The 1,000-Page Question
One may sometimes receive a question like this when teaching at
workshops on qualitative research:
How shall I find a method to analyze the 1,000 pages of interview
transcripts I have collected?
This chapter is a reply to this 1,000-page question. It includes some
summaries of the stages of an interview investigation that have already
been covered and prepares the ground for the analysis stage treated
in more detail in the next two chapters.
Dismiss or Interpret the 1,000-Page Question?
A first impulsive reaction to the 1,000-page question is to dismiss
it-"Never pose that question!" When an interview project has been
conducted in such a way that the 1,000-page question is asked, the
question can no longer be answered. A more adequate reply would
then be: "Never conduct interview research in such a way that you
find yourself in a situation where you ask such a question."
The present approach goes further than merely dismissing the
question; the conception of qualitative research implied by the 1,000-
page question will be interpreted by taking a closer look at its wording.
The question is not only posed too late, it is leading. Yet all questions
are leading: They may be opening or closing, productive or counter-
The 1,000-Page Question 177
In interview research, too much emphasis has been placed
on the influence of leading questions in the interview situation,
whereas the leading influence of questions put to the interview texts
&rough their analysis has been rather neglected. The 1,000-page
question as it is formulated above leads in the wrong direction-it is
closing and unproductive.
A lead for the analysis of the question is taken from Antonioni's
movie The Reporter. In one scene, in which an African shaman is inter-
viewed by the white reporter, the shaman replies something like this
to one of the reporter's questions: "I will not answer your question.
My answer would tell less about me than your question tells about
yourself."
What Does the 1,000-Page Question Mean?
The material for the present analysis is the 17 words of the
1,000-page question as formulated above. The purpose of the analysis
is to uncover the meaning of the question, to make explicit its
presuppositions and thereby the implicit conceptions of qualitative
research it implies. The general interest isprophylactic; it isan attempt
to outline modes of conducting interview research so that a researcher
never gets into a situation where he or she feels compelled to ask the
1,000-page question. The method of analyzing the question will be
discussed in the concluding section. The general form of the analysis
is to select 7 key words from the 1,000-page question and analyze
them separately:
How (3) shall I find a method (4) to analyze (7)the 1,000pages (2)of
interview transcripts (5)I have (1)collected (6) ?
"HAVEm-TOO LATE!
The answer is simple-the question is posed too late.
Never pose the question of how to analyze transcripts after the
interviews have been conducted-it is too late to start thinking after
the interviewing is done. The answer here parallels that of a statisti-
cian: Consult me about the data analysis before you collect your data.

178 Interviews
Think about how the interviews are to be analyzed before they are
conducted. The method of analysis decided on-or at least considered
-will then direct the preparation of the interview guide, the interview
process, and the transcription of the interviews. Every stage in an
interview project involves decisions that offer both possibilities and
constraints in later stages of the project.
The method of analysis should not only be planned in advance of
the interviewing. The analysis may also, to varying degrees, be built
into the interview situation itself. A clarification of the meaning of
what is said may then take the simple form of "I understand that the
meaning of what you just said is . . ." Further, the researcher may
attempt to confirm or reject his or her hypothesis during the interview,
similar to a job interview where the interviewer is continually testing
the hypothesis about whether the interviewed applicant is qualified
for the job.
In such forms of analysis-interpreting "as you go"-considerable
parts of the analysis are "pushed forward" into the interview situation
itself. The final analysis then becomes not only easier and more
amenable, but will also rest on more secure ground. Put strongly, the
ideal interview is already analyzed by the time the tape recorder is
turned off. There are social and ethical restraints on how far the
analysis of meaning can be undertaken during the interview itself, but
this may serve as a methodic ideal for interview research.
An alternative reformulation of the 1,000-page question entails
changing the temporal form: How shall I conduct my interviews so
that their meaning can be analyzed in a coherent and creative way?
"1,000 PAGESv-TOO MUCH!
The answer to this quantitative part of the question is also simple-
1,000 pages of transcripts is too much to handle in a meaningful way.
The precise meaning of the question may depend on its intonation.
When posed in a despairing voice, it may indicate a situation of being
overwhelmed by an enormous amount of qualitative data, of being
completely lost in a jungle of transcriptions. The meaning of the
question may then be: Rescue me from my 1,000 pages, I cannot find
my way out of the labyrinth.
The 1,000-Page Question 179
When posed in a more assertive voice the same question may have
another meaning. A diligent young scholar has done his empirical duty
and documented his scientific attitude by gathering large amounts of
data. He now awaits the expert's praise and advice about how to treat
the data. The question may here involve a "reversed positivism"-a
quest for scientific respectability by mirroring the positivist emphasis
on large quantities of quantitative data with large quantities of quali-
tative data.
Whether posed in a despairing or in an assertive voice, the formu-
lation of the question leads in the wrong direction. The emphasis is
on the quantity-1,000 pages-rather than on the content and the
qualitative meanings of what was said.
One thousand pages of transcripts is generally too much to handle.
The material is too extensive to overview and to work out the depth
of the meaning of what was said. The analysis is too time-consuming
and is likely to lead to a superficialproduct, unfinished due to external
time constraints. Should there be definite reasons for needing such a
large amount of interview material-1,000 pages correspond to be-
tween 30 and 40 hours of interviews-the reasons for the large quan-
tity should be explicitly formulated before the interviews are con-
ducted. It may then turn out that fewer interviews are sufficient, or
that the purpose of the investigation is better served by questionnaires.
A rephrasing of the 1,000-page question, involving a change in
emphasis from quantity to meaning, could be: How do I go about
finding the meaning of the many interesting and complex stories my
interviewees told me?
"HOWv-ASK "WHAT" AND "WHY" FIRST
Do not pose the question of how to analyze interviews before the
answers to the what and the why of an investigation have been given.
Content and purpose precede method.
In analyzing an interview, what is not said may be just as important
as what is said. In the question analyzed here, the question of "how"
is posed without including the "what" and the "why" of the investi-
gation. The term method originally meant the way to the goal. With
no goal stated, it is difficult to show the way to it,

180 Interviews
The mode of analysis depends on "what" is analyzed, on the subject
matter of the interview, and on the "why," the purpose of the
interview. Thus the interpretation of Hamlet's interview rested on a
clarification of the topic and purpose of the interview-an exploration
of the shapes of clouds or the testing of a hypothesis about Polonius's
trustworthiness (Chapter 8, Hamlet's Interview). In general, the theo-
retical conceptions of what is investigated should provide the basis for
making decisions of how-the method to be used for analyzing the
content. Thus a psychoanalytic conception of an interview statement
as an expression of unconscious forces will involve a different form
of analysis than a behavioristic conception of the statement as an
element in a chain of stimuli and responses. Further, if a research study
purports to test a hypothesis about differences among groups of
subjects, then the analysis should be systematic and conducted in the
same way for each of the groups in order to test possible differences
among them. For explorative purposes it will, on the contrary, be
more appropriate to pursue the different interesting aspects of the
individual interviews and to interpret them in greater depth.
The specification of the subject matter and the purpose of an
interview study could be continued, elaborated further, or made in
other ways than suggested here. What is important is that the what
and the why of the investigation are clarified before a method of
analysis is chosen.
The technical "how to" emphasis of the 1,000-page question can
be reformulated to: How do Igo about finding out what the interviews
tell me about what I want to know?
"METHOD" VERSUS KNOWLEDGE
The methodological aspect of the 1,000-page question cannot be
answered due to the way the question is formulated. There are no
standard methods, no via regia, to arrive at essential meanings and
deeper implications of what is said in an interview.
The demand for a method may involve an emphasis on techniques
and reliability, and a de-emphasis on knowledge and validity. The
search for techniques of analysis may be a quest for a "technological
fix" to the researcher's task of analyzing and constructing meaning.
The 1,000-Page Question
There are no standard methods of text analysis that correspond to
the multitude of techniques available for statistical analysis. This may
be due in part to the relative novelty and the small extent of cross-
disciplinary communication about qualitative analysis in the social
sciences. The lack of standard techniques of qualitative analysis may,
however, also be due to the richness and the complexity of the sub-
ject matter. Some general approaches to the analysis of qualitative
material-involving different technical procedures-do exist. Five
approaches to analyzing the meaning of interviews, to be outlined in
the next chapter, are: categorization, condensation, narrative struc-
turing, deeper interpretations, and ad hoc tactics for the generation
of meaning.
Method may also be used in the sense of obtaining intersubjectively
reliable results. The question then concerns how different readers can
arrive at the same meanings when analyzing an interview. This may
reflect the common concern that qualitative research leads to as many
interpretations as there are researchers. When using a specific method
with a specific purpose-for ins~ance,categorization of the subjects'
statements in order to compare the attitudes of different groups of
subjects toward an issue-then a high intersubjective reproducibility
of the categorization is desirable; that is, the results of the comparison
should not be influenced by who categorized the answers of the
groups. A strict requirement of intersubjective reliability for all forms
of interview analysis may, however, lead to a tyranny by the lowest
possible denominator: that an interpretation is only reliable when it
can be followed by everyone, a criterion that could lead to a triviali-
zation of the interpretations. This may again involve a consensualist
conception of truth: that an observation or an interpretation is only
considered valid if it can be repeated by everyone, irrespective of the
quality of the observation and the argumentation.
The emphasis on method-in the meaning of standardized tech-
niques or of intersubjective reliability-may also involve a disregard
of knowledge and expertise during the analysis of the interviews. The
question may involve an "externalization" of the interpretation of
meaning to fixed rules and criteria, rather than going beyond method
and drawing upon the craftsmanship of the researcher, on his or her
knowledge and interpretative skills. Psychological research has often

182 Interviews
placed an empiristic emphasis on naive observers and unprejudiced
interpreters as a condition for obtaining objective results. In contrast
thereto, the present position emphasizes a knowledge of the subject
matter, an expertise in the field studied, as a presupposition for arriv-
ing at valid interpretations. The importance of background knowledge
for observations is evident in a variety of areas. When analyzing
interviews with chess players, the researcher's knowledge of chess at
a higher level than that of the interviewees is a precondition for seeing
the solutions they did not see. In the psychoanalytical tradition, there
has long been an emphasis on the training and the competence of the
analyst for making psychoanalytical observations and interpretations.
The alternative to the methodical emphasis of the 1,000-page ques-
tion is: How can the interviews assist me in extending my knowledge
of the phenomena I am investigating?
Do not conceive of the interviews as transcripts: The interviews are
living conversations-beware of transcripts.
The transcripts should not be the subject matter of an interview
study, as implied by the 1,000-page question, but rather be means,
tools, for the interpretation of what was said during the interviews.
Although produced as an oral discourse, the interview appears in the
form of a written text. The transcript is a bastard, it is a hybrid between
an oral discourse unfolding over time, face to face, in a lived situation
-where what is said is addressed to a specific listener present-and a
written text created for a general, distant, public.
An emphasis on the transcription may promote a reifying analysis
that reduces the text to a mere collection of words or single meanings
conceived as verbal data. The originally lived face-to-face conversa-
tions disappear in endless transcripts, only to reappear butchered into
fragmented quotes. The interviews become closed, they no longer
open up to a horizon of possible meanings, to be explored and
developed.
An alternative approach toward the transcripts involves entering
into a dialogue with the text, going into an imagined conversation with
the "author" about the meaning of the text. The reader here asks about
the theme of the text, goes into the text seeking to develop, clarify,
The 1,000-Page Question
and expand what is expressed in the text. The meanings may be
as manifestly expressed, or, in line with a "depth herme-
neutics," seeking to uncover meanings hidden in the texts.
The alternative to the transcription emphasis in the 1,000-page
question is: How do I analyze what interviewees told me in order
to enrich and deepen the meaning of what they said?
"COLLECTED" VERSUS COAUTHORED 2
The interviewee's statements are not collected-they are co-
authored by the interviewer.
The inter-view is an inter-subjective enterprise of two persons
talking about common themes of interest. The interviewer does not
merely collect statements like gathering small stones on a beach. His
or her questions lead up to what aspects of a topic the subject will
address, and the interviewer's active listening and following up on the
answers co-determines the course of the conversation.
There is a tendency to take the results of a social interaction, when
first arrived at, as a given, forgetting the original discourse and the
social co-construction of the final outcomes. Such a reification may
be strengthened by the transcription of the interviews; the fixated
written form takes over and the original face-to-face interaction of the
interview situation fades away.
A reification of the jointly produced interview into a transcription
of collected statements has consequences in both a social and a
temporal dimension. Socially, the forgetting of the joint social creation
of the interview statements and the neglect of the interviewer's con-
structive contributions to the answers produced may lead to a biased
view of the interview as merely reflecting the interviewee, with the
possible exception of the influence of directly leading questions. The
alternative approach of deliberately using the role of the interviewer
as a coproducer and a coauthor of the interview, and of reflecting on
the social constitution of the interview, is then overlooked.
Temporally, focusingon the transcripts as a collection of statements
may freeze the interview into finished entities rather than treat its pas-
sages as stepping stones toward a continuous unfolding of the meaning
of what was said. In the latter case, the analysis of the transcribed
interviews is a continuation of the conversation that started in the

184 Interviews
interview situation. The interviewee's answers open up to a horizon
of possible meanings to be pursued during the later conversational
analysis with the interview text. The focus of the analysis moves from
what has already been said, goes beyond the immediately given, to
what could have been said.
The continued dialogue with the text may lead to a renewed
conversation with the interviewee, sharing and developing the zone
of possible meanings in the original interview. More often, the analysis
will be in the form of an imagined dialogue with the text, unfolding
its horizon of possible meanings.
The alternative to the stamp-collecting version of the 1,000-page
question is: How do I carry on the dialogue with the text I have
coauthored with the interviewee?
"ANALYZE" VERSUS NARRATE
Do not let the analysis stage inflate so that it consumes the major
portion of time available for an interview project.
The analysis of an interview is interspersed between the initial story
told by the interviewee to the researcher and the final story told by
the researcher to an audience. To analyze means to separate something
into parts or elements. The transcription of the conversation and the
conception of the interview as a collection of statements might pro-
mote a fragmentation of the story told by the interviewee into separate
parts, be they single paragraphs, sentences, or words. It is then easy
to forget that in open, nondirective interviews the interviewee tells a
story, or several stories, to the researcher, and that the transcript itself
may then approximate the form of a narrative text.
The structures and functions of the narratives of folktales and
literature, as worked out in the humanities, can be used to reflect and
analyze the narrative structures employed by the interviewee. A nar-
rative approach to the interview analysis, going back to the original
story told by the interviewee and anticipating the final story to be
reported to an audience, may prevent becoming lost in a jungle of
transcripts. A focus on the interview as a narrative may even make the
interview transcripts better reading, in that the original interview is
deliberately created in a story form. A narrative conception of inter-
view research supports a unity of form among the original interview
situation, the analysis, and the final report.
The 1,000-Page Question 185
A narrative alternative to the analysis version of the 1,000-page
question then becomes: How can I reconstruct the original story told
to me by the interviewee into a story I want to tell my audience?
Method of Analysis
A question about interview research was posed in the introduction
of this chapter: How can I find a method to analyze the 1,000 pages
of interview transcripts I have collected?
The answer given was that the question was posed too late to obtain
a satisfactory answer and that its formulation made it difficult to
answer. The wording of the question was then analyzed in detail with
the purpose of bringing its implicit presuppositions of interview
research into the open, and with the general interest of making the
question superfluous.
No standardized method of analysis was applied to the question;
rather, a variety of approaches were tried in order to bring out the
meaning of the question. The general structure was to select 7 key
words from the 17-word sentence and analyze them individually. Yet
the analysis was not entirely decontextualized; there were continuous
overlappings among the meanings developed from the key words that
pointed to common threads of meaning underlying the question. By
analyzing the separate words, an attempt was made to bring in the
context of the question. Guesses were made to find the implied
meanings of, for example, vocal intonation-such as whether the
emphasis on the "1,000 pages" was in a despairing or an assertive
voice. Some brief attempts at an etymological analysis were made,
concerning terms as method and analyze.
The original sentence was rephrased in various forms, leading to
different directions of meanings. The alternative rephrasings of the
1,000-page question shifted the focus from what was said to what
could have been said, opening up some of the possibilities of meanings
that the original formulation of the question closed off. It presupposes
a certain background knowledge of interview research to see some of
the possibilities the question leads away from. The analysis took the
form of an imagined dialogue, an attempt to answer the original
1,000-page question by asking about its possible meanings. The
analysis resembled the question-answer sequence of an imagined