Interviewing Academics
Higher education is my beat.
I love talking with faculty and students. I love learning about their work in every discipline: law, theater, agricultural economics, you name it.
Here are a few things I’ve learned about interviewing academics.
Start out filled with intellectual curiosity. You can’t fake this very well. An academic friend once complained to me about a writer he called a “dumb groupie,” who loved academics, not their ideas.
Bone up. You’ll be talking everything from Chinese history to veterinary science. And you’ll be talking with people whose lives revolve around their topics. With curiosity and research, you’ll be able to ask interesting questions and follow the arcane conversation with the same enthusiasm as the professor.
Realize that the process will take at least two hours. Ask enough questions to focus the interview without derailing the discussion.
Once you’ve got a notebook or MP3 full of high level talk, it’s time to make the story fascinating for everyone without misrepresenting the complexity of the professor’s work. When you research the topic, be alert for when the writing works and when it doesn’t. In general, notice, find, and read writers who make intricate concepts clear. Then -- practice!
Your job is to make the college and its work look terrific, and your interviewee feel great about working there. That means allowing your interviewees to read your article. A journalistic no-no is the college writers’ “yes-absolutely.”
They will nitpick your work. They’re academics. So when you send the material, set them up carefully. Say something like: “I know how busy you are, so just let me know about any factual errors, or misrepresentations. This is for a general audience, so I’ve simplified accordingly. And my editor wants only 900 words, so if you really need to add anything, tell me what to take out.”
Usually the professor gracefully says “feel free to take or leave my suggestions.” If not, treat him or her as you would a client, tactfully discussing how some of the edits will work for your audience, and some won’t.
Then stand ready to learn about another esoteric and enthralling topic.
I love talking with faculty and students. I love learning about their work in every discipline: law, theater, agricultural economics, you name it.
Here are a few things I’ve learned about interviewing academics.
Start out filled with intellectual curiosity. You can’t fake this very well. An academic friend once complained to me about a writer he called a “dumb groupie,” who loved academics, not their ideas.
Bone up. You’ll be talking everything from Chinese history to veterinary science. And you’ll be talking with people whose lives revolve around their topics. With curiosity and research, you’ll be able to ask interesting questions and follow the arcane conversation with the same enthusiasm as the professor.
Realize that the process will take at least two hours. Ask enough questions to focus the interview without derailing the discussion.
Once you’ve got a notebook or MP3 full of high level talk, it’s time to make the story fascinating for everyone without misrepresenting the complexity of the professor’s work. When you research the topic, be alert for when the writing works and when it doesn’t. In general, notice, find, and read writers who make intricate concepts clear. Then -- practice!
Your job is to make the college and its work look terrific, and your interviewee feel great about working there. That means allowing your interviewees to read your article. A journalistic no-no is the college writers’ “yes-absolutely.”
They will nitpick your work. They’re academics. So when you send the material, set them up carefully. Say something like: “I know how busy you are, so just let me know about any factual errors, or misrepresentations. This is for a general audience, so I’ve simplified accordingly. And my editor wants only 900 words, so if you really need to add anything, tell me what to take out.”
Usually the professor gracefully says “feel free to take or leave my suggestions.” If not, treat him or her as you would a client, tactfully discussing how some of the edits will work for your audience, and some won’t.
Then stand ready to learn about another esoteric and enthralling topic.
Posted by Judith Pratt at 7/4/2009 11:19 AM 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: interview techniques writing about universities
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: interview techniques writing about universities
Reasons To Update Academics Media
There are many great reasons for updating media for academics.
As a filmmaker I update new media by filming people, places and things with a new media digital camera.
Filming is fun.
A great reason to update academics is because it is fun to do. We get together we go over what we want to express on screen and as a cinematographer I suggest various ways to achieve their goals in a fun way.
Filming is archival.
By updating academics video you are preserving their places and things in an archival media so we may have a sense of perspective of where academics has been.
Filming is grounding.
Ground yourself, your work, and the work of those around you. Filming, editing and distribution is best accomplished in brief. When you whittle what you do down you get to the essence of what it is you do. When you see on screen what you do the site of your own work grounds you because you see through the glass darkly.
Filming is inspirational.
You will find after you finish updating what it is you are now doing you will be inspired to go onto another era in your work – a fresh slate. Move on, get up and get onto a new wave, a new set of circumstances and a new perspective – free of the old you – a you - you documented and left behind as you metamorphosed into a new era that you will want to update the video for after you have played out that period of you’re your defined by time or circumstance.
Filming marks academics work as important.
Not really – but yes somehow it does, I do not understand all I know about this end of my business. I do know I film, edit and post into distribution movers and shakers in my society and the society of others. I have filmed presidents of major corporations, of major countries, mine included, the current president included, and what I notices in my frame and while editing is that these people are no more important then the other people I find in my frame except that their perceived importance is amplified by their media coverage and there in lies their importance. Not a clear sentiment I confess but again I do not understand this phenomenon. I only know when I film someone and or their work it somehow makes them and or their work more important.
Editing is fun.
When I edit a person’s work or the person themselves or their family it is fun for that person because they get to see what I see in them or their work. They see through the glass darkly because I hold up a reflective interpretation of them and their work. This is captured and edited into an expression of who they are and what their work is. Editing a person and or their work is a very subjective expression. But when the expression is from one who is educated, trained, and schooled in filmmaker with many years of professional experience capturing media on the set the subjective interpretation may be fun to see and hear on-screen.
Distributing is fun.
YouTube, MySpace, blogs, web sites and other screens expose people to people.
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