Recognising Leading Questions in Your Own Drafts
Launch library · evergreen read
A leading question suggests its own answer, and it is surprisingly easy to write one without noticing, especially once an interviewer has developed a strong working theory about what actually happened and unconsciously begins shaping questions around confirming rather than genuinely testing that theory against whatever the subject actually has to say about it.
Reviewing a prepared question list before an interview with this specific risk in mind, reading each question as though someone else entirely had written it, often catches phrasing that quietly assumes an answer rather than genuinely inviting one openly from the subject being interviewed, whose own account should genuinely be free to surprise the interviewer.
The fix is usually simple rewording: replacing a question that assumes a conclusion with one that asks neutrally what happened, then letting the subject's own account confirm or complicate the working theory entirely on its own considerable merits, rather than on the interviewer's private expectations going in.