Take an interview question you might ask your source and say it out loud: “Do you like the new schedule?” The answer ends with a single word: yes, no, or maybe. This doesn’t give you anything to quote, fact-check, or develop into a full paragraph. Now, try rewording the question: “What changed in your mornings after the new schedule started?” Now your source has something tangible to report, a detail, an issue, a routine, an illustration. Your reporting work is already more substantive.
The best interview questions elicit specific information without being overly restrictive. Ask a question that’s too vague, and the source can ramble. Ask a question that’s too restricted, and the source answers in a phrase. “What do you think of student housing?” is too broad. “Is rent expensive?” is too narrow. “What expenses surprised you most when you began searching for housing?” provides the source with a clear context but allows a full response.
Every question you write must reflect your story angle. If you’ve written a story about student use of cafes as study spaces, you aren’t going to need an exhaustive conversation about every coffee shop in town. You’re going to need questions regarding seating, noise, cost, Wi-Fi availability, hours, and why students select one establishment over another. This will keep your source roster, notebook entries, and subsequent news article free from the clutter of interesting but unusable information. Precise questions help keep your article from meandering.
Part of interview preparation means creating a follow-up for every response. Follow-ups are the questions you ask after the source’s initial response, especially if the answer is something you need to confirm or explain. “Can you give me an example?” is a great follow-up. “When?” “With whom?” “What happened afterwards?” are all great follow-ups. Good follow-ups can expand a broad statement into a concrete quote and can reveal additional information you might need to verify, a source name you need to record, or a claim that requires a second opinion.
Drafting interview questions can be done in two rounds. First, get whatever questions you can write down. Second, evaluate every question to determine whether it can be answered with yes or no; then, rephrase questions that elicit a simple answer into questions that ask for a specific example, detail, cause, comparison, change, or other. “Did the new policy impact your routine?” might be rephrased: “What was the first thing that needed to be done differently when the new policy became law?” Rephrasing questions in this way will increase the likelihood of eliciting a quotable quote.
Finally, be sure to leave space under your questions in your notebook or document to take note of quotes, possible facts that need verification, names, dates, and any other details that might need to be confirmed. If using a digital recorder, check on your source’s permission and be sure the device’s audio is not distorted. Although a recorded transcript is useful in the drafting phase, it will not replace the need to take live notes because only your handwritten transcript can capture the significance a source places on certain statements.
After an interview, go back and read over what the sources said before starting to write. What’s a quote that adds new details as opposed to echoing your summary statement? What’s an answer that requires a fact check? What statement is relevant to the headline or the lead? If your answers are mostly short, shallow, or imprecise, the issue might not lie with the source; you may need to ask better questions. Better questions might not ensure a flawless interview, but they do provide the source a better opportunity to give you material that you can actually use.