Research Shortcuts

SHORTCUT 28. Make Face-ta-Face Interviews Pay Off

SHORTCUT 28 Make Face-ta-Face Interviews Pay Off When we want an expert for our articles on anything from the weather to tomato canning, we head first for the local university. Yet few students take advantage of the resident experts right on their own campuses. If you're engaged in serious research, most professors are pleased to take the time to talk to you. But don't just go barging into the Meteorology Office or the Ag Science building and corral the first instructor you see. Instead, approach interviewing the way the pros do. You'll get a great deal more useful information in the same length of time. 1. Define for yourself the reason you need the interview. If you don't do that before you begin, you'll end up with a conversation, not an interview. 2. Let the expert know your purpose in advance. Set up an appointment. Ask for enough time. (Usually up to a half hour is easily given.) Let the expert have at least a day's notice to think about the topic. She may even find a helpful paper or prepare a useful chart. 3. Write down a list of questions that the expert can answer for you. But use it as a guide, not a bible. Make sure you get all your questions answered, but be prepared to ask other questions that are suggested in the course of the interview. Keep your questions simple, and ask them one at a time. Complex, multifaceted questions often get partial responses. Most people think and speak one thought at a time. 82 Copyrighted Material Make Face-to-Face Interviews Pay Off 83 4. Know something about the topic and the expert before the interview. Do some background research so your questions show intelligence instead of ignorance. You'll get more thoughtful answers. Know the expert's title and the spelling of her name. (You can get it from a secretary.) If she's written books or papers on the subject, skim them before you see her so that you don't ask questions she's answered in print. Do ask for clarification of what you've read, if you need it. She'll be pleased to see that you've done your homework. If the topic is technical, become familiar with the field's vocabulary before the interview, so that you can follow the expert's words without having to keep asking their meaning . (If you're prepared, and still a strange term is used, do ask its meaning.) 5. Get off to a good beginning. Get to the interview on time. (If you're late, it's your time you've wasted, not hers.) Take several pens in case one fails, and take notes in your project notebook, not on scraps of paper. Avoid using tape recorders. There are too many problems that can come up-not only with the machinery (run-down batteries, no convenient electrical outlet, poor volume control, etc.), but also with your interviewing style. If you take notes instead of fooling with a tape recorder, you will remain more attentive and remember things more clearly. In the long run, you will save time, too. Do you really want to listen to the interview again? And transcribe it all? Get right to the point of the interview: remember, you're not there for a social visit. If there's time left at the end, you can chat then. (If the prof likes chit-chat, you may have to come right out and say that you'd prefer to get your questions out of the way to be sure there's time for all of them.) 6. Listen to the answers you get. Make sure you understand them. If you're not sure, double-check by asking, Copyrighted Material 84 RESEARCH SHORTCUTS "Did you mean ... ?" Often, answers suggest new questions . Too many interviewers are so busy taking down answers, they don't follow through with those questions. Use the shorthand you use in lecture note-taking. You don't need entire sentences unless you're planning to quote the person, and even then she won't expect you to get her precise words down, only her precise meaning. 7. Keep your comments to a minimum. The expert can't give information when your voice is in gear. Self-evident as it is, this fact is overlooked by many interviewers...