How to Write an Interview Essay Paper

What is an Interview Essay?

Interview Essays are summaries of interviews you will have with several people about a particular topic. It is similar to the Summary Analysis Response essay that you would write using written sources. However, in this essay your sources will be interviews of various people. Of course, you can combine the two essays and use both interviews as well as published sources for evidence. That is how my Research Paper on Non-Profit is set up.

You will summarize the responses you get from several different people to a particular question and then analyze why people responded the way they did.

Overview of the process of writing and inteview essay:

• write your interview essay questions
• set up your interviews (probably you will start with at least one in-class interview of another student)
• do your interviews and record the answers
• analyze the results
• write your interview essay paper, starting with the question, then a summary and analysis of your interviews

How are Interview Essays Different?

Interview essays allow you to use people as your sources rather than books. What is especially helpful in this sort of essay is that you are able to get a first person viewpoint on a subject, whether this is about a person's life or something they are an expert at. These sorts of papers can be especially meaningful if you write them about family members, or interview people who do a job or activity you would like to try yourself. Of course interview essays are familiar to anyone who reads a newspaper or magazine. While people often interview actors, musicians or politicians, excellent essays can be written by interviewing ordinary people. Sometimes these essays are also called oral history essays when they record life history of ordinary people.

How do I do the Interview?

You will be asking a particular question about a topic of your choice to several different people. Generally, you will want to choose a topic which is arguable, which means a topic that there are many different opinions about. Often interviews go better if the question is personal. Here are some sample questions:

• What do you do when a homeless person asks you for money?
• What do you personally do to recycle or be "green?"
• What are the most important qualities in a friend?
• Would you add to your family through adoption?

What is different than a survey is that in an interview question essay, you will ask the person to explain their answer. In trying to get more information about why people think the way they do on the topic, you will ask follow-up questions to the main question you ask. You may not ask the same follow-up questions to every person. Instead, you will let your conversation with the person guide you as you ask more questions.

Step-by Step Process for Interview Essay

I. Gather interviews

• You will ask the questions below or others you make up yourself (these are sample questions and you may add to them as you try to get the person to give you more information).
• Write the answers on separate sheets of paper. You will turn these in with your final paper. We will do as many interviews as possible in class. You should also interview a few people outside of class who are not college students.

1. Name: first and last
2. Question: (your main question and any major follow up questions which occur to you)
3. Why do you think so? What are some of your reasons? (When they pause) Are there any other reasons?
4. Why do you think people who take the opposite view would do so?
5. Do any examples come to your mind to illustrate your point?
6. Quotation: (anything you want to quote word for word from them)

II. Take your notes and analyze them.

1. Number the reasons your interviews gave for their opinion.
2. Make a chart which shows:

• Number/reason names of people who said that reason your analysis
• Questions to ask yourself as you analyze each reason:
• Is this a positive or negative reason?
• How does this reason compare to other reasons?
• How important or interesting is this reason?
• What do you think of this reason? Is it valid?

III. Organize the reasons into a logical order. Here are a few possible ways to order them:

• least to most important
• positive first, then negative
• negative, then positive
• ones you disagree with, ones you agree with
• ones which are pretty typical, ones which are unusual.

IV. Plan your outline of your interview essay based on the ordering of your reasons.

1. Introduction/Conclusion: Decide how you will begin and conclude your essay. Your introduction should include the question you asked. Your opening might be suggested by some of the comments from your interviews or you might want to describe a situation which causes your question (for example in an essay about whether you would give money to a beggar, you could open with a scenario or story about being approached by a beggar and having to decide whether to give money). You might also use description, statistics and/or questions in your opening (describe beggars in a big city, give statistics and end with the question you asked in your interview). You could also begin with a dictionary definition, an appropriate reference to a movie, T.V. show or song, or a quote.
2. Body: Give Reasons in Order. The body of your interview essay should follow the order of reasons that you put together in step number III. Use the same strategies that you used in your definition essay to compare and analyze these interviews. Be sure to use quotes, paraphrase and summary from your sources as appropriate and to also analyze the connections between reasons as well as why people might come to those conclusions.
3. Conclusion: Your Response. You will conclude the interview essay with a paragraph or two which explains which point of view given by the people you interviewed has, in your opinion, the most validity, and why. If none of the interviews coincided with your opinion, you can also talk about that.