Oral History School – 7

The interviewer is the best compiler

Compiled by: Maryam Assadi Jafari
Translated by: M.B. Khoshnevisan

2024-10-1

According to Oral History Website, Dr. Morteza Rasoulipour in the framework of four online sessions described the topic “Compilation in Oral History” in the second half of the month of Mordad (August 2024). It has been organized by the Iranian History Association. In continuation, a selection of the teaching will be retold:

Significance of familiarizing oral history compiler with the principles of compilation and editing

I personally believe in compilation. First, we need compilation, because we are not only dealing with oral texts. That means, basically, diaries, handwritings, all kinds of travelogues and historical writings need compilation. Another part is related to the interviews, if the output is to be presented in the form of writing, then again, the issue of compilation is a basic need and we must address it. If the oral history interns have proficiency over the things I will mention later, compilation with different functions will be useful for them. That is, they can turn a written text - which has a monologue mode - into a conversation. Or turn a conversation into a memoir. While working for the past three decades, I have seen people who, at the narrator's request, have turned the conversational nature of interviews into memoirs so that the work can be written in the first-person singular. Some people say the opposite, organize my memories in the form of a conversation, which is also possible. We need to be familiar with the principles and rules of organizing, compilation and editing, to be able to categorize the content and to know the text, introduction and conclusion, sequence of discussion, footnotes and appendices. These are the techniques that require a lot of study. I believe that if the interviewers are not familiar with these issues, they will not even be able to publish their interviews favorably. After this course, you must do an internship first. Have an internship for a while based on your taste and talent so that the employer trusts you as an editor. If we find between 8 and 10 errors in an edited text, in my opinion, this person has the authority to continue working, but when you see that the person has not communicated with the basis of the work and the story, we cannot accept him or her.

Dignity of oral history work cannot be rated

In my opinion, the best compiler of an interview is the interviewer. Because someone who has been in the dialogue atmosphere can write an introduction, compile and transcribe it to some extent better than anyone else. The dignity of the work of oral history cannot be rated that if, for example, we say some people in oral history only find subjects, design questions, interview, transcribe and match, and others organize and compile. I believe that one person should be able to do a research work in oral history from zero to one hundred.

Transcription is not a small task in oral history to imagine that we should not transcribe! I have seen these problems in some centers. A person must have proficiency over all the stages of a work. Maybe, we can distinguish only in the field of matching. If the interviewer does the matching himself, he may not notice his mistakes due to being too close to the work. So, if we leave it to someone else, it is much better. If the compiler is someone other than the interviewer - because the interviewer has more proficiency - it is better to be next to the compiler. Because he has information that he can provide to the organizer.

The organizer, footnote writer or the one who explains, must be aware of two things: first, to basically understand the content of the interviewee. He should read the entire text several times to get to know the interviewer's understanding well. If this acquaintance is not established well, he cannot write a good introduction and organize the text.

In compilation, you can interfere a lot and your hands are open. You can write a transcribed one-hour interview - which sometimes needs to be expanded and explained – in details. But you have to pay attention, you are trustworthy. Your score is based on what added value you add to this interview. A good compiler does not distort or exaggerate the text and should not hand over the work until the person is satisfied with it.

Compilation of an oral history interview; being or not being

The most important element or component of language is "speech". Instead of speech, we have "text" in the components of writing. We have sentences, words and morphemes. So, the text is the largest unit of division of writing, which must be uniform. The next important issue is processing and writing. Processing the evidence collected in the interview is one of the most important steps in oral history, and writing out is the most common method for this processing. Writing out means to turn the oral word into writing, which is accepted by many experts of oral history activities and they insist on its necessity. Some people are against compilation and consider it a factor for distortion. This category emphasizes the oral nature of the work as one of the fundamental elements of oral history and believes that rhythm and balance are easily disturbed in the process of transcription.

Oral words usually do not have a regular sequence and do not follow any written rules. We write them for ease of messaging. In processing the collected evidence, a group tries to bring the spoken text closer to the language of the written standard, which is our job. Some people also believe that they should be faithful to the spoken language as much as possible. It depends on the taste of people which way to use.

Two sources are available in this field in Farsi. An article titled "Perils of the Transcript" written by Samuel Raphael has been presented in issue 58 of the magazine Ganjineh Asnad [Treasury of Documents], and the second article, by Mitra Hashemi, in one of the oral history seminars, in Bahman of 1390 (January 2012), under the title "Different opinions about writing out oral history".

Technique of transcribing oral history interviews

In transcribing oral history interviews, two points of view are considered: some people believe that the transcription should be done completely. Others believe that we can specify the topics included in each interview in an abstract form. If the transcription is to be done with a second look, there is no problem, but the transcriber should be familiar with the principles of abstracting, indexing and writing.

If you want to fully transcribe the tape, you should know that word-by-word transcription requires a lot of patience and time. A professional transcriber should know the details of transcribing. It means to be familiar with the principles of punctuation and diacritics. He or she should hear the words well and has elegance in maintaining the structure of the sentence. In organizing, he should know where to create a clause (paragraph). Writing back-to-back without paragraphing confuses the reader's mind. He should know that the scope of this conversation and entering into another topic requires paragraphing. But in both methods, the main issue is that in converting the text of speech to writing, they should act in such a way that it does not lead to misinterpretation of information. It is better to have a single method for transcribing. The narrator's remarks, no matter how long they are, should be adhered to and written completely. Some transcribers may wish to break long phrases into multiple clauses. It is better to leave this work to the next stage – that is the final setting-up. Now, why do we break long sentences in compilation? Because the reader can relax and understand the content quickly. Interviews have two parts: questions and answers. We must separate these two. Some separate these two sections with symbols such as: a circle sign in front of the question or a rectangle sign in front of the answer. It doesn't matter what symbol you use. You can use other symbols as well. Some write “Q” at the beginning of the question and “A” at the beginning of the answer. Some highlight the question font. Do not leave a gap between the question and the answer. Just when you want to transcribe the next question, put a space so that it doesn't bother the reader's eyes. These simple techniques can be used for transcription.

When you intend to use a question mark, you must use question words. When you have to repeat a series of words during an interview, you can use abbreviations after the first mention of the word.

The next important point in transcription is the way of writing the numbers. I write the numbers 1-10 in the form of letters and enter the larger numbers in the form of digits. It is also very important to use the marks related to direct quotation such as: comma, semicolon, ellipsis, question mark and exclamation mark in the right place.

Standard language in transcribing oral history

If we do not use colloquial language in the written text at all, we have tied our hands completely and pointlessly. We cannot say for sure that we should not use colloquial language, but it should not seriously damage the text or lower the level of the text. If colloquial elements find their way into the written language without passing through the purity of taste, it will pollute it to some extent, and this point is very important, but in principle, we should use standard language. We should avoid the local dialect; except on rare occasions. When we are going to focus on language research or we are looking for local words and terms, we need local dialect in the text.

The next important point in transcription is Gestures and movements of the interviewee – body language. How can a person's moods, movements, emotions and gestures be reflected in transcribing? This is one of the citations of the opponents of the transcription of oral history. You can put the interviewee's movements and reactions in brackets: [he smiles] or [he takes a deep breath]. This work is done when the removal of these movements and gestures harms the concept. For example, the narrator points to the height, indicates the dimensions with his hand, or nods his head in approval, they should be reflected in brackets. In the first form of transcription, this is not expected from you, but in the setting part, this should be done. The most important task of oral history is gaining the trust of others. No matter how much we try in editing and setting, the emotions that are seen closely in the interviewee are something else. We try to get closer to the narrator and bring the reader closer to what we have seen.

Do not do the writing of footnotes or more explanation in the stage of transcribing. This should be done in the stage of setting. For instance, you can reflect the English dictation of the words while transcribing, and then, you can write the footnotes later.

If a word or a phrase was not clear while transcribing, leave its place empty, put a question mark or write: “an unreadable word”. Then, write its minute and second in front of it inside parenthesis.