophysics.

Given what I do now, I’d say my majors gave me a very broad foundation to do a show like this. I certainly never planned to do this so many years ago, but it has worked out well.