(BTU) Lesson Topic 4: Interview Intrigue

Lesson Topic 4: Interview Intrigue

What is an Interview?

If you have ever seen a talk show or a news show, you might be familiar with how an interview works. An interview is a conversation between two or more people where questions are asked by the interviewer to find out information. These conversations can be a type of research in order to gain information about a topic from a primary source.

Types of Interviews

Just as there are different types of articles and essays, there are also different types of interviews.

1. Informal/Conversational: No questions thought of beforehand. The interviewer just asks questions as he or she thinks of them.
2. General Interview Guide: The interviewer has multiple people to question and makes sure that the same questions are asked, but they can be asked in different ways to each person being interviewed. This type of interview is still informal and allows the conversation to flow like in the informal type of interview.
3. Standardized/Open-Ended: The exact same questions are asked to each person being interviewed in order to have clear ways to compare responses.
4. Closed/Fixed-Response: All people being interviewed are asked the exact same questions, and they must choose responses from the same set of options.

Interview Example

Here is an example Links to an external site. of how an interview is conducted. You will conduct your own interview at the end of this module, so use this information to brush up on your interview skills.

Nonfiction Practice

Now, you will have a chance to practice matching the different nonfiction characteristics to the type of nonfiction they belong to: