From Inquiry to Academic Writing A Practical Guide, 3rd edition

InTERvIEwInG 335

Follow up after the interview is over. Continue getting to know the inter-

viewee. Even though the formal interview is done, you still want this

person to feel as though he or she matters to you. Just because this person

has completed the interview doesn’t mean that his or her relationship with

the research project is over.

■ Make sense of the interview

Conducting an interview is only part of the challenge; you then have to

make sense of what was said. That process involves four steps:

1. Familiarize yourself with the conversation. If you recorded the inter-
   view, listen to it a couple of times to become really familiar with what
   was said. Read through your notes several times too.


2. Transcribe the interview. Transcribing entails listening carefully to and
   typing up the audio recording of your interview in order to analyze the
   conversation. A transcript provides a more manageable way to iden-
   tify key points in the interview, details that you might miss if you only
   listened to the interview, and stories that you might recount in your
   research. Keep in mind that transcribing an interview is an important
   part of doing this kind of research, but it is time-consuming. There-
   fore, you need to plan accordingly. An hour-long interview usually
   takes about three hours to transcribe.


3. Analyze the interview. Read through the interview again. Look for answers
   to the questions motivating your research, and look for recurring patterns
   or themes. Make a list of those ideas relevant to the issues you intend to
   focus on, especially evidence that might support your argument.


4. Find one good source. Using the themes you identify in your analy-
   sis as a guide, find one good source that relates to your interview in
   some way. Maybe your subject’s story fits into an educational debate
   (for example, public versus private education). Or maybe your subject’s
   story counters a common conception about education (that inner-city
   schools are hopelessly inadequate). You’re looking for a source you can
   link to your interview in an interesting and effective way.

■ Turn your interview into an essay

Try to lay out in paper, in paragraphs, the material you’ve collected that

addresses the question motivating your research and the focus of your

paper. In a first draft, you might take these steps:

1. State your argument, or the purpose of your essay. What do you want
   to teach your readers?


2. Provide evidence to support your thesis. What examples from
   your reading, observations, or interviews do you want to offer your
   readers? How do those examples illuminate your claim?

11_GRE_5344_Ch11_313_342.indd 335 11/19/14 11:02 AM

http://www.ebook3000.com