Dialogue is vital to the research community. In our ‘In Conversation With’ series, resident blogger Ebba Strutzenbladh explores different topics with other researchers and professionals in a dialogue format. This week, she speaks to journalist and Glasgow graduate Elysia Taylor-Hearn about how to ask good questions at conferences and other events where academics interact with each other’s work in person.

ES: Do journalists use specific models for formulating questions quickly and effectively? If so, are there particular theories or strategies that you would recommend to researchers?

ETH: Unfortunately, journalists are not taught any specific theories for devising interview questions. Instead, it is widely accepted that we can extract the richest insights from interviewees by listening closely to their contributions and tailoring our subsequent questions accordingly. Clinging to a rigid ‘script’ of prepared questions, no matter how interesting they may be, risks overlooking crucial pieces of information. It is often these unexpected nuggets that can set the direction for, or add important colour to, an article. As such, we are taught to initiate a dialogue with broad and open questions, and gradually ask more specific, responsive questions as a narrative emerges.

ES: ‘I have a comment, not a question’-ism is an infamous feature of academic events. This seems especially frustrating for graduate students, who want to be seen as emerging experts rather than passive recipients of mini lectures from senior academics. Even as a PGR, I sometimes struggle to separate comments from questions, since questions often require so much context that I end up sharing my own view while building up to it (this paragraph may be an example). When you have many thoughts on a topic, how do you distil them into a concise question that foregrounds the other person’s expertise instead of showcasing your own?

ETH: Honestly, journalists are advised to keep themselves out of the interview where possible, as it is our job to create a dynamic in which respondents feel comfortable enough to share interesting and sometimes revealing material. While it is important to demonstrate that you have done your research and can be trusted to interpret your interviewee’s insights responsibly, leading with your own opinions can quickly damage rapport.

For this reason, if you have many, potentially unresolved, thoughts on a topic, I recommend asking a snappy two-part question to help you tackle an area of interest collaboratively. Anticipate your interviewee’s answer to the first question (your own expertise should help you to predict this!), then use the second question as a logical sequence to set up any complicating factors to their expected reply. Doing so allows the interviewee to work through the issue and surrounding academic landscape aloud and incorporate their own insights in real time, rather than simply adding a limited addendum to someone else’s sermon.

Additionally, if you are asking a wide-ranging question at a panel event I would recommend framing your enquiry in the context of another participant’s research – this is a tactic that I often use in group interviews. This approach draws on the knowledge that someone else has already laid out for the room, thus sparing you to the need to deliver a lengthy contextual build-up. But crucially, it also invites a third person to join the dialogue, which is more likely to yield further productive debate and interesting new ideas.

ES: Formulating questions in academia is a type of labour. At conferences, moderators supervise audience questions, and sometimes certain participants are pre-selected to ask questions if the audience doesn’t deliver. Still, nearly every academic event reaches a moment when, due to fatigue or an inaccessible presentation, the room falls silent. In such cases, how would you quickly generate a question to ensure the speaker doesn’t feel the audience is disengaged?

ETH: I find that ‘looking ahead’ questions are a nice way to round off an interview, and to generate more material when most other points have been covered and engagement levels are dropping. Summarising your interviewee’s insights and asking where these will lead them next allows you to demonstrate that you have meaningfully absorbed their contributions. It also enables you to test the longer-term implications of their findings/experiences in a way that is encouraging rather than combative. You can ask ‘what’s next’ in most scenarios, so these questions can be whipped out and easily adapted to reenergise the room and then bring the interview to a natural conclusion if necessary.

Cover photo by Alex Andrews on Pexels.com.