94 INTERVIEWINGAS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
interviewing relationship, and thereby the quality of the interview, is
affected and sometimes seriously limited by social inequities. At the same
time, individuais committed to equity in research can find a way first to
become conscious of the issues and their own role in them. They can then
devise methods that attempt to subvert those societal constraints. In the
process they may end up being able to tell their participants' stories in a
way that can promote equity.
Analyzing, Interpreting, and
Sharing Interview Material
Research based on in-depth interviewing is labor intensive. There is no
substitute for studying the interviews and winnowing the almost 1million
words a study involving 25 participants might yield. (Each series of three
interviews can result in 150 double-spaced pages of transcript.)'In plan-
ning such a study, allow at least as much time for working with the
material as for all the steps involved in conceptualizing the study, writing
the proposal, establishing access, making contact, selecting participants,
and doing the actual interviews.
MANAGING THE DATA
To work with the material that interviewing generates, the researcher
first has to make it accessible by organizing it. Keeping track of partici-
pants through the participant information forms, making sure the written
consent forms are copied and filed in a safe place, labeling audiobpes of
interviews accurately, managing the extensive files that develop in the
course of working with the transcripts of interviews, and keeping track of
decision points in the entire process all require attention to detail, a con-
cern for security, and a system for keeping material accessible. One goal
of this administrative work is to be able to trace interview data to the
original source on the interview tape at all stages of the research. Another
is to be able to contact a participant readily. The simple act of misfiling a
written consent form from a participant upon whose material a researcher
wants to rely heavily can create hours of extra work and unnecessary
anxiety.

INTERVIEWING AS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
The best description I have seen of file management for a qualitative
research study is in Lofland (1971). Although there is no one right way to
organizethe research process and the materials it generates,every moment
the researcher spends paying attention to order, labels, filing, and docu-
mentation at the beginning and in the formative stages of the study can
savehours of frustration later.
EEPING INTERVIEWINGAND ANALYSIS SEPARATE:
WHAT TO DO BETWEEN INTERVIEWS
It is difficult to separate the processes of gathering and analyzing
data. Even before the actual interviews begin, the researcher may antici-
pate results on the basis of his or her reading and preparation for the
study. Once the interviews commence, the researcher cannot help but
work with the material as it comes in. During the interview the researcher
is processing what the participant is saying in order to keep the interview
moving forward. Afterward, the researcher mentally reviews each inter-
view in anticipation of the next one. If the interviewer is working as part
of a research team, the team may get together to discuss what they are
learning from the process of the interviews.
Some researchers urge that the two stages be integrated so that each
informsthe other. (See,e.g., Lincoln & Guba, 1985;Maxwell, 1996; Miles
& Huberman, 1984.) They would have interviewers conduct a number of
interviews, study and analyze them, frame new questions as a result of
what they have found, and then conduct further interviews.
Although the pure separation of generating from analyzingdata is im-
possible, my own approachisto avoid anyin-depth analysisof the interview
data until I have completed all the interviews. Even though I sometimes
identify possibly salient topics in early interviews, I want to do my best to
avoid imposing meaning from one participant's interviews on the next.
Therefore, I first complete all the interviews. Then I study all the tran-
scripts. In that way I try to minimize imposing on the generativeprocess of
the interviewswhat I think I havelearnedfrom other participants.
However, I do not mean to suggest that between interviews, inter-
viewers avoid considering what they have just heard in order not to con-
taminate the next interview. In fact, I live with the interviews, constantly
running them over in my mind and thinking about the next. Others may
want to be even more explicit. For example, one doctoral candidate with
whom I work explained:
After listening to and transcribing the interview, I made a list of the fol-
low-upquestionsI hoped would be included in the next interview. . . . Hav-
ANALYZING, INTERPRETING, A N D SHARING INTERVIEW MATERIAL 97
ing goneover the tape prior to the session, it was fresh in my mind and I was
able to reassess the type of information I was getting and write questions to
guide me in the next session. (L. Mestre, personal communication, May 7,
1996)
TAPE-RECORDING INTERVIEWS
I have no doubt that in-depth interviews should be tape-recorded;
however, the literature reflects varying opinions on this point (Bogdan &
Taylor, 1975; Briggs, 1986; Hyman et al., 1954; Lincoln & Guba, 1985;
Patton, 1989). I believe that to work most reliably with the words of
participants, the researcher has to transform those spoken words into a
written text to study. The primary method of creating text from interviews
is to tape-record the interviews and to transcribe them. Each word a
participant speaks reflects his or her consciousness (Vygotsky, 1987). The
participants' thoughts become embodied in their words. To substitute the
researcher's paraphrasing or summaries of what the participants say for
their actual words is to substitute the researcher's consciousnessfor that of
the participant. Although inevitably the researcher's consciousness will
play a major role in the interpretation of interview data, that conscious-
ness must interact with the words of the participant recorded as fully and
as accurately as possible.
Tape-recording offers other benefits as well. By preserving the words
of the participants, researchers have their original data. If something is
not clear in a transcript, the researcherscan return to the source and check
for accuracy. Later, if they are accused of mishandling their interview
material, they can go back to their original sources tq demonstrate their
accountability to the data. In addition, interviewers can use tapes to study
their interviewing techniques and improve upon them. Tape-recording
also benefits the participants. The assurancethat there is a record of what
they have said to which they have access can give them more confidence
that their words will be treated responsibly.
It may seem that the tape recorder could inhibit participants, but my
experience is that they soon forget the device. Some interviewers, afraid
that a tape recorder will affect the responses of their participants, use the
smallest, least intrusive one they can find. Sometimes they sacrifice audio
quality in doing so. I use a tape recorder with a separate microphone
because I have found that some recorders with built-in microphones can
muffle the sound and make transcribing an agony. I also do a test of how
well the recorder is picking up the sound of the participant's and my voice
before I start the actual interview. It is frustrating to interview someone
for 4% hours only to be unable to decipher the audiotape later. (SeeYow,

S i
98 INTERVIEWING AS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
,for an excellent presentation of many technical details
PES
is time-consuming and potentially costly
ng a transcribing machine that has a foot
will normally take from 4 to 6 hours
ossible, the initial transcriptions should
word-processing program. Later, when
id, having the interviews in computer
labor saving. Interviewers who tran-
their interviews better, but the work
ire and loseenthusiasm for interview-
1students ask me if there is a substitute for transcribing the
ew tape. My response is yes, but not a good one. It is possible
times, pick out sections that seem impor-
tant, and then transcribe just those. Although that approach is labor-
saving, it is not desirable because it imposes the researcher's frame of
reference on the interview data one step too early in the winnowing pro-
cess. In working with the material, it is important that the researcher start
with the whole (Briggs, 1986).Preselecting parts of the tapes to transcribe
and omitting others tends to lead to premature judgments about what is
important and what is not. Once the decision is made not to transcribe a
portion of the tape, that portion of the interview is usually lost to the
researcher. So although labor is saved in this alternative approach, the
cost may be high.
The ideal solution is for the researcher to hire a transcriber. That,
however, is expensive, and the job must be done well to be worth the
effort. If interviewers can hire transcribers, or even if they do the tran-
scriptions themselves, it is essential for them to develop explicit written
instructions concerning the transcribing (Kvale, 1996). Writing out the
instructions will improve the consistency of the process, encourage the
researchersto think through all that is involved, and allow them to share
their decision making with their readers at a later point. Although a tran-
script can be only a partial representation of the interview (Mishler, 1986),
it can reflect the interview as fully as possible by being verbatim. In
addition, the transcriber should make note of all the nonverbal signals,
such as coughs, laughs, sighs, pauses, outside noises, telephone rings, and
interruptions, that are recorded on the tape.
ANALYZING, INTERPRETING, AND SHARING INTERVIEWMATERIAL
Both the interviewer and the transcriber must realize that decisions
about where to punctuate the transcripts are significant. Participants do
not speak in paragraphs or always clearly indicatethe end of a sentence by
voice inflection. Punctuating is one of the beginning points of the process
of analyzing and interpretingthe material (Kvale, 1996)and must be done
thoughtfully.
A detailed and careful transcript that re-creates the verbal and non-
verbal material of the interview can be of great benefit to a researcher
who may be studying the transcript months after the interview occurred.
(For further discussion of transcription, see Mishler, 1991.) Note the care
and precision with which the following section of an interview audiotape
was transcribed. The interviewer is studying what it is liketo be a commu-
nications major in a large university. Here she is asking the participant
about financing her college education:
INTERVIEWER: Uhm, what does that experiencemean to you?
PARTICIPANT: The fact that I spent so much money or that my parents
like kind of rejected me?
INTERVIEWER: Both.
PARTICIPANT:Uhm, the fact that I spent so much money blows my mind
because now I'm so poor and I'm. I can't believe I had so
much, I mean I look back [slight pause] to the summer
and the fall and [slight pause] I know where my money
went. I mean, I was always down the Cape and I'd just
spend at least $50 or $60 a night, you know, 3 or 4 nights
a week. And then when I did an internship in town I was
always driving in town, parking, saying "who cares" and I
waitressed three shifts a week so I always had money in
my pocket. So it was just, I always had money so, I never
really cared and I never prepared for the future or never
even considered that my parents wouldn't be there to foot
the bill like they'd always been. And I wasn't really aware
that they [pause] that they [slight pause and voice lowers]
were becoming insulted. (Reproduced from Burke, 1990)
STUDYING, REDUCING,AND ANALYZING THE TEXT
As one can see, in-depth interviewing generates an enormous amount
of text. The vast array of words, sentences, paragraphs, and pages have to
be reduced to what is of most importance and interest (McCracken, 1988;
Miles & Huberman, 1984; Wolcott, 1990). Most important is that reduc-

INTERVIEWINGAS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
be done inductively rather than deductively. That is, t
nnot address the material with a set of hypotheses to test or
in another context to which he or she wishes to
Strauss, 1967). The researcher must come to the
ttitude, seeking what emerges as important and
nterviewer can enter into the study of an inter-
clean slate (Rowan, 1981).All responsesto a text are interactions
the reader and the text (Fish, 1980; Rosenblatt, 1982). That is
the researcher identify his or her interest in the
ect and examine it to make sure that the interest is neither unhealthy
infused with anger, bias, or prejudice. The interviewer must come to
the transcript prepared to let the interview breathe and speak for itself.
What Is of Interest in the Text
The first step in reducing the text is to read it and mark with brackets
the passages that are interesting. The best description I have read of this
aspect of the winnowing process is Judi Marshall's (1981) "Making Sense
as a Personal Process." She acknowledges that what she can bring to the
data is her sense of what is important as she reads the transcripts. She
expresses confidence in being able to respond to meaningful "chunks" of
transcript. Shesays that she recognizes them when she sees them and does
not have to agonize over what level of semantic analysis she is doing. She
affirms the role of her judgment in the process. In short, what is required
in responding to interview text is no different from what is required in
responding to other texts- a close reading plus judgment (Mostyn, 1985).
Marshall also talks about the dark side of this process: that time when,
while working with interview data, you lose confidence in your ability to
sort out what is important, you wonder if you are making it all up, and
you feel considerable doubt about what you are doing. You become wor-
ried that you are falling into the trap of self-delusion, which Miles and
Huberman (1984) caution is the bane of those who analyze qualitative
data. Marshall (1985) calls it an anxiety that you learn to live with.
It is important that researchers acknowledge that in this stage of
the process they are exercising judgment about what is significant in the
transcript. In reducing the material interviewers have begun to analyze,
interpret, and make meaning of it. The interviewer-researchers can later
check with the participants to see if what they have marked as being of
interest and import seems that way to the participants. Although member-
checking can inform a researcher's judgment, it cannot substitute for it
(Lightfoot, 1983). That judgment depends on the researcher's experience,
ANALYZING, INTERPRETING, AND SHARING INTERVIEWMATERIAL 101
both in the past in general and in working with and internalizing the
interviewing material; it may be the most important ingredient the re-
searcher brings to the study (Marshall, 1981).
Although I can suggest some of the characteristics that make inter-
viewing texts meaningful to me, there is no model matrix of interesting
categories that one can impose on all texts. What is of essential interest is
embedded in each research topic and will arise from each transcript. The
interviewer must affirm his or her own ability to recognizeit.
There are certain aspects of individual experienceand social structure
to which I respond when they appear. I am alert to conflict, both between
people and within a person. I respond to hopes expressed and whether
they are fulfilled or not. I am alert to language that indicates beginnings,
middles, and ends of processes. I am sensitive to frustrations and resolu-
tions, to indications of isolation and the more rare expressions of collegial-
ity and community. Given the world in which we live, I am sensitive to
the way issues of class, ethnicity, and gender play out in individual lives,
and the way hierarchy and power affect people (Kanter, 1977). I do not,
however, come to a transcript looking for these. When they are there,
these and other passages of interest speak to me, and I bracket them.
Even when working with a research team, I give little instruction
about marking what is of interest in a transcript other than to say, "Mark
what is of interest to you as you read. Do not ponder about the passage. If
it catches your attention, mark it. Trust yourself as a reader. If you are
going to err, err on the side of inclusion." As you repeat the winnowing
process, you can always exclude material; but materials once excluded
from a text tend to become like unembodied thoughts that flee back to the
stygian shadows of the computer file, and tend to remain there. (See
Vygotsky, 1987,p. 210.) Despite my open instruction about marking tran-
scripts, I have often found considerable overlap among my colleagues in
what we have marked.
SHARING INTERVIEW DATA: PROFILES AND THEMES
One goal of the researcher in marking what is of interest in the inter-
view transcripts is to reduce and then shape the material into a form in
which it can be shared or displayed (Miles& Huberman, 1984).Reducing
the data is a first step in allowing the researchersto present their interview
material and then to analyze and interpret it (Wolcott, 1994). It is one of
the most difficult steps in the process because, inevitably, it means letting
interview material go.
I have used two basic ways to share interview data. First, I have

INTERVIEWINGAS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
ipants and grouped them in catego-
arked individual passages, grouped
he categories for thematic connec-
share interview data, and some
on words and more on graphs, charts,
, I have found that crafting a
experience is an effective way of
g up one's interview material to analysis
s from Studs Terkel's Working (1972).
lay in the form of a profile. My
three interviews is complete and
ofile that has a beginning, a
conflict and resolution. Other
tte, which is a shorter narrative
f a participant's experience.
icipant is the research product that I
think is most consistent with the process of interviewing. It allows us to
present the participant in context, to clarify his or her intentions, and to
convey a sense of process and time, all central components of qualitative
analysis. (See Dey, 1993, pp. 30-39, for an excellent discussion of the
question, "What is qualitative analysis?") We interview in order to come
to know the experience of the participants through their stories. We learn
from hearing and studying what the participants say. Although the inter-
viewer can never be absent from the process, by crafting a profile in the
participant's own words, the interviewer allows those words to reflect the
person's consciousness.
Profiles are one way to solvethe problem the interviewer has of how
to share what he or she has learned from the interviews. The narrative
form of a profile allows the interviewer to transform this learning into
telling a story (Mishler, 1986).Telling stories, Mishler argues, is one major
way that human beings have devised to make senseof themselves and their
social world. I would add that telling stories is a compelling way to make
sense of interview data. The story is both the participant's and the inter-
viewer's. It is in the participant's words, but it is crafted by the interviewer
from what the participant has said. Mishler provides an extended discus-
sion of interviewing and its relationship to narratives as a way of knowing,
and I strongly recommend it both for his own insights and the further
reading that he suggests. (Also see Bruner, 1996, chaps. 6 & 7, for an
ANALYZING, INTERPRETING,AND SHARING INTERVIEW MATERIAL 103
important discussion of the role of narrative in constructing reality in the
field of education.)
What others can learn from reading a profile of a participant is as
diverse as the participants we interview, the profiles we craft and orga-
nize, and the readers who read them. I have found crafting profiles,
however, to be a way to find and display coherence in the constitutive
events of a participant's experience, to share the coherence the participant
has expressed, and to link the individual's experience to the social and
organizational contextwithin which he or she operates.
Steps in Crafting a Profile
Crafting profiles is a sequential process. Once you have read the tran-
script, marked passages of interest, and labeled those passages, make two
copies of the marked and labeled transcript. (The labeling process is ex-
plained later in this chapter.) Using either the capabilities of a word-
processing program, a dedicated qualitative analysis program, or even a
pair of scissors, cut and file the marked passages on one copy of the tran-
scripts into folders or computer files that correspond to the labels you
devised for each passage. These excerpts will be used in the second, the-
matic way of sharing material. It is important never to cut up the original
transcript because it serves throughout the study as a reference to which
the researcher may turn for placing in context passages that have been
excerpted.
From the other copy of the transcripts, select all the passages that you
marked as important and put them together as a single transcript. Your
resulting version may be one third to one half the length of the original
three-interview transcript.
The next step is to read the new version, this time with a more de-
manding eye. It is very difficult to give up interview material. As you
read, ask yourself which passages are the most compelling, those that you
are just not willing to put aside. Underline them. Now you are ready to
craft a narrative based on them.
One key to the power of the profile is that it is presented in the words
of the participant. I cannot stress too much how important it is to use
the first person, the voice of the participant, rather than a third-person
transformation of that voice. To illustrate the point for yourself, take
perhaps 30 seconds from one of your pilot interviews. First present the
section verbatim. Then craft it into a mini-narrative using the first-person
voice of the participant. Next try using your voice and describing the
participant in the third person. It should become apparent that using the
third-person voice distances the reader from the participant and allows

104 INTERVIEWING AS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
the researcher to intrude more easily than when he or she is limited to
selecting compelling material and weaving it together into a first-person
narrative. Kvale (1996, p. 227) points out the temptation for researchers
to expropriate and to use inappropriately their participants' experiencefor
their own purposes. Using the first-person voice can help researchersguard
against falling into this trap.
In creating profiles it is important to be faithful to the words of the
participants and to identify in the narrative when the words are those of
someone else. Sometimes, to make transitions between passages, you may
wish to add your own words. Elsewhere you may want to clarify a pas-
sage. Each researcher can work out a system of notation to let the reader
know when language not in the interview itself has been inserted. I place
such language in brackets. I use ellipses when omitting material from a
paragraph or when skipping paragraphs or even pages in the transcripts.
In addition, I delete from the profile certain characteristics of oral speech
that a participant would not use in writing-for example, repetitious
"uhms," "ahs," "you knows," and other such idiosyncrasies that do not do
the participant justice in a written version of what he or she has said.
Some might argue that researchers should make no changes in the
oral speech of their participants when presenting it to an audience as a
written document. I think, however, that unless the researcher is planning
a semantic analysis or the subject of the interview itself is the language
development of the participant, the claims for the realism of the oral
speech are balanced by the researcher's obligation to maintain the dignity
of the participant in presenting his or her oral speech in writing.
Normally, I try to present material in a profile in the order in which
it came in the interviews. Material that means something in one context
cannot be transposed to another context that changes its meaning. How-
ever, if material in interview three, for example, fits with a part of the
narrative based on interview two, I may decide to transpose that material,
if doing so does not wrench it out of context and distort its meaning. In
making all these decisions, I ask myself whether each is fair to the larger
interview.
An important consideration in crafting a profile is to protect the iden-
tity of the participant if the written consent form calls for doing so. Even
when transcribing the interview, use initials for all names that might
identifythe participant in case a casual reader comes across the transcript.
In creating the profile itself, select a pseudonym that does justice to the
participant. This is not an easy or a mechanical process. When choosinga
pseudonym, take into consideration issues of ethnicity, age, and the con-
text of the participant's life. Err on the side of understatement rather than
overstatement. If a participant would be made vulnerable were his or her
ANALYZING, INTERPRETING,AND SHARING INTERVIEW MATERIAL 105
identity widely known, take additional steps to conceal it. For example,
change the participant's geographical location, the details of his or her
work- a physics teacher can become a science teacher- and other identi-
fyingfacets of the person's experience. The extent to which an interviewer
needs to resort to disguiseis in direct relation to how vulnerable the person
might be if identified. But the disguise must not distort what the partici-
pant has said in the interview.
The researcher must also be alert to whether he or she has made the
participant vulnerable by the narrative itself. For example, Woods (1990)
had to exercise extreme caution because, if her participants were identi-
fied, they might be fired from their teaching positions. Finally, the partici-
pant's dignity must always be a consideration. Participants volunteer to be
interviewed but not to be maligned or incriminated by their own words.
A function of the interviewing process and its products should be to reveal
the participant's sense of self and worth.
Profilesas a Way of Knowing
I include in the Appendix two examples of profiles. The first is an
edited version of a profile developed by Toon Fuderich (1995), who is
doing doctoral research on the child survivorsof the Pol Pot era in Cambo-
dia. She interviewed 17 refugees who had come to the United States to
start a new life. The profile presented is of a participant called Nanda who
was 28 at the time of her interview and worked part time in a human
services agency. In a note to her paper, Fuderich indicated that in order
to present the material clearly, she eliminated hesitations and repetitions
in Nanda's speech. She also removed some of the idiosyncrasiesof Nanda's
speech and made grammatical corrections while at the same time remain-
ing "respectful of the content and the intended meaning of the partici-
pant's words" (Fuderich, 1995).
I hesitated to include the profile of Nanda because I was afraid read-
ers would think in-depth interviewing is only successful when it results in
the kind of dramatic and heart-rending material Fuderich shared in Nan-
da's profile. I was concerned that potential researchers, especiallydoctoral
candidates, would hesitate to try the process if their research areas seemed
to them, in comparison, to be mundane.
As Nanda's profile reveals, in-depth interviewing is capable of captur-
ing momentous, historical experiences. I wanted to both reveal that capa-
bility and share Fuderich's work, which seemed to me so compelling.
However, in-depth interviewing research is perhaps even more capable of
reconstructing and finding the compelling in the experiences of everyday
life.

106 INTERVIEWINGAS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
The profile presented is of a participant, Betty, who is a family day-
~rovider.She takes care of six children in her home every day. Most
e children are in "protective slots," that is, their day care is paid for
he state. Their parents are often required to leave them in care because
r have been or are at risk of being abused or neglected.
ented a version of this profile to our seminar on In-Depth
time that anyone had asked her about the meaning in her work.
profile tells an important story in her own words. It may
ANALYZING, INTERPRETING, AND SHARING INTERVIEWMATERIAL 107
language, and the tensions and complexities of acculturation are raised,
among others.
Each researcher would be able to make explicit what she has learned
about those subjects through the presentation of the profiles and also
through connectingthose profiles to the experience of others in her sample.
By telling Betty's story of her everyday work in her own words, Sheehan is
setting the stage for her readers to learn about the issues involved in pro-
viding day care through the experiences of a person deeply involved in
that work. By telling Nanda's story, Fuderich is inviting readers to both
bear witness and begin to understand the factors influencing resilience
among those who, as children, survived the Cambodian genocide, which
is the subject of her dissertation study.
MAKING AND ANALYZING THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
A more conventional way of presenting and analyzing interview data
than crafting profiles is to organize excerpts from the transcripts into cate-
gories. The researcher then searches for connecting threads and patterns
among the excerpts within those categories and for connections between
the various categories that might be called themes. In addition to present-
ing profiles of individuals, the researcher, as part of his or her analysis
of the material, can then present and comment upon excerpts from the
interviews thematically organized.
During the process of reading and marking the transcripts, the re-
searcher can begin to label the passages that he or she has marked as
interesting. After having read and indicated interesting passages in two or
three participants' interviews, the researcher can pause to consider
whether they can be labeled. What is the subject of the marked passages?
Are there words or a phrase that seems to describe them, at least tenta-
tively? Is there a word within the passage itself that suggests a category
into which the passage might fit? In Sheehan's transcript, some of the
labels for the passages included in the Appendix might be "background of
provider," "support groups," "parents," "impact on family," "abuse," and
"parents."
The process of noting what is interesting, labeling it, and putting it
into appropriate files is called "classifying" or, in some sources, "coding"
data. (See Dey, 1993,p. 58, for a critique of the term coding as applied to
qualitative research.)
Computer programs are available that will help classify, sort, file,
and reconnect interview data. By telling the computer what to look for,
the program can scan large amounts of data quickly and sort material into

108 INTERVIEWINGAS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
categories according to the directions. (SeeDey, 1993; Weitzman & Miles,
1995, for introductions to the use of computer programs in qualitative
data analysis and reviews of specific programs.)
For those who choose to work with either a dedicated analytical pro-
gram or even a word-processing program, I suggest caution in doing signif-
icant coding or editing on screen. I recommend working first on a paper
copy and then transfering the work to the computer. My experienceis that
there is a significant difference between what one sees in a text presented
on paper and the same text shown on screen, and that one's response is
different, too. I have learned, for example, that it is foolish of me to edit
on screen, because I invariably miss issues that are easily evident to me
when I work with a paper copy. I would not recommend relying on
reading an interview text on screen for the process of categorizing mate-
rial. Something in the mediums of screen and paper affects the message the
viewer retrieves (seeMarshall McLuhan, 1965, for an early and influential
commentary on this process).
At this point in the reading, marking, and labeling process it is impor-
tant to keep labels tentative. Locking in categories too early can lead to
dead ends. Some of the categories will work out. That is, as the researcher
continues to read and mark interview transcripts, other passageswill come
up that seem connected to the same category. On the other hand, some
categories that seemed promising early in the process will die out. New
ones may appear. Categories that seemed separate and distinct will fold
into each other. Others may remain in flux almost until the end of the
study (Davis, 1984).
In addition to labeling each marked passage with a term that places it
in a category, researchers should also label each passage with a notation
system that will designate its original place in the transcript. (Dey, 1993,
points out that many dedicated analytical computer programs will do this
automatically.) I use, for example, the initials of the participant, a Roman
numeral for the number of the interview in the three-interview sequence,
and Arabic numbers for the page number of the transcript on which the
passage occurs. Later, when working with the material and considering
an excerpt taken from its original context, the researcher may want to
check the accuracy of the text and replace it in its full context, even going
back to the audiotape itself. The labeling of each excerpt allows such
retracing.
The next step is to file those excerpts either in computer files under
the name of the assigned category or in folders. Some excerpts might fit
reasonably into more than one file. Make copies of those and file in the
multiple files that seem appropriate.
After filing all the marked excerpts, reread all of them file by file.
ANALYZING, INTERPRETING, AND SHARING INTERVIEWMATERIAL 109
Start sifting out the ones that now seem very compelling, setting aside the
ones that seem at this stage to be of less interest. At this point, the re-
searcher is in what Rowan (1981) calls a "dialectical" process with the
material (p. 134).The participants have spoken, and now the interviewer
is responding to their words, concentrating his or her intuition and intel-
lect on the process. What emerges is a synthesis of what the participant
has said and how the researcher has responded.
Some commentators regard this sorting and culling as an entirely
intuitive process (Tagg, 1985). It is important, however, that researchers
also try to form and articulate their criteria for the winnowing and sorting
process. By doing so, they give their readers a basis for understanding
the process the researcher used in reducing the mass of words to more
manageable proportions.
I do not begin to read the transcripts with a set of categories for which
I want to find excerpts. The categories arise out of the passages that I have
marked as interesting. On the other hand, when I reflect on the types of
material that arouse my interest, it is clear that somepatterns are present,
that I have certain predispositions I bring to my reading of the transcripts.
When working with excerpts from interview material, I find myself
selecting passages that connect to other passages in the file. In a way,
quantity starts to interact with quality. The repetition of an aspect of
experience that was already mentioned in other passages takes on weight
and calls attention to itself.
I notice excerpts from a participant's experience that connect to each
other as well as to passages from other participants. Sometimes excerpts
connect to the literature on the subject. They stand out because I have
read about the issue from a perspective independent of my interviewing.
Some passages are told in a striking manner or highlight a dramatic
incident. Those are perhaps the most troublesome for me. They are attrac-
tive because of their style or the sheer drama of the incident, but I know
that I have to be careful about such passages. The dramatic can be con-
fused with the pervasive. The researcher has to judge whether the particu-
lar dramatic incident is idiosyncratic or characteristic (Mostyn, 1985).
Some passages stand out because they are contradictory and seem
decisively inconsistent with others. It is tempting to put those aside. These
in particular, however, have to be kept in the foreground, lest researchers
exercise their own biased subjectivity, noticing and using only materials
that support their own opinions (Kvale, 1996, p. 212). The researcher has
to try to understand their importance in the face of the other data he or
she has gathered (Miles& Huberman, 1984).
The process of working with excerpts from participants' interviews,
seeking connections among them, explaining those connections and build-

INTERVIEWING AS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
erpretative categories is demanding and involves risks. The danger
the researcher will try to force the excerpts into categories, and the
r she already has in mind, rather than let
e of the participants as represented in the
n an interviewer spends so much time talking to
out what their experience is and the meaning they
nections among the experiences of people
re. Rowan (1981)stresses the inappropriateness
of participants into theories derived from other
r total immersion in the data. It is important
or marking certain passages as notable and
some over others in order for the process to have public credibil-
ffirm your judgment as a researcher. You
udied the transcripts, and read the related
ived with and wrestled with the data, and
.As Judi Marshall (1985)says, your feeling
the process of working with theilata is
as the researcher.
INTERPRETING THE MATERIAL
Interpreting is not a process researchers do only near the end of the
project. Even as interviewers question their participants, tentative inter-
pretations may begin to influence the path of their questioning. Marking
passages that are of interest, labeling them, and grouping them is analytic
work that has within it the seeds of interpretation. Crafting a profile is an
act of analysis, as is presenting and commenting upon excerpts arranged
in categories. Both processes lay the ground for interpretation. (I am using
Wolcott's (1994) distinction between the words analysis and interpreta-
tion. I think Wolcott offers a solid approach to working with interview
data in his thoughtful explication of the terms description, analysis, and
interpretation. In this book, I have used the phrase sharing the data in-
stead of Wolcott's description.)
In some ways, it is tempting to let the profiles and the categorized,
thematic excerpts speak for themselves. But another step is appropriate.
Researchers must ask themselves what they have learned from doing the
interviews, studying the transcripts, marking and labeling them, crafting
profiles, and organizing categories of excerpts. What connective threads
are there among the experiences of the participants they interviewed?
How do they understand and explain these connections? What do they
ANALYZING, INTERPRETING, AND SHARING INTERVIEWMATERIAL
understand now that they did not understand before they began the inter-
views? What surprises have there been? What confirmations of previous
instincts? How have their interviews been consistent with the literature?
How inconsistent? How have they gone beyond?
Glaser and Strauss (1967) and Maxwell (1996)address these questions
with a practical suggestion: When you have identified passages that are
important but the category in which they fall seems undefined or its signif-
icance is unclear, write a memorandum about those passages. Through
your writing about them, about how they were picked, about what they
mean to you, the properties and import of the category may become
clear. If you write such memoranda about each of the categories you have
developed and about the profiles you have crafted, the process of writing
about them will lead you to discover what it is you find important in them
both individually and relatively.
Much of what you learn may be tentative, suggesting further re-
search. In the early stages of our study of student teachers and mentors
(Fischetti, Santilli, & Seidman, 1988; O'Donnell et al., 1989), we began
to see evidence in the language of the student teachers we interviewed
that tracking in schools was affecting how they were learning to become
teachers. That led O'Donnell (1990) to conceptualize a dissertation study
on the impact of tracking on learning to become a teacher.
The last stage of interpretation, then, consistent with the interview
process itself, asks researchers what meaning they have made of their
work. In the course of interviewing, researchers asked the participants
what their experience meant to them. Now they have the opportunity to
respond to the same question. In doing so they might review how they
came to their research, what their research experience was like, and,
finally, what it means to them. How do they understand it, make sense of
it, and see connections in it?
Someof what researchers learn may lead them to propose connections
among events, structures, roles, and social forces operating in people's
lives. Some researchers would call such proposals theories and urge theory
building as the purpose of research (Fay, 1987). My own feeling is that
although the notion of grounded theory generated by Glaser and Strauss
(1967)offered qualitative researchers a welcome rationale for their induc-
tive approach to research, it also served to inflate the term theory to the
point that it has lost some of its usefulness. (SeeDey, 1993, pp. 51-52, for
a useful critique of the casual use of the word theory.)
The narratives we shape of the participants we have interviewed are
necessarily limited. Their lives go on; our presentations of them are
framed and reified. Betty, whose profile is in the Appendix, is still working
out her relationship to child care. Nanda is still living out her life in the

INTERVIEWING AS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
United States. Moreover, the narratives that we present are a function
of our interaction with the participants and their words. Although my
experience suggests that a number of people reading Betty's or Nanda's
transcripts separately would nevertheless develop similar narratives, we
still have to leave open the possibility that other interviewers and crafters
Id have told a differentstory. (SeeFay, 1987,pp. 166-174.)
nating as in-depth interviews can be, as compelling as the
are that they can tell and the themes they can highlight, we still
o bear in mind that Heisenberg's principle of indeterminacy per-
s our work, as it does the work of physicists (Polanyi, 1958).We have
low considerable tolerance for uncertainty (Bronowski, 1973) in the
e report what we have learned from our research.
arch method has its limits and its strengths. In-depth inter-
ngth is that through it we can come to understand the details
experience from their point of view. We can see how their
experience interacts with powerful social and organizational
pervade the context in which they live and work, and we can
terconnections among people who live and work in a shared
interviewing has not led me to an easy assessment of the
of progressive reform through research (Bury, 1932; Fay,
s led me to a deeper understanding and appreciation of the
tricacies and, yet, coherence of people's experiences. It has also
a more conscious awareness of the power of the social and
nlzational context of people's experience. Interviewing has provided
eeper understanding of the issues, structures, processes, and
imbue participants' stories. It has also given me a fuller ap-
preciation of the complexities and difficulties of change. Most important
and almost always, interviewing continues to lead me to respect the parti-
cipants, to relish the understanding that I gain from them, and to take
pleasure in sharing their stories.
APPENDIX
Two Profiles: A Cambodian Survivor
of the Pol Pot Era and a Long-Time
Day Care Provider
NANDA-A CAMBODIAN SURVIVOR
OF THE POL POT ERA
Toon Fuderich
Before the war, . . . we had a very large extended family . . . a lot
of aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. I am one of four children. I
have an older brother and a younger brother and sister. My family was
quite well-off. My father had his own business; my mother owned a gro-
cery store; my paternal grandparents owned a flour mill. My father was
well respected in our village. He was a handsome and intelligent man who
valued education highly. He always told us about the importance of get-
ting an education.
I was 8 years old when Pol Pot took over Cambodia . . . forced labor
camps were established throughout the country. People were forced to
leave their home to work in these camps. When the war broke out, Khmer
Rouge soldiers came to our village. They told us that they came to free us
from the oppressive government. They told us not to worry about anything
and that everything will be fine. But nothing was fine. It was all a lie.
They killed innocent people. The educated professionals like doctors, busi-
nessmen, teachers were the first to be killed. It was just horrible.
Every day the soldiersorganized a meeting to re-educate the villagers.
The meeting usually runs from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Everyone had to attend
except for those who were gravely ill. . . . One day just before my father
left for the meeting, a group of soldiers came for my father. My mother
was already at the meeting. I was the only one left at home at the time.
They entered our house. Ransacked the whole place (long pause) took
everything . . . Then my father was led outside, his hands were tied be-
hind his back. I was so frightened, but decided to follow them.
I hid behind a cupboard and tried to peer through a small crack to see
my father. The soldiers accused my father of betraying his country. My
father kept saying to them "I love my country. I have children. I love my

APPENDIX
My husband has a different shift. He is glad when he comes home. He
likes to stay at home. Me, I'm cooped up in the house. I want to get out.
Now we do one weekend with the kids and one weekend we do something
[together]. He works in a jail. We sit together. He tells me about the jail. I
tell him about day care. We both look at each other and say, "We're-
crazy. Let's do something. Let's get away." (Sheehan, 1989)
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