Fieldworking 4/12

During an interview, you should keep in mind that when you are interviewing, you are listening to their side of the story instead of yours. You want to push your thoughts behind and listen to what they have to say. When asking questions, you want your questions to have a lot of meaning behind them which can lead to an in depth conversation. Two types of questions are "closed questions and open questions"(pg.3). Closed questions are often "yield single phrases as answers and can shut down further talk" (pg. 3). You do not want to have to many closed questions because that will stop a conversation continuously which makes the interview choppy and unprofessional. Open questions help "elicit your informant's perspective and allow more conversational exchange" (pg. 3). There will not be single answers so it allows your conversation to flow and you can engage in a lively conversation. There is also a way to make sure you are recording and transcribing your interview to ensure you do not leave out any valuable information that you can use in your essay. You may use an inexpensive recorder which will fit your needs perfectly, as long as you can hear your interviewee clearly. By being prepared before hand, your interview will flow more smooth and it makes you more professional. You should go over questions a few times, be willing to change your questions in case the conversation changes and be ready to take notes that are key during the interview. You should also plan on taking notes while you are conducting an interview just in case your recorder stops working or just to remind yourself of key points that you do not want to leave out. In box 22, they go over key points in the reading to make sure that you fully understand what you need to do to get the most out of your interview. The main point of this reading is to make sure you know what types of questions that you want to ask, how to record your conversation and to be confident during your interview.

Questions:
1. I am still going over what types of questions that I want to ask during the interview, is there any pointers you could give?