The art of the interview

Part One – The agenda

• Determine the purpose or goal of the interview.
• Develop a brief statement that tells why this interview is being conducted.
• Specifically identify how this information will be used.
• Make a list of the information required.
• Draft questions that, when answered, will provide the necessary information to satisfy your goal. 
• Make the questions flow. 

Part Two – Questions and questioning techniques

• Open questions – questions of feeling, perspective, prejudice or stereotypes "How would you?" Make the demand about something. 
• Closed questions – yes/no tunnel sequence often needs more open and probing questions to round out the interview. 
• Probing questions – Follow-up question on vague, superficial or inaccurate information.

Part Three - push the probe

Elaboration – “What happened next?” “Could you go into that more?” “How did you feel about that?”

Clarification – “What do you mean by the word BLAH?” “Could you provide examples of what you mean by BLAH?”

Repetition – When the interview didn’t hear or is trying to evade the question. Repeat the question exactly as originally stated.

Confrontations – Calls attention to inconsistencies, misinterpretations or contradictions. These are best asked at the end of the interview after ideas are established from open and closed questions.

Mirror statements – Reflective or summary statements that indicate if the interviewee is being understood. “In other words, you are saying" . . .” Let me see if I am understanding you . . .”

Neutral phrases – Demonstrates attention, indicates interest and encouragement to keep people talking. “Oh” “I see” “Go on” “Wow” “And then?”

Silence – A powerful probe that gives both the interviewee and the interviewer time to think. Don’t rush through as this may be the only opportunity to talk with this person. Silence distinguishes the novice from the skilled interviewer.

Some experts give tips and strategies ESPN 

Here is a video of Sawtasky

How to start an interview 

Turn on your recording device NOW

Have them say and spell their name

Have them say their title

Listen, actively

Your source is a teacher

If they say something you don’t understand, ask them a follow-up or ask them to explain it in a different way

Even if you are recording, keep a pen and paper handy to write a note to yourself about something you might want to ask later.

Quotes, Quotes, Quotes

As the novelist Elmore Leonard said, “When people talk, readers listen.” In interviews, the writer listens for the telling remark that illuminates the person or the situation. Leonard says he lets his characters do the work of advancing his story by talking. He gets out of the way.

“Readers want to hear them, not me.”

Listen to the singer Lorrie Morgan talk about her problems: 

After her husband, the singer Keith Whitley, died of alcohol poisoning, Morgan was only offered slow, mournful ballads by her songwriters, she said in an interview with The Tennessean of Nashville.

“I mean, it was all kinds of dying songs,” she said. But then she fell in love with Clint Black's bus driver, and she decided to change her tunes.

“I said, 'I'm not going to do that. I'm not basing my career on a tragedy.' I live the tragedy every day without it being in my music.” Her life, she said, has turned around, thanks to her new love. “He's a wonderful, wonderful guy. This guy is very special, and I'm into him real bad.” However, not too long afterward Lorrie’s love life took a detour ¾ her affections switched to a politician.

For reader interest, for enthralled reading and viewing, direct contact with the individual interviewed is best achieved by letting interviewees speak.

Research shows that quotations are useful. S. Shyan Sundar of Pennsylvania State University found “the credibility and quality of stories with quotations to be significantly higher than identical stories without quotations.”