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It is important to develop a plan for locating subjects for interviews related to your research question. You may be able to consult with the individual within the community you have contacted; or you can just speculate on possible contacts based on information and research you have gathered so far. To the extent possible, try to converse with a range of people—definitely include the religious leader or designated spokesperson or a board member, but try also to get to regular participants in the community. Be sure to obtain information about each individual (title and contact information especially) and keep track of dates and location. You should try to balance out gender and age, especially if either is a factor in your research question.

Interviewing is one of those activities best described as an art and a science. You need to be organized and prepared in order to succeed; but you also need to read your interviewee, attend to non-verbal communication, detect nuances in answers that suggest whether follow up questions are appropriate, etc. The following suggestions are intended to help you develop your own plan and approach after you have arranged for an interview.

• You are a learner, not an evaluator.  Be open-minded, flexible, and ready to change your approach as the interview proceeds.
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• Interviews can take only a few minutes; but sometimes they can take off and require around 45 to 60 minutes to complete. Be mindful of the time as the discussion proceeds, particularly if you find yourself drifting into conversations that draw you away from your questions.li>
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• Introduce yourself, your interests, your course, and why conversations like this interview are important to you. It is your interview, and it is important your subject understand and feel comfortable about what you are up to, why certain questions are posed, etc.
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• If you want (see above) bring a tape recorder or video camera (with tripod) after having obtained permission to use them. This equipment should free you from taking copious notes during the interview, and of course makes analysis and selection of items for presentation later much easier.
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• Review and think about the questions you have prepared beforehand—not on the bus on the way over, but carefully, over a couple of days, going back to drafts to revise and re-organize points. You can—and should be prepared to—deviate from a completed script; but you can’t make it up on the spot. If you are conducting the interviews in pairs or as a team, be sure to divide up questions ahead of time, and be mindful of transitions between the two of you. Ways to focus or transition interviews can include phrases like, “Can we talk further about X?” or “I have been reading about X lately and would like your reaction to what scholars are saying…” Preparation along these lines not only makes for a better interview; it reflects your professionalism and helps establish rapport with your interviewee.
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• Be mindful that different types of questions will make the interview session productive and flow nicely. Be sure to include specific questions that target the interview subject’s knowledge or responsibilities. When possible, pose open-ended questions, and avoid suggesting answers (e.g. it’s fine to ask about the center’s relationship with neighbors, but do not propose their recent complaints about traffic or parking as the focus). Be clear in your mind about the difference between questions relating to the subject’s personal experiences or beliefs and questions relating to the community’s calendar or activities for youth. It is one thing to ask about the importance of ritual in a subject’s spiritual life, and another to ask about what rites of passages are celebrated in their community. Be sure to ask questions that allow the subject to tell his or her story—this might consist of anecdotes about amusing and/or tense relations within a family, or one’s role in the establishing of the center, about which your subject takes pride.
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• Draw on your observations and in particular on your class—e.g. begin questions with, “I have observed…”or, “In this book Prof. Pleins assigned, the author suggests...”, and then ask the subject to respond, correct, explain. You may also want to draw upon LRP’s interest in religious diversity or immigration, asking if these seem important to members of your subject’s community.
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• Your interview questions are not your research questions. The responses you receive to the former help you answer the latter; but you should not presume your interview subject is interested in or able to frame his or her thoughts along the lines of your research agenda. (For example, you may pose questions to get at immigration by asking about family history, where parents and grandparents are from, languages spoken, experiences with moving into new neighborhoods, how the center helps integrate new arrivals into the local community, first and second generation issues, etc.—without mentioning the word “immigration.” Similarly, you may ask about voting, or attention to city council, or relationships with local police, or attendance at community events, participation in sports leagues, attitudes about diversity, etc.—without using the phrases “civic engagement” or “social capital.”)
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• Be attentive to your interviewee’s background. For example, age is relevant--interviewing a ten year old about their language school experience may give you great material on how a community maintains ethnic identity. But don’t ask a ten year old at a synagogue Hebrew class, “How does learning Hebrew shape your ethnic identity?”

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