Oral History :: Additional Questions

Oral History Interview & Importance – Part 27

Additional Questions

Hamid Qazvini
Translated by Natalie Haghverdian

2017-10-31

Once the interview is complete, the oral history scholar shall review the content and identify any ambiguities and weaknesses. Accordingly, additional questions shall be designed and recorded to conduct a complementary interview. As the name suggests, a complementary interview is not an individually independent interview but an attempt to complete the original interview conducted.

At this stage, through studies and research of new information, more questions might emerge to the interviewer which shall be added to the previous questions.

How to design additional questions

Once the oral history scholar is satisfied with the response provided by the narrator, identification and design of additional questions are no longer needed. However, in some cases the interviewer claims that: “I got all the information the narrator had to provide; there is nothing more.” While later it is revealed that there is abundance of information untold.

This might be the result of false self-confidence or repetition of information or caused by lack of competence or weak IQ or creativity.

As we said before, oral history interviewer shall keep an open mind and benefit high IQ and sufficient creativity.

This is important for the interviewer to put themselves in the narrators’ shoes and assess the wealth of the content to address their needs (of today and tomorrow). Oral history scholar shall have a strong imagination to find ambiguities. Sometimes, it is conducive to submit the original content to other people with higher technical and interview expertise for assessment to identify the weaknesses and strengths and design additional questions.

For further induction on possible ambiguities and shortcomings of an interview, the following are to be considered:

When the personal information and family status of the narrator is incomplete and no further details are provided. Particularly the elements which have been instrumental in shaping the narrator’s character.
In some cases, the details of an incident are left out. For instance, the details pertaining arrests made by the SAVAK (intelligence service in the King’s time) or transfer to the prison or deployment to the war and the military training.
The narrator might keep some information due to political, security, social, cultural or even family sensitivity.
When the narrator has an analytical mind and most subjects are surrounded by analysis and memories have faded.
The narrator fails to provide complete and precise details on individuals and locations and incidents.
Due to time, the narrator is mistaken in recounting memories or there is a mix up.
Some issues are of lower importance to the narrator which in their opinion shall not be addressed in details.
Some issues are of lower importance to the interviewer and no effort is made to receive any responses.
Claims which are information gathered from others and there is no direct witness usually have no details.
In some cases the narrator (intentionally or otherwise) avoids defining the cause of a measure taken or an approach.