How the Sources in this Guide Can Help with the Interview Project
Before the Interview
The information in these sources can help you come up with good interview questions. For example:
- If your interviewee is a performer, in your pre-interview research you might learn that s/he performed at a specific venue, or was inspired by a particular style of music, or worked with a certain organization -- you could ask your interviewee to tell you more about that.
- If your interviewee is a fan of a particular band or style of music, in your pre-interview research you might learn about events or history related to the band or style that you could then ask your interviewee about.
Informed questions can show your interviewee that you are interested and can lead to a more in-depth conversation.
After the Interview
The information in these sources can help fill in information if your interviewee talked about something you want to learn more about, or if your interviewee didn't talk very much. For example:
- If your interviewee is a pianist and says during the interview that their favorite composer is Chopin, you could do post-interview research to find out more about Chopin to add more context and interest to your write-up.
Types of Sources in This Guide
| News Articles |
Books | Websites | |
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 |
 |
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| Current (or older) reporting on specific events and issues |
Comprehensive background information, history |
Enormous range of information, includes news and overviews |
Brief overviews, definitions |
Source Credibility & Scholarliness
Sources of information can range from being not scholarly, to very scholarly, to somewhere in the middle. Each source will go somewhere on this scale:
0 |------------------------------------------------5-----------------------------------------------| 10
Least Scholarly Mid-level Most Scholarly
Ex.: entertainment Ex.: magazine & newspaper articles Ex.: academic journal articles
For your research for this assignment, your sources will likely be mainly Mid-level -- credible, but not necessarily the most scholarly.
Click on the links below for more information on identifying how scholarly a source is, and for information on source credibility, fake news (and how to identify it), and media bias. All sources, whether articles, books, or websites, should be examined and reviewed for credibility and bias.