How do you design effective oral history questions and prompts?

Be sure to set aside a lot of time for an oral interview. The interviewee should never fell rushed. Expect the interview to progress slowly at first. It takes a while to jog someone’s memory especially if they have 80 years to remember

Your topic will likely need to be more focused than you originally think. My past oral history research has focused on the lives of mill workers from the Blackstone River Valley, a fairly small region. I selected specific aspects about working in the mill and daily life outside the mill, then derived questions based solely on those themes. Scope creep in oral history research and interviewing can lead to a watered-down project with plenty of material but not the correct information.

Usually when completing oral history interviews you need to have developed trust with not only the person you are interviewing but the community you are looking to document. Outsiders do not have the same amount of reposent and trust and thus honesty within interviewers as trusted individuals.

Be sure to work with other people when finding willing interviewees for your oral history project. These projects tend to focus on older interviewees. Check with local historical societies, libraries, and senior centers to see if they know anyone willing to be interviewed. Interviewees will often name other potential interviewees during their conversation. Additionally, learn as much background as you can ahead of time. Interviewees will be impressed and more likely to trust you if you know details about their culture or daily life, such as traditional foods, street names, local businesses, and colloquial terms.

Before launching into a series of interviews, be sure to run your questions by at least one sensitivity reader. This is someone you already know and trust who is active within the community where you want to conduct interviews. While your previous research allows you to make a comprehensive set of questions, your sensitivity reader can identify specific words or phrases that might be problematic or simply produce different results than what you were hoping to get. Be sure to compensate your sensitivity reader, especially if you are giving them a lot of questions.

Even with your sensitivity reader, some suboptimal questions may slip by. Conducting a pilot interview or dry run, especially with a supportive member of the community, should eliminate more if not all problems. You may also use this opportunity to test out your audio and visual recording equipment, discussed in more detail in the next section. Finally, consider sharing this pilot footage with other history professionals who can give feedback on whether this information is helpful for the research community, or if different or additional questions would be of more value.

You want to make sure you are also gaining permission and interact with the community far before completing the interview. You want to have had contact and discussions far before this point with community members and respected contacts within the community

It is human nature to relay life events with a twist. Personal perspective given in the course of interview is not always the same as truth. Personal information should be held dear so that conversations further down the line can clarify inaccuracies or what may be potentially defamatory if prematurely put out in the public domain. All content must be protected, and beyond the written word—consider photographs, documents and certificates shared by the storyteller to support anecdotes or to illustrate achievements. The subject should be assured that any information collected during client-writer interactions will be dealt with sensitively, confidentially, will only be kept for as long as necessary, and used only for the purpose intended.

Remember to think about what happens at the end of your research. Do you want to remain in contact with this community afterwards or are you likely to need to move on? Will you need a compasionate 'exit strategy'? Sharing memories naturally builds bonds between people and it is important that the people you are working with don't feel used or abandoned when you come to the end of your research. Take some time to think about how the relationships you are building would feel from the other side and act in as humane a way as possible.

Besides having great questions and a willing interviewee, make sure you are recording high quality audio and visuals. Test the noise level of the room before you begin recording. Try to keep the noise of electrical appliances like lights and fans at a minimum. If video recording, before the face of the participant is well-lit, and that the background is not distracting. If you are not comfortable with audio and video recording, consider hiring a professional as your assistant. You might contact local high schools and colleges with audio-visual clubs where talented students want opportunities to further improve their skills. Be sure to compensate whoever assists you in recording.