SITUATIONAL WRITING 4

INTERVIEWS

Decide

1. What is the purpose of your interview?

To get information, to entertain, to get a description?

2. Who is the audience for your interview?

3. What is the tone of your interview?

Formal/semi-formal/informal

PLAN YOU QUESTIONS

a. Use the information from the questions above to help you.

b. Types of questions.

Open questions will get longer answers than closed questions.

Eg.

OPEN Why do enjoy shopping?

CLOSED Do you enjoy shopping?

Closed questions only get yes or no answers.

WRITING THE INTERVIEW

A. Write your questions and answers out.

B. Note the form below.

Note the semi colon too!

INTERVIEWER: Hi.

JAN: Hello.

I: What did you do on the trip?

J: Well, we saw a lot of wildlife.

C. You should introduce your subject briefly.

INTERVIEWER: Today I am interviewing Jane Brown, an expert on elephants.

INTERVIEWER: In the studio we are delighted to welcome Jane Brown, who is a world-renowned
expert on elephants.

D. The interviewer and subject are talking so it is good to use contractions as you would in
conversation.
‘I’d never seen elephants as big as that and we’d never been so amazed.’
 E. You can put in exclamation marks too. This makes it sound more natural.
‘We’d never been so amazed!’
F. Idioms and phrasal verbs add a natural feeling to the writing.
‘We got up on the elephant which was as big as a house.’
G. Your interview can have a direct address, such as 'you', 'your', 'yours', etc
‘How was your trip?’
H. Finish the interview with a tie up line and a thanks.
‘That was a fascinating conversation. Many thanks to Jan for joining us today!’

PRO TIPS

1. Instead of an evenly balanced conversation between two people, an interview will have
one person talking a lot more than the other.
2. Use filler words like 'Well', and one-word phrases like:' you know', 'I am sure', etc

QUIZ
a. What is wrong with the form of this question?
Me……’How was your trip.?’

It should read
I: How was your trip?

b. Turn these closed questions into open questions.

Did you enjoy your trip?
Were the elephants interesting?

Why did you enjoy your trip?

What interested you about the elephants?

c. How can you improve these sentences so that they sound natural?

In what way was one’s interest aroused by the viewing of the elephants?
Can you inform us how one has aided elephant conservation?

What did you find interesting when you saw the elephants?
Tell us how you’ve helped elephant conservation.