Structuring Interviews Around Research Gaps
Launch library · evergreen read
Walking into an interview without first identifying what the documentary or written record already establishes wastes a subject's time and a writer's opportunity, since questions end up covering ground the paper trail could already answer more reliably than any single human memory ever genuinely could on its own.
A more efficient approach reviews the existing record first, then builds interview questions specifically around its gaps, its ambiguities, and the human context no document could ever supply, using the subject's time for exactly what only they can genuinely provide. This kind of preparation also protects a limited interview slot from being wasted on questions a quick search could have already answered, leaving more time for the harder, more valuable conversation an interview actually exists to have.
This preparation also signals real respect to a subject, since arriving with informed, specific questions rather than generic ones shows the interview was taken seriously as a genuine opportunity, not treated as a routine box to be quickly and carelessly ticked off a checklist somewhere.