ref-guidelines for doing oral history

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Guidelines for Doing Oral History

"Simply put, oral history collects spoken memories and personalcommentaries of historical significance through recordedinterviews."

Donald A. Ritchie, Doing Oral History, 1995

Since we began this project, Debbie and I have had so many inquiries about"how to do it" that we want to include these pointers for people interested inconducting an oral history project of their own. First, identify the projectspecifically, limiting it as much as possible. For instance, we decided toconcentrate on the town of Grundy--not the surrounding communities, andnot the whole county. You may be planning to do an oral history of yourfamily, your church, club, town, or group...whatever. Then decide who will beconducting the interviews and who will be editing the final version. Make up apacket of information for the interviewers. Our packet included both

directions and examples (aimed at high school students, in our case, but youcan tailor these items to fit your needs). For instance:

Sample Letter for Student Interviewers

Hello,

We are embarking on an exciting project together--our aim is to create an oralhistory of the town of Grundy before it is forever changed by relocation. Wewant to capture many people's stories of life in Grundy, told in their ownwords, so that a written record of this community will exist. Our ultimate goalis to publish a book containing these oral histories, plus photographs. Thesuccess of this historic project is up to you, frankly! You will be the reporters--the oral historians for this important, historic project.

Here are some tips!

Good luck!

Lee Smith

TIPS FOR THE INTERVIEW (from Lee)

1. Miss Raines will help you decide who you are going to interview. Youmay already know this person. If you don't, find out some things about

them before you make contact. This will give you a frame of reference

for your conversation. If it's a downtown merchant, for instance, be

sure you have gone in their store recently. Ask your parents, friends, or

teachers to tell you a little bit about this person before you go to visit.

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2. Go over the sheet of questions, which is intended merely as a guide--a

list of suggestions. Your aim is to find out what living in Grundy has

been like for this person. Make yourself familiar with the questions, but

don't feel that you have to ask every one on the list. These are

suggestions, remember. Your person may answer 4 or 5 of thequestions when they are responding to the very first one! This is O.K.

You may change your questions to fit your person, too. If he/she is a

minister, for instance, you'd want to concentrate on that...use your

common sense! Sometimes, some of you may be going out to ask for a

particular story that somebody knows. In this case, you can skip some

of the list and ask other questions that will get the story you're after.

Either way, go over your questions ahead of time. Think through the

interview. Be sure to take your list of written questions with you!

3. Learn to use your tape recorder. Play with it--record yourself, then play

it back. Experiment with the best position for the tape recorder, etc. Do

a trial interview. Practice on a parent or other family member, such as

your grandmother. Be very serious about this; it's great practice. Set a

time for the trial interview when you will not be interrupted. Write out

your questions ahead of time, if you are not using the list provided. It

would be fun, for instance, to interview your parent about his/her own

childhood--you'll be surprised by how much they have to say! The key

to successful interviewing is always ask very specific questions. For

instance: "Where did you live when you were real little? Describe the

house. What did you play? Who did you play with? Were you ever bad?What kind of punishment did you get? Where did you start school? How

did you get there? How did you like it? What did you do on Saturdays?

Did you have chores at home? What were they? Would you say you

were a happy child? Did you go to church? Where? Who was your most

favorite person in your family? Why? Your least favorite? Why?" etc.4. Make contact with the person you want to interview. Do this well ahead

of the time you want to do the interview--but not so far ahead thatthey will forget!

o If you have a contact (somebody who knows them well), ask that

person to call up and tell them about the project, and tell themthat you will be getting in touch.

o CALL the person you want to interview. Tell them who you are (if

you go to their church, or if they knew your father, etc., mention

this connection...tell them who suggested them...etc.) Tell them

what you are doing. Flatter them! Tell them how much it will

mean to you/everybody for them to be a part of this exciting and

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7. ABOUT YOU!We want to know about you, too. Please make a sheet of informationabout yourself which includes the following:

Your nameAge

AddressPhone number

Year in SchoolWho your parents are---What they doInterests, hobbies, activitiesAmbitions: What do you hope to do in the future?Who did you interview?

Tape or attach your photograph to this sheet.

SAMPLE RELEASE FORM

This tape (or tapes) and the accompanying transcript are the result of one ormore recorded, voluntary interviews with me.

Any reader should bear in mind that he is reading a transcript of my spoken,not my written word and that the tape, not the transcript, is the primarydocument.It is understood that the Buchanan County Public Library may allow scholarsor interested persons to listen to the tapes and read the transcript foreducational purposes. It is further understood that material from these tapesand transcripts may be used in book form documenting the history of Grundy,for non-profit / charitable purposes only.

Signed: _______________________Date: _______________________

Understood and agreed to:

Interviewer(s): __________________________, __________________________Date: _____________________

Director: _________________________

A SAMPLE INTERVIEW

Here are some general questions which might begin the interview; be sure totake written questions with you, focusing upon your particular project andinterview subject.

1. What is your full name?

2. When were you born?

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3. Where were you born?

4. What was your mother's name?

5. What was your father's name?

6. What kind of work did your father do?

7. What did your mother do? Did she work outside the home?8. How many brothers and sisters did you have?

9. Where did you go to school?

10.What was it like going to school there?

11.As a child or young person, what did you do for fun?

12.How would you describe your childhood as a whole? Was it happy,

hard....what?

13.Where do you live now?

14.Who lives with you?

15.What kind of work do you do now?

16.How long have you worked at your present occupation?

17.Have you always done this kind of work? If not,tell me briefly what

other jobs you've held over the years.

18.Do you have any hobbies or special interests?19.Describe a typical day in your life.

ETC! The rest of the questions related specifically to our subjects' lives andexperiences in Grundy over the years. Make up 30-40 questions to ask in all.

Further Suggestions from Debbie

1. Always take two recorders so if one should fail right in the middle of

the interview (and believe me that happens!), the students will have a

backup. This is also a good idea if you are interviewing a group. You

can place them in different positions so that if it doesn't record clearly

on one, it might just do so on the other.

2. If at all possible, students should be requested to transcribe the

interview on the computer using Microsoft Word or a similar word

processing program. (Word is definitely the best because it can convert

other documents done with other processing programs.) Students

should give the disk as well as the interview to the teacher so he orshe can put all the interviews on one computer. How I wish I had done

this. Not only does it help you to keep up with the interviews, it makes

it so easy to edit.

3. The teacher should definitely review all questions with each team

before they go for the interview. Students should know as much as

they possibly can about the person they are interviewing before they

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go, so they will be able to make small talk as well as to ask the proper

questions. They do need to simply talk (especially with the elderly)

before they jump into the questions. This seems like a no-brainer, but

many of the kids don't have a clue.4. Teachers should be sure they have a system worked out as far as

keeping up with all the pictures and all the documents. Again, Irecommend doing all of this on the computer. It's so easy to get in arush and lose a piece of information.

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