Interviewing Basics

• Don’t jump right into the interview

Take your time to establish a friendly setting. Set yourself up as someone who is interested in what the subject has to say. Establish your own knowledge and ignorance on the subject. A helpful lead question is usually something that gets the person talking about him or herself: “why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do here?”

• Be an active listener

Think about how conversations generally work: there needs to be eye contact, back-and-forth discussion, and friendly reciprocation. Since you want the interviewee talking about 75% of the time (roughly), you’ll need to limit your responses to reflections and re-directions of what he or she just said. Use pauses in the conversation to either encourage the interviewee to expand on a topic by reflecting: “you said that your favorite part of the building is the third floor, what happens there?” or by redirecting: “the cafeteria sounds interesting, I’ll have to check it out later. What can you tell me about the basement?” These techniques show that you’re listening to the subject and not just taking notes.

• Don’t feel rushed to move on

Encourage the subject to return back to a topic if you feel you haven’t received enough information. Remember, you are in control of where the interview goes. Don’t be afraid to return to something that was discussed earlier if you want the subject to expand or elaborate.

• Practice re-phrasing questions

Often, you won’t receive the answer you’re looking for the first time you ask a question. Learn how to rephrase your questions to get the interviewee going in the direction you’d like. For example, if you ask “what’s your favorite part of this job?” and the interviewee responds by talking about his favorite co-workers, try rephrasing using his or her own language: “they sound like a great group of people. What sorts of work activities do you all together that make the workplace so fun?”

• Leave the interview with a plan

As the interview wraps up, you’ll likely feel rushed, flustered, and exhausted— that’s okay! Have a plan in your notes for how to end the interview and how to move forward. It’s possible you may need to speak to this person again, so try to end the interview by thanking them for their time and asking if you could contact them in the future if you have any further questions or clarifications. Remember that this person just did you a huge favor by speaking with you, so let them know how much you appreciate their help.

Born Into Coal

For Thursday, please watch the documentary Born Into Coal and write a 250-350 word blog post reacting to it. Specifically, consider broader elements like style, argument, and technique; however, I would also like you consider what this documentary would look like in storyboard form. What are the separate "scenes" and how are they put together to form a story?

Student Documentary Examples

Below are some student documentaries from previous semesters. I provide these so you can see what students have done in the past, and so we can analyze the structure and content of a documentary.

The AcoUstiKats

Mathews Garden

Documentary Shorts

The Poodle Trainer

Quicksand

Class Canceled 3-11

Class is canceled today (March 11), as I woke up still a little sick. We will have class on Thursday. Your group responsibilities section of the research memo is due this week, so instead of class today, you may want to meet up and finish it. I look forward to seeing everyone on Thursday, when we get to start my favorite section of the class: watching documentaries!

-Owen

Research Memo

Your next project, the Research Memo, will be done in stages. The grade for this project is credit/no-credit, so the focus will be on how the memo helps your group get ready for the documentary more than the segments themselves.

Think of the Research Memo as a running diary of your group's work through the project. Each stage will be planned and reflected upon in the memo.

The first portion of the Research Memo will be the group responsibility section. This section will be due before spring break. Break your project into as many sections as you can, but at least include: interviews, filming, script writing, sound recording, film editing, sound editing, storyboarding, and scheduling. For each section, talk about what each group member will be responsible for. I want to stress that there should be no sections where a group member is not participating-- everyone is responsible for each segment of the project. It may be helpful to have each group member be "in charge" of each section, in the sense that they set up responsibilities and coordinate that section, but I'll leave those choices to your groups.

Research Memo
Group Responsibilities/Contract (due before Spring Break)
Interview Strategy/Schedule (due the week after Spring Break)
Annotated Bibliography (due before First Cuts)

Visual Rhetoric (Homework for 3-4 at the bottom)

Visual Rhetoric is the application of rhetorical principles onto visual spaces. Think about our rhetorical triangle:

The three points have different meanings depending on what we're talking about. For arguments, we look at ethos/pathos/logs; for interactions, we look at speaker/message/audience; for methods, we look at writer/reason/appeal. Each of these characteristics occurs within a rhetorical situation (the box), which means that we need to consider how the circumstances of the argument shape and constrain the tools at our disposal. Finally, the central focus of the argument is the purpose/kairos/decorum-- in other words: why are we arguing? What do we hope to achieve?

Visual rhetoric is important because we transmit and receive information visually. Consider how this image, which explains the different types of coffee preparations, might be presented in text. Is there any way for text to compete with the simplicity and effectiveness of a visual presentation?

Visual elements can also come with downsides, however, when they aren't considered. Let's break down each of these ads according to our rhetorical triangle, and then consider how the juxtaposition of them creates a different message:

So considering visual rhetoric is important, and failing to consider it can be devastating.

For homework on Thursday, please consider some websites your frequent. How are they structured? What is the purpose? What is the audience? What is the company's ethos? How do all these considerations affect the structure? Does the website make good or bad rhetorical choices? Please do this for two similar/competing websites, and analyze which worked best in a 350+ word blog post.