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Human Geography Project Steve.Niederhauser, Thetford Academy INTERVIEWING GUIDE Before the interview • Choose a good candidate. Be sure your subject is knowledgeable about your project’s topic. • Get in touch early. Contact the subject in person or by phone and ask him or her for an interview and ask a few preliminary questions. Explain why you are conducting the interview and what you plan to do with the notes and tapes. Give your narrator time to get ready for the interview. • Buy, borrow, or rent a reliable tape recorder and learn how to use it. Bring extra batteries to the interview. • Do a little research. Be sure you at least know the basic facts about your topic before the interview. Also, try to know something about the narrator before you first interview him or her. The questions • Have a list of questions. Group the questions according to particular sub-topics and sequence them from general in nature to ones that ask for more specific information. Or make a list of topics and sub-topics you want your narrator to cover, but have a few specific questions prepared beforehand to help get the interview going. Conclude the interview with a few broad-reaching or general questions. • Avoid questions that can be answeredd with a simple “no” or “yes.” The interview • Be sure the recorder is working properly. Start by recording the narrator’s name, the date, place, your name, and the general subject of the interview. • Make a point of chatting informally with the narrator before the recorder is turned on. • Make your questions open-ended. If you say “Tell me what it was like to work in the mill” or “Tell me about the problems with the bridge” you give the narrator a chance to explore his or her memories or tell you he or she really thinks. • Avoid inviting vague or generic replies. Phrase questions in a way that elicits spontaneous reactions. Interviewees will sometimes give standard, memorized responses that sound like they’re reading from a page. • After you ask a question, let the narrator talk. Relax and listen. Don’t interrupt. Some interviewees, however, will drone on regardless of how far off the main subject they’ve gotten. In these cases, ask summarizing questions like “How do you see your town changing in 5 or 10 years?” • Take notes and ask follow-up questions. If your narrator touches on an area of interest, say “Tell me more about that” or “Can you give me an example?” Don’t be afraid to stray from your list of topics and questions. • Don’t be too timid. You can ask difficult questions if you have a good reason, just ask politely. And don’t take sides. Don’t confirm or undercut someone’s recollections or point of view. • At the end, check over your list of topics. Go back if you’ve missed anything important. • Keep the interview to a reasonable length, especially with older narrators. Between one and two hours is usually about right. After the interview • Label every tape immediately. Review them as soon as you can and make a simple index by noting the subjects on the tape every five minutes or so. You can use the counter on the tape recorder to note the location of topics or particularly wonderful answers. • Transcriptions can take a lot of time, but might be worth the investment, especially if the interview will become part of your written report. • Send a thank-you note to the narrator and include a copy of the tape. • Make sure you get a written release from the narrator, even if you only plan to use a small part of the interview in your project and especially if the tapes may end up at the historical society. Adapted from: My History Is America’s History The National Endowment For the Humanities Lights, Camera, Community Video Cabot Orton, Keith Spiegel, and Eddie Gale The Orton Family Foundation American Planning Association, 2001
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