10.31 Oral histories on Halloween or memories of 9/11, overview of research methods

You spent the first part of class doing a short oral history about experiences with Halloween, or recollections about 9/11, your choice.  The purpose of this exercise was to give you some practices recording/conducting an interview.  After everyone collected his/her oral history, we re-convened as a class and talked over what you noticed about doing interviews.  Here is a list of your observations:

1. Interviews have a life of their own.  The conversation grows out of the interactions between individual participants, and even if you use the same protocol, every interview will be different.

2. Protocols are good things.  They keep you focused, provide relevant questions when things get quiet, and generally set up the shape of the interview.

3. Whether or not an interview will "flow" depends not just on your questions, but also on the participants.  If the conversation seems to just end, maybe it is just that your participant needs time to process.  As an interviewer in a "quiet" interview, try: waiting, encouraging, saying back what was just said, re-phrasing, nodding and saying mm-hm. 

4. Many of your best questions will arise in context - as follow-ups to what your participant has said.  Interviews are conversations.

5. Familiarity with your focus/material facilitates the interview.  Doing your homework on your topic will help the right questions (and the right replies to your participants talk) come out of your mouth.

6. You need to do your interview in a quiet place.  Other people, sounds and activity will not only distract you = they will make transcribing your recording almost impossible.


There weren't many comments about using your phones to record, so evidently that is easy and seamless.  Seems like you are ready to roll!

Summary of the methods we have worked on this semester:
discourse analysis
interviews
ethnography
case study
surveys
oral history

From your training as English majors, you are also experienced in library research and textual analysis.  Not bad.

For next week:
Blog 16: Write your reflections on what you learned from conducting your oral history interview, and how you are going to apply that knowledge in your research.
Read/bring to class: the essay you will use for the literature review in your project

Happy Halloween!  And see you next week.